Cereal giant Kellogg’s is teaming up with GLAAD to launch a new limited-edition LGBTQ-themed cereal called Together With Pride.
Really? Yes, really.
Basically a combination of Froot Loops and edible glitter, the new cereal should be arriving on store shelves in time for Pride Month. Kellogg”s will donate a couple of bucks to GLAAD for every box you buy.
Naturally, right-wingers are attacking Kellogg’s as “demonic” and urging a boycott.
“In my opinion, this is straight-up child abuse,” writes Missy Crane on WayneDupree.com, “and decent parents MUST take a stand….immediately” by throwing out any Kellogg’s cereals they might have lurking in their pantries.
The left is coming after your kids – they are the monsters that live under the bed, and in the closet, and they are coming for your kids…I’ll say it again: The left is coming for your kids.
And they’ll use anything under the sun to do it – even a box of friggen cereal.
I am a mother – my daughter is not young, she’s an adult, but as a mother, I am asking all the parents, grandparents, and future parents, to … take a stand for your kids, grandkids, and future kids by solidly rejecting this demonic nonsense being peddled by Kellogg’s to our nation’s kids.
Oh, but she’s not done yet.
These are young, impressionable, and innocent children, who are being grossly manipulated and pushed into “mental illness” by “WOKE” corporations, and as responsible parents and human beings we need to take a STAND NOW and say “no more.”
There is no reason on earth that kids should be subjected to sexuality. In my opinion, this is child abuse and it’s also criminal.
There are similar attacks on Kellogg’s on an assortment of right-wing sites.
“It looks like Kellogg’s is full on woke now too, despite the damage this will do to children,” laments a post on the Right Scoop. “Welp, there’s another brand of cereal I won’t be buying in the future.”
On RedState.com, meanwhile, Mike Miller harumphs a big harumph at
the insanity being shoved in the faces of children — from cartoon and movie characters to woke boxes of cereal, to encouragement from lunatics that kids as young as 3-years-old, or whatever, “self-identify” their gender without interference from their parents?
Let’s just say I’m grateful, in a sense, that I no longer have young children — as much as I cherish those years of normal child-rearing.
The blog Moonbattery, similarly complains that the “woke” are
com[ing] at kids from every direction with relentless indoctrination, corrupting them through the schools, through television, through the degenerate, hyperpoliticized entertainment industry — even through cereal boxes. …
To encourage children to reject their own gender in accordance with the LGBT agenda, the cereal box sexually disorients them by asking for their preferred pronouns.
I’m not sure that last bit is true; I guess I’lll have to see when the Together With Pride debuts in the supermarket.
Meanwhile, the cereal itself is getting a decidedly mixed review on the cereal-centric site Cerealously.net:
Together with Pride is very generically fruity. It’s difficult and unproductive trying to detect any traces of raspberry or strawberry specifically, because it all gets gummed together by a sticky sugar sheen and the additional cloying sweetness of each piece’s “edible glitter.” Imagine the fakest berry taste you can, then make it hollower and glossier. …
The Bottom Line: 4 good causes with bad executions out of 10
Huh. Apparently creating a deliciously gay cereal is a little harder than you’d think — even with demons on your side.
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@ bookworm in hijab
Perfect sense.
We have a similar debate about ‘woke washing’ in animal rights circles.
One obvious issue, lots of food places now do vegan options. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, when it comes to big companies like KFC or Burger King they’re obviously not doing it for the animals. I don’t think it’s even primarily PR. I believe they’re actually exploiting the popularity of such choices to get news coverage. But their sales patterns show the options don’t actually cause people to switch. We can tell that from the profits going up. The meat eaters still order the meat options. But now the companies have an additional consumer base. Not just vegans, but those vegans’ meat eater friends. Who previously wouldn’t have gone there because there was nothing for some of the group to eat. So they get them as well.
In the end then all the posturing is actually highly counter productive for the actual cause,
So, whilst I like that Kelloggs is doing this, I share your scepticism about the motivation and actual commitment to the underlying cause.
@Moggie
Bollocks. Pointing out when someone’s position is not only incorrect but fundamentally absurd is a basic part of useful communication. Humans routinely believe all manner of absurd and/or harmful things, pointing one out is not dehumanizing in even the broadest conceivable sense of the word.
Alan, I’m glad that it made sense. Also, that was interesting, and disappointing, to hear about fast food restaurants’ expanded demographics via offering vegan options. I had never considered how that might work. Ugh,what opportunistic jerks.
Ohlmann, I read over my comment and I’m sorry if I sounded like I was coming at you; I really am hopeful that there is a shift underway towards more sincere, acceptance. I’m not in the LGBTQ+ community myself, and I apologize if I was dismissive of anyone’s experiences. Positive representation isn’t everything, but it is something.
@Dalillama:
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. They are dehumanising us. We are the demons.
@Bookworm in hijab
To be fair, A&W were the first ones to actually implement vegan options in their menu selection long before it because in vogue to do so (I guess you could say they were fast food vegan hipsters with that legit fast food vegan cred); and they did so it seems for the sake of it and earnestly to provide people with that option and making other policies for healthy eating… and given they have switched from plastic straws to cardboard straws: it seems that A&W are at least sincere in being environmentally conscious as well.
Granted every other fast food chain at seeing this and how popular it is with clientele and potential clientele has since tried playing shallow catch up; but A&W were always earnest trail blazers it seems. Granted it’s probable that this direction for them was equally motivated by pragmtic profit and breaking into an untapped market of clientele, if we are to be cynical, but that said; they did so when really they didn’t need to in a market that wasn’t intrested or motivated to do so anyway, at least not until A&W did it first.
But in my book; it’s still something of a net positive in the long run; and A&W gets some kudos for that as far as I stand. Though to be fair; it helps that of all the fast food chains; theirs are the only ones that even taste consistently good in flavor and quality and don’t either make me sick or make me feel like I’m eating cardboard and sawdust covered in ketchup and special sauce. Heck even their worst food is still relatively good in comparison.
Alan:
I didn’t know that – I hardly pay any attention to the images on notes.
Apparently, the 500 euro note is actually closer to pink. It’s not like I’ve ever seen those in the wild.
@Alan Robertshaw
I think it’s not even about the vegans in the first place. It’s still about the meat eaters predominantly, but because (esp. in younger age groups) you simply won’t have groups of friends who won’t at least have one vegan anymore they put out a lot of marketing to tell them: You’ll find options(=one) here as well!
These are all just attempts to uphold business as usual in a world where more and more people reject business as usual.
I also love how it comes down to this: the biggest problem these people have is, that for the first time they’re not the focus group for big corporations and they’re losing their fucking minds over it… like: that’s the biggest “injustice” these people will ever face. And all this handwringing over kids (they don’t have, as some of them even point out). God forbid corporations deviate from the usual narrative of telling little girls they’re “princesses” and little boys they’re “pirates”…
Didn’t have that impression Bookworm. I don’t think one moment that the megacorps care about making the world a friendlier place ; they just acknowledge that fact. And the world being a friendlier place don’t mean the war is won, so to speak. It just mean we’re making progress.
Note that the parralel between veganism and gay right is very strange / sort of inappropriate methink. Alan make it clear it’s his objective to convert people to veganism in his post, which, well, why not, but it’s an entirely different case from LGBT activists, who never try to convert anyone, just protect the one that are. In that sense, the KFC initiative he talk of would be a win for a LGBT-like cause (more place where their lifestyle is accepted without problem), but isn’t a win for his pet cause because his goal is fundamentally different.
@ ohlmann
The causes are different as you rightly point out; but I think the fundamental issue is the same.
Are organisations that visibly promote progressive values really doing it because they have a genuine commitment to the cause; or is it merely just a marketing exercise because they know that’s a way of increasing revenue?
It’s like during last Summer, loads of galleries suddenly made a big thing about featuring ‘black’ art and artists. But a lot of black people were somewhat sceptical. There are loads of ongoing issues about how black people, both artists and staff, have been treated by these very same galleries.
People thought, rightly I believe, that addressing and remedying those problems might have been a more credible demonstration of their supposed changed values rather than just selling more stuff on the back of free publicity.
And of course there’s this…
@Alan : false dichotomy at work here. Guenuine commitment and increasing income aren’t incompatible. It’s like diversity hiring ; the firms doing that are doing it partly as a marketing/public relation bullshit, but also because it increase efficiency by getting more skilled people. In fact, ideally we want for personal interest and general interest to coincide ; it’s one of the thing that the original concept of capitalism try to foster (emphase on “try”).
Also, you say there is an inherent, fundamental issue in doing visible PR move toward a cause. But there isn’t, and theses moves are useful, even if the usefulness can be pretty low*. It’s using visible PR move toward hiding something else who is a problem. Don’t confuse the fact something can be abused with the thing being abusive by itself.
*for example, quite a bit of trans people, even in France, aren’t really aware of transness being a thing, even less that it’s not a shameful thing. Trans visibility stuff mean theses people are more likely to get help or realize what they should be, even if it won’t do a lot.
@ olhmann
I think there are (at least) three potential scenarios:
So the vegan fast food situation would be type 3.
But, as you say, things like representation are beneficial generally.
So even if a company is acting for cynical motives, that still means this is a good thing.
What makes it type 3? Because I doubt it will somehow cause vegans to go back to meat-eating. On the other hand, more places to eat having vegan options would decrease the “barrier to entry” for someone giving becoming vegan serious thought; and it normalizes veganism. I’d expect the effects to be mildly positive.
The conversion analogy doesn’t really make sense to me either. LGBTQ organizations don’t try to turn people gay, but they do (presumably) try to turn people pro-gay-rights. The vegan equivalent of an LGBTQ organization trying to turn people gay would be a vegan organization trying to convince people to become cows, rather than just to support animal rights and stop getting animals killed. (Though one difference remains: so far as I am aware, conservatives have yet to accuse vegan organizations of turning people into cows. Alleged witches, maybe, but not vegan organizations. Anyway if anyone is going to try to convince more people to be animals it’s the kink community.)
@ surplus
Because ultimately, the end result is just more animals being killed.
As originally mentioned, the availability of products doesn’t necessarily mean the existing consumer base will switch; just that the companies can now attract customers who were out of their reach before.
As they say themselves:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciakelso/2020/01/29/kfc-builds-on-first-mover-status-with-expanded-beyond-fried-chicken-test/
I like your analogy btw.
If you don’t like what Kellogg’s is doing for whatever reason, you don’t have to buy it, right? There’s still Post and some other manufacturers if you feel like you have to try to “cancel” Kellogg’s. You could also save your public diatribes and write directly to Kellogg’s but I guess that won’t own the libs or whatever.
I won’t be buying it myself because I have never liked Froot Loops and would never eat them even with the edible glitter, much as shiny cereal intrigues me. Also, breakfast cereal tends to be expensive if you buy the big brands.
I’ll just buy the store-brand version of Cheerios like I always do. See? Easy and simple.
Bookworm in hijab said
I do like this idea! I’d pull at least two boxes for the people I know who would wolf this stuff down while they’re high if they didn’t make cannabis edible cereal treats with it first.
Surplus wrote:
Another difference is that the people advocating for animal rights aren’t animals themselves. Or, actually they are but you know what I mean.
Incidentally, *cough* I have noticed there’s a huge overlap between trans and furry communities on English Twitter, and following a few interesting trans writers on Twitter will inevitably lead one down the road via furry art to human-animal transformation content. Meanwhile, in the actual kink blogosphere one can generally find just regular human animal roleplay content.
(I’m only half joking when I say that following trans Twitter isn’t making question my gender, but I’m definitely turning into a furry.)
@Alan Robertshaw:
I’d expect it to be, in the immediate term, the same number. In the hypothetical group with mixed vegan and non-vegan members, the non-vegans would likely have eaten meat regardless, and the vegans definitely wouldn’t have regardless.
In the longer term, if it lowers the barrier to going vegan it might increase veganism faster than otherwise, which would result in fewer.