Who Knew TikTok Star Dylan Mulvaney and Beer could ignite an internet Firestorm
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| Dylan Mulvaney | Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images |
All this drama over Dylan Mulvaney and an American lager.
Over the past week, right-wingers in the U.S. have worked themselves into a veritable tizzy over a new Anheuser-Busch marketing campaign featuring transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, who promoted the company’s “Easy Carry Contest” on social media. To reiterate, a company put a trans woman in a marketing campaign, and things immediately escalated to the point of Kid Rock destroying cases of watery beer with an AR-15. What a time to be alive!
While we’re not bending over backward to praise a multinational conglomerate responsible for massive pollution, the whole situation is sadly reflective of where trans visibility and acceptance stands in the U.S. today — so if you’re behind on the whole saga, here’s everything you need to know to catch up.
Who is Dylan Mulvaney?
Dylan Mulvaney
If you’re not a regular TikTok user, you may not even know who Dylan Mulvaney is (we get it, there are too many influencers to remember at this point). Since March 2022, Mulvaney, an actor who theater gays may have seen previously in the touring production of The Book of Mormon, has been documenting her transition in a video diary series titled “Days of Girlhood.” It’s a necessarily messy project, as Mulvaney, now 26 years old, frankly discusses the frustrations and surprises of her “second puberty” to an audience of millions.
As Mulvaney’s social media star rose, the brand endorsements began rolling in; she has since worked with brands including Ulta Beauty, Instacart, and Kate Spade. But wherever Mulvaney goes, right-wingers follow to harass her, mock her transition, and yell at whoever offers her support or sponsorships. In October last year, after Mulvaney interviewed President Biden for the online news publication NowThis, Congressional Republicans including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (of course) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn singled Mulvaney out for transphobic harassment on a national scale, calling her a “fake woman” and labeling her gender expression as “absurdity.” Conservatives even jumped down her throat for carrying tampons in her purse in case someone else needed them.
Put simply, Dylan Mulvaney is almost everything the far right loves to hate about trans people in one convenient, outspoken package.
What was the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney collaboration about?
Anheuser-Busch partnered with Mulvaney to boost their “Easy Carry Contest,” offering customers a chance at $15,000 for uploading videos of them carrying as many cans of beer as possible. To promote the contest, Mulvaney uploaded a sponsored video in which she appears in an Audrey Hepburn getup and goofs on March Madness; meanwhile, the company will release a special line of Pride-themed cans with various pronouns.
To sweeten the pot and celebrate the one-year anniversary of Mulvaney’s transition, Anheuser-Busch also sent Mulvaney a special can of Bud Light featuring her face and a message on the top of the can reading “Cheers to 365 Days of Being a Woman,” referencing Mulvaney’s preamble in her “Days of Girlhood” series.
Why was the campaign controversial?
Conservatives, enraged to a level not seen since the “progressive” commercials of Gillette and Nike, took to social media in a froth to protest Mulvaney’s partnership with Budweiser and to call for a boycott. At the core of the outrage was the right’s now-typical antipathy for anything deemed “woke,” be that the existence of Black people in history or pronouns they don’t understand. Conservative pundit John Cardillo misgendered and demeaned Mulvaney in a Tweet labeling her “a grown man who dresses like little girls,” and others intimated that she was a sexual predator.
Some went so far as to spread a rumor online that Anheuser-Busch had laid off their entire marketing team in response to the online backlash. This was demonstrably untrue, as swiftly confirmed by the Associated Press. In a statement to FOX News, Anheuser-Busch squashed any rumors that they were perturbed, characterizing their partnership with Mulvaney as just one of many influencers who allow the brand to “authentically connect with audiences across various demographics and passion points.” The company also clarified that Mulvaney’s can “was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public.”
Okay, but what did Kid Rock have to do with the Bud Light/ Dylan Mulvaney boycott?
This is where things go from eye-rolling to a little macabre. Conservatives love to loudly announce a boycott by destroying every branded item they own, whether that’s smashing a perfectly usable coffee machine or burning brand-new sneakers. This time, though, country music star Kid Rock took a page out of the “rando running for Republican office” playbook and brought out his biggest rifle (we…hope?) to signal his displeasure.
“Let me say something to all of you and be as clear and concise as possible,” the MAGA cap-sporting singer said in an April 3 Instagram video before hefting the gun and firing a clip into four cases of Bud Light arranged on a table nearby. “Fuck Bud Light, and fuck Anheuser-Busch,” he concluded.
Frankly, Kid Rock’s mas macho temper tantrum would be camp if violent rhetoric against transgender people wasn’t inspiring actual mass shootings and firebombings across the U.S. As it stands, the video came on the heels of another mass shooting in Nashville late last month, which conservatives have also used as fodder in their political war on trans people.
Kid Rock’s response received its own share of backlash, including from the father of a child who was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting. “Hey @KidRock, this dad is ‘feeling a little frisky today,’” wrote Fred Guttenberg on Twitter, referencing the start of Kid Rock’s video. “This is my daughter Jaime (under the black oval) and these are the students running over her for safety to avoid getting shot by the AR-15 that killed her. FUCK YOU!!!” The tweet was accompanied by a still from security camera footage of the day of the shooting.
Fellow musician Jason Isbell also took a shot at Kid Rock, sharing a meme about Coors’ LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination policies with the comment “This is finally how we get him. Leave no bigoted beers to drink.”
As if that weren't enough, Marjorie Taylor Greene had to get in on the action. “I would have bought the king of beers, but it changed it’s [sic] gender to the queen of beers,” the Congresswoman tweeted on April 8. “So it’s made to chill from here on out.” The missive was accompanied by a photo of the trunk of a car loaded up with groceries and a case of Coors Light. It didn't take long for many to point out that Molson Coors, the Canadian-American company that owns Coors Light, also has a long history of support for the LGBTQ+ community, including 20 years of partnership with Denver Pride and a campaign to promote inclusivity in bars.
Is the controversy over?
Unfortunately, the Bud Light saga of 2023 is still puttering along. On April 15, the National Republican Congressional Committee posted and quickly deleted a tweet directly attacking Mulvaney and Bud Light, whose parent company happens to be one of their biggest donors, according to The Daily Beast. The NRCC even briefly attempted to use the fiasco to fundraise, with since-shelved “limited edition” drink koozies that read “This Beer Identifies as a Water.”
Individual GOP members are also still wasting their precious time on Earth going after Mulvaney for the partnership. On April 17, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched yet another attack against trans women athletes, through a spoof of Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius” commercials. That same day, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly went on a rant in her eponymous podcast, accusing Mulvaney of “[making] a mockery of womanhood and girlhood” and criticizing Budweiser’s “embrace of wokeness.”
And no, ordinary right-wingers aren’t holding up much better. Just take the guy who decided to protest Mulvaney’s involvement with Bud Light by covering cases of the brand’s beer in Tampax boxes — potentially a reference to transphobes’ anger at Mulvaney carrying tampons with her in public in case anyone needs them.
So, did Anheuser-Busch respond to this whole fiasco?
Yes, but it didn’t amount to much. On April 14, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth released a lackluster statement that doesn’t directly address the controversy or show support for Mulvaney. Instead, Whitworth offered the hollow promise that he’s “focused on building and protecting our remarkable history and heritage.”
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