First it was Bud Light getting boycotted because they decided to associate their brand with an attention-seeking cross-dresser, then Target put their 'June is Pride Month' merchandise front and center, featuring 'tuck-friendly' women's bathing suits aimed at those 'trans women' who haven't yet had their gender-reassignment surgeries. Now Disney is facing the wrath of parents over a (sales)man in a dress helping little girls pick out their favorite Princess gown at the 'Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique' at Disney World Orlando.
Anheuser-Busch was certain the Bud Light brouhaha would blow over in weeks if not days, but they have been very disappointed thus far. Target, apparently not prepared to become the next Bud Light, has made motions that look a lot like 'backing down', but their sales are off and their stock price is falling — not like ABInbev's, but showing signs. Several recent Disney movies have turned in unusually poor box office results. It looks like parents are taking the kids to the zoo instead of the theater. What the heck is going on?
I think what's happening is that the normies have reached the limit of their tolerance. This isn't new. During the Age of Covid, parents discovered to their horror what their children were learning at school — and they didn't like it. They didn't like it so much that they descended on school board meetings en masse to let the administrators know how much they didn't like it. It could all have ended there, but the newly-installed Democratic administration decided to make an example of those uppity parents by siccing the Famous But Incompetent FBI on them. Lots of normies suddenly were awakened (not 'woke') to the truth that they were a mere complaint away from getting the same treatment.
And their response has been a collective middle-finger.
In this game of economic 'chicken', the consumer has options; the retailers don't. The LGBTQIA-LS/MFT community is a fraction, a puny fraction of the retail audience. Even if that community doesn't initiate their own boycott because some retailer backs off their full-throated support of their tiny population, they aren't enough to rescue a brand that has — for all practical purposes — poisoned the well. That's what Anheuser-Busch has discovered, much to their chagrin. In some parts of the country, Budweiser brands, not just Bud Light, have lost up to 30% of their market share along with their #1 spot. Miller, Coors, and Yeungling have gleefully stepped in to take up the slack. That looks suspiciously like a Kiss of Death. It's not outside the envelope of reality that ABInbev might be making some serious changes, perhaps 'ownership'.
It will only take one major corporation to crumble to end, completely, the current fascination with 'ESG scores'.
All things considered, I think that would constitute 'a good thing'.
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"Normies" don't instantly melt down into squat-and-pee-on-the-floor moral panic any time a woman they don't like gets a decorated can of incredibly bad beer.
ReplyDeleteYou're making this more complicated than it really is for reasons that do not put you in a very flattering light.
DeleteThis was simply "A Bridge Too Far" for those normies and they finally got to the point of "Oh HELL no!" The entire premise behind Dylan Mulvaney — that a man can become a woman just by wishing hard enough — is not simply an affront to common sense; it is a cultural aggression. One can hardly blame those who are charged with the protection of their children and families for responding in kind.
I don't blame normies for being normies. And in this case, the normies did what normies do -- went about their business while laughing at (if they noticed at all) the melty snowflakes who wailed like it was the end of the world that a woman they didn't like got a special can of their favorite bad beer. Culture war moral panic addicts are a long freaking way from normal.
DeleteI don't see it that way at all. The response we are observing is that those who see this for what it is — a culture war — have finally said in the only language corporations understand "We're not puppies that need housebreaking. You're not going to rub our noses in your own messes." Some lessons can only be learned the hard way.
DeleteNotice, if you will, that only former customers of AB, Target, and Disney can teach this lesson. Someone like me who has never experienced Bud Light, who never shops at Target, and who has no susceptible children or grandchildren; cannot be the teacher, but I can enjoy watching the lesson being taught.