🇺🇸 Bud Fight

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CULTURE

Bud Fight

Earlier this month, controversy ensued when Bud Light sent transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney cans of its beer for a promotional deal – one of which featured her likeness drawn on the side. The beer’s parent company recently released a patriotic ad in apparent response to the backlash, while a statement from the CEO more directly addressed it.

From The Flag: Mulvaney is especially controversial amid the ongoing transgender debate, as her online persona leans in to certain stereotypes while documenting her journey into womanhood. But many say the backlash is akin to hateful anti-transgender sentiment. Here’s more from both sides.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Et Tu, Bud Light? Consumers Overwhelmed By Unending Wokeness

  • Some women are disrespected by Mulvaney’s online image, comparing it to a stereotyped performance of some kind.

  • Marketing departments are all made up of younger, college-educated progressives – and it shows with ads like this.

  • Bud Light thought a caricature of women would appeal to its caricature of young people, but it did not.

“Women deserve more than to be lampooned by Bud Light and Nike” Karol Markowicz, New York Post Opinion: “Mulvaney first hit prominence doing what appeared to be sketch comedy but actually wasn’t: a TikTok series called ‘365 Days of Girlhood’ in which the biological man Dylan transformed himself into a girl. Mulvaney kicks off the first video of the series saying, ‘I’ve already cried three times. I wrote a scathing email that I didn’t send. I ordered dresses online that I couldn’t afford.’ … Pausing to reapply her lip gloss, Mulvaney asks the camera, ‘How did I do, ladies? Good? Girl Power!’ It’s like asking ChatGPT to write a script on womanhood — sorry, girlhood — that is deeply offensive but also unfunny. … For this caricature of womanhood, Mulvaney has been rewarded with endorsement deals from brand after brand: Kate Spade, Ulta Beauty, CeraVe, Instacart and recently Nike and Bud Light.”

“Bud Light Doesn’t Seem to Understand Its Own Consumers” Jim Geraghty, National Review: “The kinds of people who end up as marketing vice presidents and advertising directors are likely to come from a certain class and have certain perspectives that come from their past experiences. They almost certainly have a four-year degree… probably spent a lot of time climbing the corporate ladder and… probably live and work in an urban environment, or commute in from the suburbs. Corporate advertising executives may not all be registered Democrats or identify as progressives, but they certainly are unlikely to be outspoken conservatives or itching to swim upstream in an increasingly woke corporate culture. Their work requires collaboration… Even the simple act of saying, ‘I don’t think signing Dylan Mulvaney to pitch our beer is going to make people want to buy it or drink it’ runs the risk of being perceived as a form of intolerance.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Bud Light's transgender pandering was a predictable mistake Zachary Faria, Washington Examiner

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Look Who’s Canceling Now? Conservatives Are Crying Over Spilled Beer

  • AB InBev, Anheuser-Busch’s parent company, has shown zero guts or corporate integrity throughout this controversy.

  • Conservatives are championing anger to get attention, expressing outrage in an attempt to enact “cancel culture.”

  • Bud Light now finds itself at the center of the country’s ongoing anti-transgender movement, but it won’t be a big deal long term.

“Bud Light Kicked a Hornet’s Nest and Ran Away” Ben Schott, Bloomberg Opinion: “The reaction to this collaboration from some quarters was as predictable as a Trump tweet. Ted Nugent declared it ‘the epitome of cultural deprivation.’ … Kid Rock shot up several cases of Bud Light. … But this is not so much a story about trans rights, Dylan Mulvaney or internet outrage, as one about corporate bravery. Even Mulvaney’s harshest critics must acknowledge that she is standing tall in a hurricane of hate… In cowardly contrast, Anheuser-Busch instantly retreated into the shadows. … The ‘3rd most valuable beer brand in the world’ sought to ‘evolve and elevate’ its ‘fratty’ image on the coat-tails of a trans-influencer — but quit when the going got tough. It’s reminiscent of the hokey-pokey recently performed by the publisher Puffin who, by bowdlerizing the children’s books of Roald Dahl, before releasing unexpurgated ‘classic’ editions, simultaneously castigated and cashed in on their author’s racism, misogyny and gleeful spite.”

“What the Bud Light backlash has in common with today’s Republican Party” Philip Bump, Washington Post: “The play from the beer’s perspective is pretty obvious. Mulvaney has 1.8 million followers on the social media platform, many of whom may have been presented with a Bud Light ad for the first time. The spot isn’t about being trans… but even if it had been, some 2 percent of the country identifies as transgender or nonbinary, the Pew Research Center found last year. … We’ve seen similar outcry emerge with regularity over the past few years; some brand that conservative Americans consume takes an action that is viewed as unacceptably liberal and it briefly becomes a target of right-wing opprobrium or calls for boycotts. These don’t often have a measurable effect on the corporate targets. Instead, the outbursts stem mostly from the right’s robust outrage pipelines. Decrying things as ‘woke’ or otherwise hostile to conservative values and habits is a surefire way of getting attention.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: The Bud Light boycott, explained as much as is possible Emily Stewart, Vox

FLAG THIS

Americans’ Penchant for Boycotts

A survey conducted last summer found 25% of Americans were boycotting a company or product they had spent money on previously.

A variety of reasons were given for this, including political differences, stances on social issues, and concerns over environmental impact.

During summer 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, the number of Americans boycotting a company or product was even higher.

The most recent survey found 37% of six-figure earners are involved in some sort of boycott (LendingTree).

Will the Dylan Mulvaney controversy make you avoid Bud Light products?

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The Battle Begins, Lies Your Mom Told You, Burnout Checkup

On April 19, 1775, 700 British troops march into Lexington to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal. 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker confronted them, but after British Major John Pitcairn ordered the Patriots to disperse, they began to leave. A shot was fired, and the brief Battle of Lexington ended with eight Americans dead, 10 wounded, and one British soldier injured. This marked the beginning of the American Revolution.

Today I Learned that Patrick Stewart, a theater actor, was hesitant to sign a 6 year contract to perform on Star Trek: TNG, but his agent reassured him that the show would probably fail after one season. Stewart expected to "make some money, get a suntan, and go home."

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