Bud Light Goes Silent Online Amid Dylan Mulvaney Backlash
calls for a boycott of the product.The beer brand has not posted on its Twitter account since April 2, its Instagram account since April 1, and its Facebook page since March 30.
On April 2, Dylan Mulvaney posted a video to her 1.7 million Instagram followers in which she explained that Bud Light had sent her a personalized can with her face on it to commemorate 365 days of being a girl.The row over transgender brand ambassadors is symbolic of a wider debate about the inclusion of transgender women in female issues and spaces.
Some say transgender women should be treated the same as other women, while others say they are different and that hard-won women's rights must be protected.Following calls for a boycott of Bud Light, supporters of Kari Lake, the Trump-backed GOP candidate for Arizona Governor in 2022, refused to drink the beer brand at an open bar at a rally in Iowa.
Meanwhile, a bar owner in Kentucky said he had noticed the drink sparking rows between patrons.Musician Kid Rock took a gun to several cases of Bud Light in a viral video, while a video of someone pouring a can down the drain of a kitchen sink was viewed over a million times on Twitter.A spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light's parent company, told Newsweek on Monday that the company "works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics."They added that the commemorative can it had given to Mulvaney "was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public."But despite defending the partnership, the firm appears to be weathering the social media storm by saying nothing at all, despite tweeting frequently in the days leading up to.
