‘Woke’ Is Just Another Word for ‘Things That Make Us Mad’

Hi,

As you might recall, back on April Fool’s Day, Anheuser-Busch enlisted Dylan Mulvaney to be a spokes…person for Bud Light. But it wasn’t a prank. 

Measured by the cutthroat metrics of late-capitalism, the company chose poorly. Bud Light sales plummeted—and still show little sign of getting off the mat. One of the more popular lines about the debacle was that Bud Light chose a “fake woman to sell fake beer.”

Now, for my purposes it doesn’t really matter what you thought—or continue to think—of the whole controversy. You can think Mulvaney was a brave and wonderful choice and the backlash bigoted and stupid. You can think it was a ridiculous choice and the subsequent boycotts are a culture war triumph. My own view is closer to the latter, less because of my positions on transgenderism, and more because I think it’s always helpful when big corporations are reminded that their customers can’t be so easily manipulated—or replaced—as some might desire. 

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