Taplines: Bud Light’s GamerGate Gauntlet, Explained
Grievance politics, a.k.a. the politics of resentment, is the practice of mobilizing people into offering backlash based on shared anger about something new. It’s proven to be a powerful bulwark against social progress in this country. How powerful? Just ask Anheuser-Busch InBev.
The infamous Bud Light fiasco of 2023 was a genuine phenomenon — not only to the American beer business but to the entire world of consumer-facing commerce. There are many ways of understanding what went down, but the cohesive explanation for the sh*t show Bud Light stumbled into is greater than the sum of its parts. In short, Bud Light got rolled by conservative transphobic grievance politics. And frankly, they should’ve seen it coming.
On this episode of “Taplines,” Dave Infante is joined by journalist Charlie Warzel for a wide-ranging, cross-discipline discussion about how the “GamerGate” style of online grievance politics has become the dominant format for conservative backlash today. The two discuss why it works so well, and why companies like AB InBev — with all the resources in the world and a decade to learn how to brace against bad-faith attacks — keep falling for it. Tune in for more.
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