Bud Light, the once iconic beer brand, continues to suffer the consequences of its partnership with "transgender influencer" Dylan Mulvaney. RedState wrote dozens of articles chronicling the saga (see here, here, and here for more details), which ended with a mass boycott that dropped Anheuser-Busch's market cap by $11 billion.
For those needing a recap, the trouble started when Mulvaney, a man who claims to be a woman, released a video of himself sitting in a hot tub with a can of Bud Light. On the can was a picture of Mulvaney's face celebrating his supposed "365th day of girlhood." A few other subsequent videos were put out as well, with it clearly being some kind of paid product placement.
The backlash was swift, and it wasn't long before you couldn't give Bud Light away at some bars and sporting events. There were even instances of grocery stores discounting the beer 100 percent, in order to get it off shelves.
Displays seen in two different stores in Wisconsin, a state known for drinking a lot of beer: pic.twitter.com/x3vMD4Tp1r
— Haz (@Michael_Haz) May 24, 2023
In the aftermath, Anheuser-Busch flailed. Early on, it stood by the marketing campaign. Later, the CEO of the company would issue a half-apology in an attempt to win back its mostly blue-collar customer base (a customer base that isn't fond of companies pushing transgenderism on them). Throughout that period, Anheuser-Busch insisted that its relationship with Mulvaney was informal and amounted to a "single can" being given to him.
“This was one single can given to one social media influencer,” the letter states. “It was not made for production or sale to the general public. This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement.”
We now know that wasn't true. According to Steven Crowder's investigative team, a financial document has been uncovered that shows Bud Light paid $185,000 to Mulvaney, making the relationship the very definition of formal.
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) November 16, 2023
Think about how crazy this sequence of events was. One of the biggest beer brands in the world decided to pay $185,000 to a mentally ill man who believes he's a woman. In exchange, Bud Light got a few social media videos of this man sitting in a hot tub showing off a custom can and pretending to not know what March Madness is.
Holy cow. How did something like that make it past the planning phase? How did someone sitting at the table not stand up and say, "This is an insane waste of resources." Instead, as far as we know, everyone in a decision-making role just nodded along, apparently thinking that blowing nearly two hundred grand on a controversial "influencer" was a brilliant idea.
As I said in my first write-up on this story back in April, these corporations hate you. They despise your way of life and they despise your values. Bud Light is an especially egregious example given those who have made it successful over the years. The company simply didn't care that it would be spitting on the beliefs (backed by objective reality) of most of its customer base. They are still paying the price, and that's a good thing.
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