From Bud Light’s standpoint, the move was clever, if not somewhat optimistic. It customized cans of beer depicting influencer Dylan Mulvaney and sent them along, an eye on expanding its appeal to a new demographic in the face of declining sales.
What happened next is called “context collapse.” The beer manufacturer was targeting Mulvaney’s not-small audience, an audience that was interested in the story of her emergence as a trans woman. But the video Mulvaney made hyping the beer was plucked out of the context of that audience and shared widely by prominent voices on the political right. A narrow effort to engage Mulvaney’s audience — like Bud Light’s similar “Brewed in Texas” campaign — was presented as though Bud Light was deeply or primarily focused on shifting its brand to focus on transgender people. A firestorm resulted. Bud Light publicly apologized.
What happened with Target is different. This week, the retailer announced that it was “making adjustments to our plans” for marketing products centered on Pride Month, “including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”
“Confrontational behavior” is a relatively gentle framing for the company’s concern that anti-LGBTQ activists who opposed Target’s Pride displays were (according to the company) threatening store staff. There’s no reason to think that such threats are exaggerated, given the escalation of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric over the past 24 months. A movement that appeals to the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, is one that carries with it some inherent danger.
Again, though, this isn’t exactly what Bud Light experienced. Bud Light was trying to expand its audience. Target was trying to engage its existing one. Pride Month has been a part of American capitalism for years now, one that’s been viewed as cynical by many LGBTQ Americans. There was little reason, then, for Target to think that its 2023 Pride displays would invoke a sharper, more aggressive backlash than its 2022 or 2021 ones.
But 2023 is, in fact, different.
For one thing, the LGBTQ community — and, in particular, the “T” in that abbreviation — has become a political target on the right. This is not entirely organic; the New York Times reported in April that message-testing determined that isolating transgender Americans might be an effective political wedge for the right.
For another thing, the tactics that emerged online a decade ago as part of what came to be known as “GamerGate” have become pervasive in political attacks. Social media accounts such as Libs of TikTok or Gays Against Groomers — which contributed to the focus on Target — have generated audiences by plucking LGBTQ-related content and outreach from their intended context and presenting them to the political right as targets. Sometimes, the attacks extend offline. The big accounts inspire smaller efforts, with people jockeying for online attention by directing their ire in the same direction.
Online actors are heavily influential in right-wing and Republican politics. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is expected to announce his candidacy for president Wednesday, has expended an enormous amount of political energy in the past year targeting LGBTQ identity in his state. It’s generated a lot of approval from prominent right-wing voices, something he clearly sees as valuable for the 2024 nominating process despite the outcry. Or, perhaps, because of the outcry.
Matt Walsh, a right-wing, anti-trans commentator whose attacks on Target have included false claims about the products that the retailer was selling, outlined his desired outcome Wednesday morning on Twitter.
“The goal is to make ‘pride’ toxic for brands,” he wrote. “If they decide to shove this garbage in our face, they should know that they’ll pay a price. It won’t be worth whatever they think they’ll gain. First Bud Light and now Target. Our campaign is making progress. Let’s keep it going.”
The progression there is unintentionally revealing, since it elevates the difference between what the beer brand and the retailer were doing.
One out of every 14 adults in the country identifies as LGBTQ. By having a display of Pride-themed products, Target is trying to wring cash out of that market. We’re asked to believe that Target’s displays of rainbow flip-flops or T-shirts with messages of support for trans people are somehow influencing kids — it’s always framed as being about kids — to embrace an LGBTQ identity. It’s as silly as suggesting that Target having a display of NASCAR-themed shirts is getting kids to drive at excess speeds; the obvious intent is to appeal to an existing audience, not create a new one.
Right-wing voices have suggested that businesses engage in this sort of outreach because they’re being graded on how “woke” they are by nonprofits. This patently ridiculous idea is more palatable to them than the reality: There’s a market for Pride gear — and far more Americans support businesses welcoming LGBTQ customers than oppose the idea.
Polling shows that businesses, even small ones, see value in reaching out to the LGBTQ community. Employees are more likely to want to work for companies that support LGBTQ people. While a plurality of Americans indicated in polling released last year that a company’s support for LGBTQ customers didn’t influence their decision to give the company their patronage, more than a third said that LGBTQ support increased the likelihood they’d buy from that brand. By contrast, less than a fifth said it decreased the likelihood.
That’s the irony here. The attacks on Pride are often framed as efforts to curtail the small LGBTQ community from forcing its worldview upon others. But those attacks themselves fit that description: a subset of right-wing voices finding community and influence online seeking to force Target and other brands to adhere to their boundaries of acceptability.
For Target, the decision isn’t easy. There’s no question that their staff are, in fact, being put in situations that are at a minimum uncomfortable. Acquiescing to the pressure, though, increases the likelihood that pressure will be applied by small groups in similar ways in the future.
Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, herself a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was in New Hampshire on Wednesday, where she sought to toss some red meat to the Republican audience.
“Everybody know about Dylan Mulvaney? Bud Light?” she said, according to reporter David Weigel. “That is a guy, dressed as a girl, making fun of women.”
This would have played well on right-wing social media, no doubt. But in the room she got nothing but crickets. This is not an animating fight for all Republicans, much less most Americans.