Bud Light partnered with a trans influencer, TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney to promote a commemorative beer can with Mulvaney's face on it. Except the beer isn't even for sale, it's just meant to promote diversity. Honoring a man dressed as a woman with an iconic beer brand synonymous with masculinity, just to win brownie points with the transgender community, is the epitome of virtue signaling at its most depraved.
Mulvaney, who has millions of TikTok followers and has become famous celebrating "365 Days of Girlhood," posted an Instagram video on April 1 drinking Bud Light via a can with the star's face on it. Mulvaney uses the video to promote the company's March Madness contest; the caption identifies the influencer as a #budlightpartner.
A spokesperson has explained in a statement that Anheuser-Busch just wants to be diverse and inclusive and isn't actually selling the beer.
"Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics," a spokesperson said in a statement. "From time to time we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney. This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public."
That personal milestone is one entire year of posing as a girl (not a woman, though Mulvaney is a grown man). VP Kamala Harris sent Mulvaney a congrats, as well.
So Anheuser-Busch admits it's basically virtue signaling, as they're not selling the commemorative Dylan Mulvaney can for the public. They're just trying to score brownie points with a specific group of people. As if that's not bad enough, Anheuser-Busch, as a brand, has dedicated itself to specifically not being diverse or inclusive. In fact, it has marketed its beers, specifically Bud Light and Budweiser, as particularly masculine, synonymous with the Wild West, complete with Clydesdale-drawn wagons and a love for the outdoors and animals.
Budweiser commercials are known for being humorous, clever, maybe even sentimental—but always masculine. There's nothing wrong with this, in fact, it seems really successful. How ironic then, that Anheuser-Busch would virtue signal its new desire to be seen as diverse with a biological male who has spent the last 365 days posing as female via outward apparel. It almost seems offensive to men and women, except for the people who are trying to be both.
There's no real reason for the brand to virtue signal except that it just succumbed to our culture's pressure to celebrate trans in every concievable aspect of culture, which brings along with it a celebration of Mulvaney's desire to mock femininity by cosplaying as a woman. Mulvaney, notoriously, has also said that "women have bulges" and that society should "normalize the bulge," meaning the genitals of men.
Though Anheuser-Busch's stock is down, the brand is profitable. It owns Stella Artois, Michelob, and others. Its 2018 gross revenue was almost $16 billion, Anheuser-Busch has been around since 1852, was one of the first to figure out how to transport beer using refrigerated railroad cars, and now operates 12 breweries.
They shouldn't be embarrassed that their brand is mostly associated with horses, Nascar, bad-tasting beer, and blue collar men. The brand definitely shouldn't have ever felt pressure to be so diverse that it celebrates one man's mockery of femininity. It's not only bad for their brand, but it's virtue-signaling at its worst.
