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The Bud Light boycott continues. Anheuser-Busch is responding by sponsoring vet groups and commissioning ads that "will play heavily on themes such as football and country music". A glance at conservative comment sections reveals a few vocal consumers vowing that no amount of patriotic pandering will change their mind and that they will continue the boycott no matter what.
I am reminded of this apocryphical exchange between two Chinese officers late for battle:
That is to say, a proper incentive structure should not only contain costs for injecting woke politics into business but also rewards for backpedalling.
On the other hand, the undisputed champions of pushing business and people around do not seem too keen on accepting apology. Or do they? The bottom line seems to be: If your public kowtow is more valuable for the propagation of the movement than the display of your head on a spike, you may get another chance (unless and untilyou even slightly step out of line again).
This seems ideal because the incentives for the victim thus contain an effectiveness criterion. Mouthing platitudes is not enough, you need to actually further the cause of your attackers. The uncertainty ups the ante for the victim.
On the other other hand, woke shaming campaigns might not be the ideal blue print for convervatives, given their lack of clout and high-brow media capture.
You know, a part of me wants to go "Turnabout is fair play". Because all this woke capital bullshit has finally made me believe that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. You should not give your money to people who hate you.
I always thought those phrases were just Marxist seethe and cope. Now I get it. Because it's palpable how much the present ruling regime in buearocacy and capital management hate me. The answer still isn't communism. The answer is to stop consooming. At least as much as you can. And try to support artisans who genuinely support your values where you can. Or buy used to deprive the company of income. I also feel no moral qualms about piracy of legacy IP when some new conglomerate buys it up and decides to hold it hostage and vandalize it, while beating me over the head with propaganda.
My immediate thought was "how would I buy used Bud Light? After it's passed through someone's bladder?" And then I thought "would I even notice a difference?"
/s
Man, I have to respond to this. Are we really going to pretend like Bud and Miller aren't easy-drinking beers? Valuable after mowing the lawn on a hot day?
I love getting punched in the mouth with an IPA, and have trained my palate to do so repeatedly. Saying that fresh light beer tastes like urine or is "low quality" is bullshit. It's unbitter to the point of almost being sweet, doesn't sit heavily in the stomach, and is the result of millions of man-hours through development and production to ensure a consistent product at an unbelievable scale.
These beers are successful because of marketing, yes. But that success is also because they appeal to a wide range of people with varying tastes. They have been specifically designed to be taste good to the majority of the planet.
I'm trying to think of the equivalent in Ireland (mainly because we don't really have 'long sunny days where you're drinking beer while working') and I think the older version would have been shandies, even further back small beer, and modern versions are lagers and the like.
Guinness and others have tried making wheat beers and light beers and they never got off the ground. Light 'summer' beers tend to be imports, and yes we have Budweiser and Coors and Miller as well, though there have been some recent Irish lagers which seem to be taking a good share.
I'm in no position to judge the merits of Carlsberg versus Budweiser, someone who drinks beer needs to chime in on this. The legendary "light, cheap, may taste like piss but you can drink cans of it" lager here is Dutch Gold 😁 And apparently it's a stablemate of Bud Light, being an InBev product!
Shandies (and radlers, and half-and-halfs) are tremendously underrated, and it feels like it's high time someone capitalized on it.
As far as Carlsberg vs Bud, I'll give the edge slightly to Carlsberg. Weirdly enough, if Budweiser ever came out with Bud Dark, I'd be willing to give it a go, based on my experience with Heineken and St. Pauli Girl's dark versions. Much more to my taste.
Isn't Leinenkugel available nationwide now? Summer Shandy is far and away their most popular variety.
Leinenkugel's solid, but i was thinking of something targeting the "cocktail in a can" demographic.
I really should have thought of it sooner, but cider (hard cider) is the summer drink of recent years: it's tasty, low alcohol (depending on what brand, ranging from 4.5% ABV upwards but since excise duty on anything 6% or over is hefty, the lower rates are the most common) and you pour it over ice so it is longer drinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_in_Ireland
The traditional one is Bulmers/Magners, a.k.a. Clonmel Chardonnay from where the factory is located.
I wonder if former Bud Light drinkers would switch to cider instead?
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