Boycott!

Boycott!

The boycott has long been a tool of activists to punish their enemies and reward their friends. Instead of resorting to violence to achieve their ends, activists will encourage those who support their point of view to discontinue purchasing the goods of the boycotted. Declining sales and profitability will convince the boycotted to mend their ways.

Sometimes boycotts work. Mostly, not so much.

Chik-fil-A is a popular chicken sandwich restaurant in the U.S. The Christian founder of Chik-fil-A contributed money to groups opposing gay marriage. American gays and their fellow travelers called for a boycott. There was plenty of fulmination on social media. “Oppose us and we will destroy you!” Was Chik-fil-A destroyed? Nope.

Chik-fil-a is a phenomenon. They make a tasty chicken sandwich, but go to a store at mealtime and be prepared for a wait. The Chik-fil-a down the street from my house shares a parking lot with other shops and restaurants. The mealtime lines to Chik-fil-a were so overwhelming they had to re-engineer the parking lot with cones to control the traffic.

Why did the boycott of Chik-fil-A not work? Media attention to protests are usually disproportionate to the size of the group protesting. Mainstream media has decided that the gay lobby is on the side of the angels, and gives them plenty of attention. The majority of the public just want a tasty lunch. If a survey was done of those in line for their lunch, you would probably find out that a majority either support gay marriage or are agnostic towards it. Their desire for a tasty sandwich trumps their desire to support the boycott. Another factor is those who keep silent on social issues but vote with their wallet. There were probably those that weren’t anti-gay but were anti-bully and decided to try the chicken place just to stick a thumb in the eye of the gay bullies. One sandwich and they were hooked.

Another boycott that garnered international attention is the boycott of everything J.K. Rowling. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books and is the wealthiest woman in Britain. She has also come out strongly in favor of biological women. Somehow, Rowling has embraced the idea that gender is determined by chromosomes and reproductive organs. This position enrages the trans community. How is the boycott going?

Rowling’s books and movies haven’t been hurt in the least. In the past several months a videogame called “Hogwarts Legacy” was released. Being a product of Harry Potter and Rowling, the trans community called for a boycott. The game is a huge success, just the same.

Sometimes, in their zeal to defend a position, a group will overestimate how much power they really have. If you have outsized media attention, you can sometimes take a position and project it on to the front page of high circulation dailies. Rush Limbaugh used to call it “three guys with a fax machine”. You give yourselves a catchy name: “Concerned Scientists Saving the Earth”, for example. You then draft a hysterical press release about the imminent extinction of a “keystone” species, and the catastrophic impact on a critical ecosystem. You dress it up with sciency sounding jargon and fax it to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. Your jeremiad might just find its way on to the front page above the fold before anyone realizes that you are three guys with a fax machine.

There is another boycott going on right now, on the other side of the ideology. Budweiser Light retained the services of a certain Dylan Mulvaney, to pitch their brew. Dylan Mulvaney is a gay man that has been prancing around as a girl. Is Mulvaney really trans? A woman born in the wrong body? Probably not. Mulvaney is just an attention whore. The Shtick is working, though. She/he has garnered gigs with Nike and Mabelline as well as AB-Inbev. Nike can apparently do anything: they signed up Colin Kaepernick, the great kneeler, and it apparently did no harm. Women seem to like Mulvaney, for some reason, so Mabelline may escape unscathed as well. Bud Light? Well, that is a different story. It seems, gents who drink Bud Light; I’m sure there are gals too, but guys drink most of the beer in the US; are disenchanted by their beverage of choice being hocked by a “girl” with a penis. Many of them were outraged and the boycott was on. Bud Light sales have been tanking ever since. It has become so heated, that bars have stopped serving Bud Light because it was starting fights: the boycotters castigating the drinkers.

I personally thought it was just a dumb marketing move. I rate it up there with the New Coke. I have a favorite brew myself. If Mulvaney was to appear in a commercial drinking my favorite beer, I wouldn’t stop drinking it. I would think it was a dumb move. I hope AB-Inbev reads the writing on the wall, though. The world is watching and I hope the likes of Mylvaney appear in fewer and fewer promotions. You had your fifteen minutes, Dylan.

I think people are probably growing a little weary of the trans movement, anyway. Dylan Mulvaney didn’t help when he/she nearly singlehandedly destroyed AB-Inbev. As they sense their ebbing power, they become more shrill until they shrill themselves to irrelevancy. Then they become a side show. Bill Clinton said that one of the things he learned from politics was “Don’t tell anyone to go to Hell unless you can make them go.” Gay activists told Chik-fil-A and Jo Rowling to go to Hell, but they just couldn’t make them go. Bud Light drinkers told AB-Inbev to got to hell and, for the moment, they are going. They will rebound. It seems there are a lot of beer drinkers that like Bud Light.

Boycotts will go on. It is mostly virtue signaling now, but maybe that’s what it has always been.