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Right-wingers are forever announcing boycotts of major corporations for their alleged “wokeness.” This past week, these culture warriors have started raising a stink about Bud Light after trans influencer Dylan Mulveny endorsed the blue-collar beer in a Tik-Tok video. “Get woke, go broke!” is their favorite slogan, though they often forget the exact wording: (CW: Transphobia.)
Yes, that’s a video of the ever-pompous Sebastian Gorka muttering about “cuckolds” and tossing a six-pack of Bud Light (which he probably bought for the occasion) into the trash.
Yes, that’s Kid Rock shooting up cases of Bud Light (which he probably bought for the occasion, too) with an assault rifle.
The haters have also recently turned on Nike–again for a Dylan Mulveny endorsement–and Jack Daniels for a commercial featuring drag queens from 2021.
There’s just one problem with the whole idea of “get woke, go broke”: It’s not true. Companies that “get woke” seem to be doing just fine; in fact, as a recent survey by Rolling Stone shows. The slogan, the magazine points out,
allows MAGA country to believe that there is ongoing, massive backlash to products that acknowledge and celebrate marginalized communities. But the supposed boycotts never seem to be reflected in the bottom line.
Rolling Stone looks at a number of targets of high-profile right-wing boycotts–from coffeemaker Keurig to Disney–and reports that many are recording record profits, opening up new factories, or otherwise showing signs of extreme non-brokeness.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s aggressively anti-woke moves at Twitter have left the social media site circling the drain, with advertisers fleeing and would-be moneymakers like the Twitter Blue paid subscription program flopping mightily. People seem to actually prefer wokeness to anti-wokeness, and polls bear this out. In any case, despite all the attention they get on Twitter and from Fox News, these anti-woke boycotts don’t seem to be catching on outside the MAGA bubble, and maybe not even within it.
Suppose they gave a culture war and no one came?
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It probably doesn’t help that conservative boycotts always seem to involve buying the product so they can throw it away dramatically.
This seems relevant. Warning: contains Brit language.
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/11/21/right-wing-journalist-came-for-kathy-burke-and-made-a-self-own/
I have a question about Dylan Mulvany. In the few things I’ve seen her in, she seems to be playing a character – a stereotypically ‘dizty’ woman, or possibly a characateur (I can’t spell the word) of what transphobes think a trans woman is like – but I can’t tell if she is or isn’t. I don’t know enough and the character she plays, if it’s a character rather than her actual self, is really irritating so I don’t want to watch more to see if I can work it out. Is she playing a character? If she is, she’s successfully sending up transphobic attitudes; if she isn’t, I think I find her irritating.
But just because I find the character she’s playing, or her actual personality (if it is her personality rather than a creation for the purposes of entertainment) irritating and ridiculous, I am still appalled by the way she’s being targeted and the ridiculous attempts by transphobes to ‘cancel’ her and stop her getting work with brands. She’s worked hard for her profile, she’s gone through her transition journey relatively publicly and gets a lot of hassle for it. Good on her for taking advantage of that higher profile to get work.
The brands know that over half the population probably won’t be turned off them by having a trans woman as a representative so it’s not hurting them to be ‘woke’, even if it’s a cynical ploy to attract a younger, more progressive demographic. Good on Dylan and everyone else who is from a marginalised group who can make use of the cynical capitalist companies.
These boycotts last maybe a week, if that. Remember how they hated M&Ms? They don’t. Most people don’t have time to even hear about the boycott before it’s on to the next manufactured outrage.
Not only is Mr Gorka, Defender of Western Civilisation, misusing ‘cuck’ (where’d he get that word?—Ovid?, Dante?—then again, he could’ve easily got something like it from Juvenal), but he is calling his opponents ‘virtue-signalling’, which is performing a very public act for no reason other than to demonstrate the correctness of your morals or opinions while recording himself throwing bad beer into the trash to show how right he is.
As always, the apropos quote is from Mr. George Harrison: “They gotta buy ’em before they can burn ’em.”
A slight update for these imitation-vanilla snowflake MAGAs
Five to one,
One in five
No one here gets out alive,
You get yours,
I’ll get mine
Gonna make it, baby, if we try
The whites get old
And the woke get stronger
May take a week
And it may take longer
They got the guns
But we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah, we’ve takin’ over
Come on!
Also, we know how effective these shits were when the boycotted the Beatles, way back when I was a kid. No one ever sang a Beatles song again – in the Backwards Universe
And they were equally opposite-effective against the Rutles, too, according to that documentary.
What happens most of the time is that sales go up since the MAGAs buy stuff to performatively destroy it, some non-MAGAs buy extramin support, and 99% of the people ignore it entirely and just buy what they were going to anyway.
Although nobody I know or know of other than MAGAs drinks Bud Light to begin with, so the RW buying the extra might even out the ones who’ll give it up till the next party. When they’ll go back to it, of course.
It’ll be not even a rounding error to AB, who after all can afford Super Bowl ads and a number of lorge horses.
@Kieta: Truly, a legend that will live a lunchtime. I have their CDs.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2023/04/09/get-woke-go-broke-not-so-fast/#comment-3695644
I don’t know if it’s like this for anyone else, but that site is almost unreadable in Firefox for me, the text is thin and a light grey. It’s still thin in Chrome, but at least I can read it. Not a good choice, going for style over readability.
The way these guys are always so fearful of “Cancel Culture”, it seems to be at least as much, as someone on our Discord puts it, “Go Fash, No Cash”.
Everyone remember, these boycotts are NOT Cancel Culture, because shut up that’s why.
It’s called recuperation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)
Capitalism loves to play all sides, the better to profit. So we can be both banned in red states, and accepted enough to star in a booze commercial in blue states. The same companies that advertise their tolerance, also fund the most reactionary and abusive political interests. And I can’t speak for everyone, but to me this kind of corporate PR feels gaslighty and awful – like companies are profiteering off us and asking for cookies for it while still doing their best to destroy our future.
I don’t want a world where we are acceptable in beer company ads. I want a world where beer companies (and any other for-profit companies) don’t exist.
Pharyngula mentioned the Kid Rock one a few days ago, including commenting on how Kid Rock couldn’t seem to hit his target very well, even with help:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/04/06/the-right-wing-wackaloon-temper-tantrum-againstbeer/
I have actually learned why right-wing boycotts have nothing to do with Cancel Culture.
Apparently, it goes like this:
So my state just past a bunch of anti trans laws and my friend tried to take their life last night. Don’t know if they are going to pull through.
@Elaine, I hope your friend pulls through.
@Elaine: Gods what a horrible thing to happen. I hope your friend pulls through and recovers.
@Elaine: I too hope your friend pulls through and recovers.
@Elaine I am so sorry. I hope your friend recovers, and that somehow they can get to a safer situation.
I hope that the bigotry and oppressive laws which put such unbearable pressure on people will one day be done away with – though sadly I know that can’t happen soon enough. <3
Mass shooting in Kentucky. So far, McConnell sends one prayer and no thoughts. Other Republican politicians don’t even bother commenting.
Sorry. Two shootings in Louisville now. Republicans politicians still don’t care. Urgh.
Oh gods Elaine I am so sorry. Good luck to you and your friend 🙁
@ elaine
Thinking of you and your friend. I appreciate that’s a bit thoughts and prayers so if there’s anything practical that can help let us know.
@Elaine
I am so sorry. Hoping for the best.