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What demographic groups should Bud Light be sure to avoid in the future?

Published on 67 Comments on What demographic groups should Bud Light be sure to avoid in the future?

Every year, Bud Light spends more than $100 million on marketing. Of that, maybe a few million goes to social media. Of that, a small fraction goes to deals with social media influencers. And of that, a few thousand dollars recently went to Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman who racked up something like 10 million followers on TikTok by putting up daily videos of her transition during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, after a meeting with Joe Biden, Mulvaney became a right-wing target. So she was already on their radar two weeks ago when she posted a cutesy Instagram video for Bud Light during March Madness. This led to a week of outrage from Fox News and calls for a conservative boycott of Bud Light. National Review editor Rich Lowry says there's a lesson to be learned:

It would be a good outcome here if it becomes obvious to everyone that Bud Light made a mistake, and if big companies resolve not to do the same in the future.

Just so I have this straight: Lowry's view is that no American corporation should ever hire a transgender person as part of a promotional campaign. Or am I missing something? Are there any other demographic groups that corporate America should also steer clear of?

67 thoughts on “What demographic groups should Bud Light be sure to avoid in the future?”

    1. Eve

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  2. J. Frank Parnell

    National Review editors are from the Bizarro World, where everything is opposite of what it is on earth. If Rich Lowry says it was a mistake, it means it was actually a good move.

    1. GrumpyPDXDad

      I'm not buying Bud ... and the opinion of Rich Lowry isn't of interest. But yeah, its not that Dylan is transgender, its that Dylan isn't inspirational or funny, is reviled by all the women in my life and is basically a one person freak show. I'd love to see the corporate marketing meeting in which those characteristics are sought after to represent their product.

      2. Amber

        So what? There are plenty of women celebrities who are reviled by other women for one reason or another. Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Snooki, Lindsay Lohan, etc.

          1. aldoushickman

            Hey, fun fact: "woman" isn't a descriptor of base reality, but is instead a phoneme invented by humans to describe a category of people. So you're just getting in a tizzy about the precise contours of how a word is defined--a lot of people consider the word to include some things that you claim it doesn't. But that's not an ontological discussion.

            Further, because we live in a facially egalitarian society, in which almost nothing turns on whether or not a person identifies as a man or a woman (unlike, say, identifying as a "veteran" or a "doctor," which are categories that DO have legal consequences), what's the big deal if somebody identifies one way or another?

            I mean, ffs, you've made a decision about how to present yourself in this very forum that nobody is getting all worked up about and claiming is false. If somebody started responding to your posts by saying like "the subject here is an asshole (dressed up like an Atticus) not an Atticus," they'd be offering just as much to the conversation as you are now.

            1. Cressida

              There's nothing "base" about reality. "Woman" is not a "phoneme," it's a concrete fact that existed long before anyone had a "word" for it.

              1. irtnogg

                And a subset of biologically male people have been taking on the roles of biologically female people since long before anyone had a word for it. So what?

                1. Cressida

                  "Roles" = "stereotypes." Reifying sex stereotypes is regressive, sexist, and anti-feminist. We should have moved past this long ago.

                  1. SnowballsChanceinHell

                    Look, Cressida - you are fighting the good fight here, but don't expect much traction. There is not much self-reflection among this bunch.

                    For example, can you image them defending a transracial white man whose shtick was delivering a lengthy monolog in blackface about his illegitimate children, violent criminality, and consumption of luxury goods? And ending it with "am I doing this right, Black men"? Of course not.

                    Can you image the poster with the "words have no meaning" argument supporting that? Of course not.

                    Particular as that poster has the effrontery to claim that "whether a person identifies as a man or a woman" has no legal consequences. One has to maintain a very cloistered intellectual environment to actually believe that. Particularly given that the legal consequences of self identification have been very much in the news recently:

                    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63823420

      3. rwforce

        "I'd love to see the corporate marketing meeting in which those characteristics are sought after to represent their product."

        Ten million followers...

      4. irtnogg

        But so what? You have exactly zero chance to buy a can with her face on it, and millions of her followers are probably happy she got a bunch of such cans. What harm did this do to any single person on planet Earth?

    2. MindGame

      I watched it and can truthfully say I perceived no general statement, neither explicit nor implicit, that can be even remotely interpreted as "demeaning and insulting to women."

      1. Cressida

        Mulvaney very evidently believes that acting like a simpering airhead makes him a woman. That is, yes, demeaning and insulting to women.

    3. Gilgit

      Oh My God! I hadn’t realized that this person I’d never heard of and will never watch said things random people on the internet didn’t like. If only this person, whose name I didn’t even bother to learn, had known there is only one way for women to act and are only allowed to say authorized things.

      Luckily, I only watch TV shows from the 50s that were approved by frigid housewives and hypocritical religious nuts. So I never see anything I don’t like. I tried watching things from later time periods, but I was too shocked that Greg tried a cigarette.

      Sheesh

    4. Nicholas

      Watching it, I don't exactly see what I'm supposed to defend. What is so self-evident in this video for gross misogyny condemned as?

      If I had to guess, putting it into my own words, you're arguing that it's misogynistic, demeaning and insulting, for anyone to act inexperienced and out of their element in nature while representing any stereotypically feminine things.

      Well, more specifically, for someone to shoot content of that nature.

      I'm sympathetic to arguments that swaths of media are demeaning and insulting to women, I'm curious how you picked this one out.

      1. Cressida

        You're overcomplicating things. As I replied to another comment, Mulvaney very evidently believes that acting like a simpering airhead makes him a woman, and yes, this is demeaning and insulting to women.

        1. Nicholas

          I'm not, there is always a larger context, and I find it more interesting than divining the meaning of one comedic tik-tok video. But, whatever tho, Who knows what her other videos are like.

          She's making fun of herself for not being comfortable or knowledgeable in nature. She's doing it for tik-tok views and laughs. She's not making a big gesture statement on her views on womanhood and identity.

          1. Cressida

            Dylan Mulvaney is not, in any way, making fun of himself. Dylan Mulvaney is making fun of WOMEN by way of embodying feminine stereotypes in their most sexist form.

  4. Crissa

    Conservatives know they're espousing straight up bigotry now, right?

    Or is it, only Republican trans people are okay?

  5. cld

    My psychopathically racist wingnut cousin goes out of his way to drink Bud Light branded with 'John Deere', while holding in benign disregard everyone else's choice in beer.

    He's recently discovered furries and thinks a lot, a lot, about murdering them.

    [I was adopted I should point out. Gives me perspective.]

  6. cld

    Oh, I get it.

    It's because Bud Light is like having sex in a canoe.

    Because it's fucking close to water, the only way you'd ever get a trans person to endorse fucking Bud Light.

  7. D_Ohrk_E1

    Are there any other demographic groups that corporate American should also steer clear of?

    Members of the Deep State, Incognito, Elite, Global Triumvirate.

  8. iamr4man

    So long as corporations market to the demographic group “white male heterosexual Christian” they will be safe from right wing cancel culture. Probably best to run your ads past Tucker Carlson and Kid Rock for approval just to be sure.

    1. irtnogg

      Well, Kid Rock is so upset by Bud Light partnering with a trans woman that he's switching to Happy Dad... which has partnered with a trans woman.

  9. Jasper_in_Boston

    Are there any other demographic groups that corporate American should also steer clear of?

    Blacks, Chinese and Muslims. And also, Jews of the non-right wing persuasion. Duh!

  11. cld

    Are there any other demographic groups that corporate America should also steer clear of?

    Anyone who has some kind of degree that isn't business, gym or engineering.

    Women.

    People with non-standard pets.

  13. steve22

    Cancel culture gone wild! Seriously, in a way Lowry is correct. If any company uses any trans person in any marketing effort the right is going to throw a hissy fit.

    Steve

    1. Salamander

      The Lincoln Project had their weekly "Last Week in the Republican Party" in which fat beardy men were shoveling refrigerator-loads of Bud Lite into garbage cans (why would they fill their fridges with only beer??) and shooting cans with guns. No kidding.

  17. Wichitawstraw

    Please let's have this war. In 2022 the 50 Democratic Senators represented 50 million more people than the 50 Republican Senators, and that is before we even get to the buying power of those two groups. With the possible exception of Goop there isn't one corporation that is woke. Everything they do is to make money. The culture wars were decided 20 years ago. Only because of a quirk of demographic distribution is this still an issue in politics. You can't gerrymander consumer demand and Montana and North Dakota do not have the same weight as California and New York. If they want to open up economic culture warfare, it's high time the Dems start boycotting any company that gives money to Republicans. Let's see who wins that war.

  19. rick_jones

    Drift: is Mulvaney’s skull really that large/shoulders that small or has some sort of filter been applied?

  20. NeilWilson

    Not sure anyone remembers the Schlitz beer commercials where they had 100 people who signed a statement they were loyal drinkers of another beer?
    They had them try their beer and Schlitz on live TV and then show the results.

    To begin with the Schlitz executives were scared to do a live taste test. The embarrassment of 90 people saying they didn't like Schlitz would be devastating.

    However, they felt far better when it was explained to them that 80% of beer drinkers can't tell the difference so a total wipeout would be something like 65-35 and rarely would it be that bad.

    The ad campaign was fairly successful. And most of it success was due to people not being able to tell the difference between Bud light, Coors Light, or Miller Lite.

  21. The Big Texan

    Most companies being boycotted by right wingnuts actually do better financially than before the boycott, so I don't see the logic in trying to avoid wingnut boycotts.

  22. realrobmac

    The lesson is that the American right wing is full of outright bigots and they have their fee-fees get hurt when someone acknowledges the right to exist of the people they are bigoted against.

    I'm gonna be sure to pick up a 12 pack of Bud Light this weekend.

    1. Special Newb

      Are you really going to spend money on canned puss just to prove a point no one will ever realize you're proving?

      That's like shooting your Keurig.

  23. Special Newb

    Whoo. I can count on one hand the number of transwomen I have seen who arent fuck ugly. And.... really I don't care other than that. Right wing are horrible people, this particular person also seems like an asshole. So enjoy each other I guess.

  24. Salamander

    I wouldn't have thought those blue collar, toilers of the soil and the factories would even consider drinking Bud Lite. Bud, maybe. It's not at all bad, for a mainstream corporate beer.

    But dumping something you've enjoyed because a "trans-person" approved of it? Can we get a bunch of transgender endorsements of something we actually want to curtail? Like

    * big pick-em-up trucks.
    * Gasoline-burrning vehicles of all kinds.
    * Fox News.

    Hey! I think this may be a viable path forward.

      1. ColBatGuano

        Sure, they'd be perfectly happy with some other trans person. You keep telling yourself that so you don't question your bigotry.

        1. Cressida

          I'm not "telling myself" anything. I'm well aware of what The Daily Wire etc folks think. I'm not speaking for them, nor do I care about them. My first comment on this post indicated that I'm not making blanket statements about groups; I'm only registering my thorough disapproval of this individual. If you want to engage in name-calling, that's your business.

    2. Salamander

      I hear that Republicans have suddenly realized just how much money Anheuser Busch has given them (nearly half a mill), and are starting to back off. They were all set to sell their minions beer cozies that read "This beverage self-identifies as water", apparently to hold the Bud Lite which they are all refusing to drink.

      Yeah, dumb all the way down the line.

  25. Justin

    This person is hilarious.

    The Canadian transgender teacher who made headlines for wearing fake Z-cup breasts to class was confronted by a reporter after she was spotted out in public — for the second time — without her prosthetics. Kayla Lemieux was recently approached by a Rebel News reporter as she was leaving the Mapleview Mall in Burlington, Ontario, footage of the encounter shows.

    If you want to see this freak, go ahead, but what an embarrassment to the community. ????

  26. pjcamp1905

    "Are there any other demographic groups that corporate America should also steer clear of?"

    Of course! All them racials.

  27. cld

    I've virtually never seen a tv commercial that I thought was meant for me. None of them have inspired me to call in bomb threat.

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