Alright, I need you to brace yourself for what I’m about to tell you. It might frighten you. I’d put away any blunt objects and center yourself in a comfortable spot on your couch. There are people in parts of the world who enjoy cheap, light beer but who are not cis, male, blue-collar workers. Shocking, I know. I’ve personally caught glimpses of women throwing back a watered-down ale, and I’ve heard rumors that queer folks occasionally crack open a cold one after a long day. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to alert Kid Rock to this twisted reality—so when he learned that Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman and TikToker, did a brand partnership with Bud Light, he did what’s apparently become the patriotic American thing to do: picked up an assault rifle and pulverized three cases of Bud Light.
Now, I may suffer from the woke mind virus that’s slowly killing our country’s best and brightest, but this feels like an insane overreaction to me.
“Grandpa’s feeling a little frisky today,” the rapper/musician/fedora aficionado said in a video posted to Instagram. “Let me say something to you all and be as clear and concise as possible.” He then picked up the rifle and, like a real man with surely no emotional issues, ripped high-speed bullets into cans of beer on what looks like the manicured back lawn of one of his properties, which he can afford because he writes lyrics like: “Bawitdaba, da bang, da dang diggy diggy.” He concluded his post by declaring, “Fuck Bud Light and Fuck Anheuser-Busch.”
Now Mr. Rock is on this violent rampage because, like I mentioned, a brand of beer he identifies with sent a trans woman custom cans with her face on them as part of their brand partnership and to celebrate Mulvaney’s yearlong “Days of Girlhood” series that documented her transition. Mulvaney, dressed like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is in on the joke that she might not be the obvious choice for a Bud Light partnership, not because she is trans but because her glamorous and feminine style is at odds with the “up for whatever” brand of beer. She joked in an Instagram post, “Happy March Madness!! Just found out this had to do with sports and not just saying it’s a crazy month!”
Anheuser-Busch was forced to defend its decision to partner with Mulvaney after growing conservative backlash. “Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics and passion points,” a spokesperson told Fox News. “From time to time, we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney. This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public.” No one better show this to Kid Rock lest he go bomb their factories or something just as outrageous.
Conservative nut jobs like Kid Rock have created these parasocial relationships with “blue collar” brands like Bud Light, which they’ve decided are representative of their falsely constructed “real American” image. Frankly, it’s as embarrassing as it is concerning. Hopefully Mulvaney, and folks of all identities, can uphold their unalienable American right to partner with brands that might not make perfect sense, but will surely supply them with a perfectly sized check. That is my one true wish.