TikTok uses trans Bud Light memes to bite back at Budweiser boycotts
By Ava Barnes
The anger surrounding Bud Light’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney is still going strong, and some people have taken to TikTok to post memes in defense of the trans influencer by ridiculing those boycotting Budweiser.
In a rather bizarre turn of events, certain corners of the internet have turned against the beer brand Bud Light this week after they partnered with an online celebrity.
The drama began around Monday, April 3, and is still going strong, with people on both sides of the culture war debate turning to memes, as you would expect from a debate centered around internet drama.
In case you’ve missed the last few days of madness online and are unsure why your timeline is full of memes about beer, here’s all you need to know about why people are annoyed at Bud Light, Budweiser and Dylan Mulvaney.
Why are people annoyed at Bud Light?
The anger toward Bud Light seemingly began at the start of this week, after TikTok star Mulvaney uploaded an Instagram post in which she was promoting the drink and showed off to the camera that she had been given a special can that had her face on it.
The influencer is known for doing sponsored content for a range of brands and businesses, though her recent endorsement of Bud Light has certainly caused more controversy than her posts usually do.
So why did the Instagram post make so many people annoyed at Bud Light? Well, while few people are stating the reason explicitly, the bulk of posts expressing annoyance at the beer brand appears to be doing so because Mulvaney is transgender.
Mulvaney has historically been subject to scrutiny from a range of online commentators who position themselves as ‘anti-woke’. And many of these people have taken aim at Bud Light in the days following her post, for seemingly adhering to the ‘woke’ agenda that they have been campaigning against, through their endorsement of Mulvaney.
Why are people making trans memes about Bud Light and Budweiser?
While he wasn’t the person who kickstarted the backlash against Budweiser’s lower-calorie option, Kid Rock can pretty much be thanked for getting the ball rolling on the Bud Light memes.
On Tuesday, April 4, the country rocker uploaded a video to Twitter in which he could be seen shooting several crates of Bud Light with an automatic weapon, before denouncing the beer, and its parent company Anheuser-Busch.
What ensued was a flurry of messages of support for Rock from people of a similar mindset online, though many internet users failed to sympathize with the 52-year-old, and retaliated with their own set of memes.
The memes in question have been uploaded mainly to TikTok, where several users have pointed out what they believe to be hypocrisy from those who have said they are going to boycott Bud Light.
TikTok uses memes to bite back
While TikTok is known for being the home of lip-syncing and dance routines, the videos that have been uploaded in the last couple of days relating to the Bud Light drama make a compelling case for the argument that the platform has become a hub for modern-day political discourse.
One user pointed out that throwing away Bud Light is very much not the same thing as a boycott:
While these chaps appeared unbothered by the situation, and encouraged their viewers to send over as many Bud Light cans as they please:
As another angry patron replaced his Bud Lights with Coors Light, one TikTokker pointed out that several brands he was representing, including Coors, had supported LGBTQ+ causes in the past:
And in a similar vein, as another user placed a Bud Light can beneath the wheel of his truck, one viewer couldn’t help but remind him that Chevrolet had also participated in pride events before:
Despite the madness surrounding her partnership with Bud Light, Mulvaney has remained tight-lipped bout the whole situation and appears to be going about her life as normal.
