Brad's Wife

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Part of a series on Trolling / Troll. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Brad's Wife refers to the massive trolling of the social media accounts for American casual-dining chain Cracker Barrel after a man named Brad wrote a post on the Cracker Barrel Facebook page asking why his wife, Nanette, had been fired. It was later discovered that his wife had worked there for 11 years, and as the story spread, it was falsely understood that she was fired on his birthday. The spread lead to massive, semi-sincere support of Brad and his wife.

Background

On February 27th, 2017, Bradley Reid Byrd announced on his personal Facebook page that his wife, Nanette, had been fired.^[9] His post reads:

"To say I'm pissed off would be an understatement. After 11 years, those low lifes at Cracker Barrel let my wife go. I would really like to know why and those of you who know me these days, know that I WILL find out. In the mean time, if any of you would like to know also, please go to their Facebook page and ask them. I would really appreciate it. Their half assed excuse was that she wasn't working out. After 11 YEARS? Come on. This old boy is STORMING!!!! You can't even get people to work 40 hours these days and her AVERAGE week was 50 to 60. Needless to say, we WILL be seeing an attorney soon. If anybody knows a good labor attorney, please let me know. Thank you. I'd better quit now before I go too far. By the way. The low life who fired her was Gwen Alexander."

On March 8th, 2017, Byrd posted a a comment to the Facebook page of Cracker Barrel saying "Today is my birthday. Why did you fire my wife?"^[1] On March 14th, 2017,^[2] he posted another comment on the Facebook page of Cracker Barrel asking "Why did you fire my wife?" While that original post is inaccessible, a screenshot is shown below.

Developments

After the second post, Byrd received support from fellow commenters who also wanted answers. A few commenters began responding to every Cracker Barrel post demanding justice for Brad's Wife.

Over the course of the next week, more commenters began responding to Cracker Barrel updates with jokes and wordplay that would turn every update into a query about Byrd's wife. The ordeal went viral on March 22nd following a Facebook post by comedian Amiri King^[3] that outlined the situation with dozens of screenshots of people trolling the Cracker Barrel Facebook page. That post gained over 34,000 likes and reactions and was shared over 76,000 times. This led to coverage from People Magazine,^[4] The Mirror,^[10] The Washington Post^[11] Inc.com,^[12] Fortune,^[13] The Daily Mail,^[14] Snopes,^[15] Inquisitr,^[5] BoredPanda,^[6] an /r/OutOfTheLoop^[7] inquiry, and more. It also led to jokes about Brad's Wife and Cracker Barrel gaining thousands of likes in their Facebook page comments. A Change.org^[8] petition demanding justice for Brad's wife has nearly 10,000 signatures at the time of posting.

#JusticeForBradsWife

The hashtag #justiceforbradswife is often seen accompanying many post dating back to as far as the first few weeks. Other accompanying hashtags often include #elevenyears and #BradsWifeMatters, while others retort with #SheDeservedIt or #FindAnotherJob.