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A video showing unsold cases of Bud Light beer at a store has gone viral as the brand remains embroiled in controversy.
The brand and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch, were accused of going "woke" when they collaborated with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Bud Light has been targeted by right-wing campaigners since April after the firm sent Mulvaney a commemorative beer can with her face on to mark the one-year anniversary since she began her gender transition.
Many called for a boycott of the beer, including Joey Mannarino, an internet personality and self-described political strategist who shot a video of the refrigerators at a Buc-ee's store. Buc-ee's is a mainly Texas-based chain of gas stations, but also has stores in Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, among other states.
Mannarino told Newsweek he was in a store in Georgia and wrote on Twitter that he shot the video on June 2. He said how Bud Light would need to "disavow" Mulvaney to win back customers.
"Bud Light would need to completely repudiate woke culture and totally disavow Dylan Mulvaney in very clear terms," Mannarino said via Twitter DMs.
"The level they'd need to go would be impossible for a corporate company in 2023 because they'd anger the other side so it looks like the boycott is here to stay," he added.
Mannarino's video scanned past several shelves of different beer brands including Miller Lite and Budweiser— which is also owned by Anheuser-Busch— and showed how they had sold so many cases that some of their shelves were empty.
But when he reached the section stocking Bud Light, the shelves were full, including cases of the beer and individual cans of the product.
"The beer section of @BucceesUSA truly tells you everything you need to know about how Bud Light is doing. They just can't get it off the shelf!" he captioned the Twitter video, which has had almost 35,000 views. Mannarino also used a slur against the transgender community many times in the video.
Newsweek also contacted Buc-ee's by email for comment and verification of its sales of Bud Light.
Anheuser-Busch InBev SA (AB InBev) has felt the impact of the boycotts and saw a drop in its share value last week. This has dropped 5.2 percent since the end of May, which wiped more than $4 billion off its overall value.
In another blow to the beverage company, JPMorgan forecasted that AB InBev's 2023 earnings would drop 26 percent as a result of the boycott campaign.
"We believe there is a subset of American consumers who will not drink a Bud Light for the foreseeable future," the financial giant said in a briefing.
Popular podcaster Joe Rogan does not think that Bud Light will be able to bounce back from this controversy. "It's gonna hang in there for a long time. This is gonna be one of those cultural things. There's never been a brand that got hit like this before. This is a big deal," he said on the most-recent episode of his Spotify podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.
Bud Light CEO Brendan Whitworth responded to the controversy with a statement in April, saying: "We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.
"We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer," Whitworth added.
Mulvaney also directly addressed the backlash that same month. "What I'm struggling to understand is the need to dehumanize and to be cruel," she told her followers. "I don't think that's right. You know, dehumanization has never fixed anything in history ever."
Mulvaney added: "I'm embarrassed to even tell you this, but I was nervous that you were going to start believing those things that they were saying about me since it is so loud. But I'm just gonna go ahead and trust that the people who know me and my heart won't listen to that noise."
Mulvaney has continued to endorse brands on her social-media pages. She most recently collaborated with K18 Hair. The TikTok star has reportedly earned around $1 million from her various brand endorsements, including Nike and Karen Millen.
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more