There's a New Bud For You, And You're Not Allowed to NOT Like It.

Showing anything but absolute delight at Bud Light's new mascot is nothing less than a bigoted, transphobic act.

I had never even heard of Dylan Mulvaney a week ago, but now thanks to Bud Light - I have.

In case you're not aware, Dylan Mulvaney is the trans TikTok sensation (aka, activist) that has been chosen to partner with Anheuser-Busch in promoting their super-popular Bud Light.

So regardless of what you think of Dylan Mulvaney or Bud Light, I think it's probably a pretty solid match - after all, Bud Light was a transbeer before there even were transwomen, so it makes perfect sense for the two to partner up. I mean, there may be a similar number of serious beer lovers out there that consider Bud Light an actual beer as there are serious woman lovers that would consider Dylan Mulvaney an actual woman.

I'm going to resist the temptation to reprint all the awesome memes and quotes that were inspired by this occurrence because, although entertaining, they kind of miss the point.

So what's the big deal about some transgender guy on a beer can?

If we were to listen to the popular wisdom of the day on this matter, we'd be expected to just grow up, get our transphobic tendencies under control, and then go have a Coors Light or something.

This advice comes from the same people who were up in arms a couple of years ago about a pancake mix company with a successful black woman on their bottle of syrup. By now we know that kind of outrage is only acceptable if it comes from a certain political perspective. Yes, now we have politically correct outrage which is expected (nay, demanded), and then every other kind of outrage that is simply the product of various kinds of nefarious “phobias”.

I was recently told that transwomen are “actually very pretty. And nicer then most people I know.”

Well sure, I guess. I mean, if you say so. I'm sure some of them are, although maybe not the ones that were at this protest in Vancouver, where the police also seemed so sold on the whole “niceness” narrative that they appeared to not even notice the man being thrown to the ground by several transwomen right in front of them.

And probably not at this protest either, where a former champion female swimmer was assaulted and then barricaded in a room for three hours.

It's kinda like saying, “kittens are really cute, and also quite fluffy.” It's much harder to argue with this last one, although both of these statements are extremely subjective. And no one is currently getting shredded on Twitter for not liking cats. Well, not that many people at least.

The way certain people fawn over transwomen these days makes me think of people showing off their pets. They're so wonderful and cute and would never hurt anyone, and then if they ever do bite someone, it's “totally out of character” (and usually the victim's fault). Because why would we assume they're anything at all like “normal” people?

From my perspective, there's nothing inherently wrong with Bud Light partnering with a trans activist, any more than say, McDonald's sponsoring the Richmond Half Marathon. I wonder if that came with a side of fries...

But who cares anyway?

For me, the issue is not that they're doing it - they can do whatever they want, and the market will usually make the appropriate corrections. That's the beauty of a capitalist society.

The real issue, in my opinion, is that we are expected to be totally okay with it, even embrace it, and any opinions we may have that run counter to the accepted narrative are at the very least “invalid”, and at most, bigoted, dangerous, hateful, and whatever-phobic.

Like, it's fine if you don't like kittens, or monkeys, or whatever on your beverage of choice - I really don't think you should be required to. And brands have been boycotted for less.

I'm not quite sure what the typical Bud Light drinker looks like, but I'm fairly certain that he (or she) doesn't look like Dylan Mulvaney. Does this matter? Maybe not, and maybe they're just trying to broaden their appeal, I don't know.

As for the types of people who drink Bud Light - according to thetab.com:

There’s not a huge amount you can say about those that enjoy the taste of those little blue cans. You don’t have any strong opinions about anything or anyone, you’re perfectly content to follow the crowd. You also don’t buy your own beer ever, so drinking watered down bud is absolute chill cos it’s freeeee.

So there's that. Maybe Dylan is an alright choice after all.

And then there's NASCAR.

Whatever.

Apparently there are 1.6 million Americans over the age of 13 who currently identify as “trans” (about 0.5% of the population). Not sure how many of those are of legal drinking age, or how many even make it to 21 before they change their identification to something else, but I suppose there may be a small market there. It seems unlikely that this would be the reason for this kind of publicity stunt though. And if a publicity stunt is all it is, then it probably worked alright (any publicity is good publicity, right?)

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

On a somewhat related note, if you think buying insurance from a talking gecko is stupid, I'm not going to assume that you're a gecko-hater, or that you're geckophobic, or that you feel threatened by his animated form. He is kinda cute though, isn't he? And he obviously has great taste in automobiles.

Anyway, it's just an opinion, and (so far at least) those are still legal in this country, even if they're ones you don't like.

At least it's not like Dylan Mulvaney is modeling sports bras or something really weird like that…

Actually - hold the phone!

This just in:

Nike Makes Dylan Mulvaney Sports Bra Model, Days After Bud Light Furor

While using a fake woman to promote fake-ish beer kinda makes at least a little bit of sense in today's world, this one's a much harder sell - for me, at least. Not like I'm out looking to buy a sports bra at the moment or anything - mainly because I have nothing to put in one, but if I all of a sudden did want to buy one, then seeing one modelled by a feminized Ichabod Crane still might not be a great help.

Maybe a more appropriate opinion would be one from a woman (and by “woman”, I do mean a real woman). Here's what Olympic silver medallist, Sharron Davies had to say about it:

The ad feels like a parody of what women are. In the past, it was always seen as an insult to say ‘run like a girl,’ and here we've got someone behaving in a way that's very unsporty and very unathletic. And it's so frustrating when only 1% of the USA sponsorship dollar goes to females in sport. That Nike would do this feels like a kick in the teeth.

Remember, Nike chose to give this gig to Mulvaney over every woman, and let's not even mention “women athletes”, or at the very least, “active women”, who would presumably be a prime target of this ad.

And then there's this: Not quite sure what to make of this tweet by Caitlyn Jenner, but he (or she, if you prefer) took this unexpected position:

The differences between men and women are real and are a good thing! It doesn’t make trans ppl a bad thing, either. Why is it so black and white with the RADICAL RAINBOW MAFIA?!

…it is a shame to see such an iconic American company go so woke! We can be inclusive but not at the expense of the mass majority of people, and have some decency while being inclusive. This is an outrage.

Wow. When Caitlyn Jenner seems to imply it's gone too far, you've really got to wonder what the hell is going on in this part of the world, and if we're ever going to get back.

I've mentioned opinions here several times, and that we're each entitled to our own, but having said that - there are some opinions that carry more weight than others. In this case, I'd say the opinions of women (and again, I mean real women) carry far more weight than any other type of opinion. And those opinions don't seem to favour Dylan Mulvaney at the moment.

If you really want to, you can watch the video here and form your own opinion.

So yeah, a guy acting and dressing like a little girl in a beer ad is super creepy, and more than a little bit weird, but it's just beer. Right? All fun and games, I suppose.

That same guy modeling a sports bra for Nike and acting out all the absolute worst stereotypes of women is something that should really be offensive to all women. And if you actually think that kind of show is acceptable, but a white guy jumping around in blackface is not, then that I find that offensive to human intelligence.

This is hardly the fault of Dylan Mulvaney. He's just doing what he does. And Nike and Bud are just showing off their latest pet. The fault here rests with that same kind of leadership that I wrote about in Canada's Biggest Crisis is a Crisis in Leadership. Obviously this has little to do with Canada, but everything to do with leaders who are more concerned with virtue-signaling than with doing their jobs.

One can only hope that the market will sort this one out, but I'm not overly optimistic that it will.

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Further reading on this subject:

Sport Canada Buries Report - 92% of Female Professional Athletes Don't Want to Compete Against Men

Identity Lost

Canada's Biggest Crisis is a Crisis in Leadership

The Paralyzing Fear Of Making Important Decisions