Bud Light 'crybabies' billboard is fake
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on April 26, 2023 at 17:29
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"Bud Light doubles down and TAUNTS their customer base for BOYCOTTING them," says an April 21, 2023 tweet from far-right radio host Stew Peters, who has previously promoted conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines, the Ukraine war and other topics.
Photos and videos of the same supposed billboard spread across Twitter and other platforms, shared by some accounts that objected to the message and others that reveled in it.
"Bud Light for the win," says an April 21 tweet shared thousands of times.
"Gotta say, I'm a fan of the new Bud Light billboards," says another.
The claims follow efforts from US conservatives to boycott Bud Light after the beer brand partnered with Dylan Mulvaney, an American actress, social media personality and transgender rights advocate known for chronicling her gender transition on TikTok.
In an April 1 Instagram post, Mulvaney promoted a $15,000 giveaway and showed a Bud Light can with her face on it, which she said was a gift to celebrate her "day 365 of womanhood."
Backlash to the partnership has inspired a series of false posts in English and Spanish. The supposed Bud Light billboard is the latest iteration of that trend.
The owner of the sign, Branded Cities, told AFP the image circulating online "is not a genuine advertisement." The company's name is visible in an orange box in the lower right-hand corner.
"The billboard images have been manipulated and altered from their original form," said Toby Sturek, president of Branded Cities, in an April 24 email.
AFP geolocated the sign to Toronto, Canada by searching the name of the restaurant beneath it, Gyro Bar! Souvlaki Kitchen.
The actual billboard promotes the Disney+ subscription streaming service. Sturek shared an April 21 photo of the sign with AFP.
A Twitter user supposedly from the area posted a similar picture on April 21.
Some posts sharing the fake billboard described it as satire. The video appears to have originated April 20 on TikTok, where it gained more than 6.3 million views.
AFP reached out to the TikTok user -- who has posted other manipulated content -- for comment, but no response was forthcoming.
AFP also contacted Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light's parent company, but did not receive a response about the billboard.
The company's CEO, Brendan Whitworth, issued a statement April 14 saying: "We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people."
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