'#BoycottHersheys' Trends After Candy Bar Features Trans Woman For Women's History Month
Somehow, Palpatine raging culture wars over who gets put on a candy bar wrapper have returned.
Less than a month after the seemingly endless M&Ms Spokescandies "scandal" wrapped up unceremoniously with a confusing Super Bowl ad, moral outrage has redirected from Mars to Hershey's after the Canadian division of the chocolate company featured trans, 2SLGBTQIA+ activist Fae Johnstone on the wrappers of a limited run of chocolate bars in celebration of Women's History Month.
For those unaware, "2S" stands for "Two Spirit," which is how indigenous gay, queer and transgender people identify.
The chocolate's out of the wrapper! Honoured to be featured in this campaign by @Hersheys Canada for #InternationalWomensDay alongside 4 brilliant sisters and change-makers. https://t.co/0s9uh8MvHv pic.twitter.com/jdXNJfcZmo
— Fae Johnstone, MSW (@FaeJohnstone) March 1, 2023
Johnstone joins four other women as the subjects of Hershey's Women's History Month campaign: "Rita Audi, gender equality and education activist; Naila Moloo, climate technology researcher; Autumn Peltier, Indigenous Rights & Water Activist; and Kélicia Massala, founder of Girl Up Québec."
Johnstone's inclusion in the campaign riled up some conservatives and TERFs, many of whom misgendered Johnstone while criticizing the company for featuring a transgender woman in their campaign. The hashtags #BoycottHersheys and #GoWokeGoBroke trended as people began voicing extreme opinions on the candy and its decision making.
One criticism of Johnstone that went beyond transphobic language saw people dig through her previous tweets and discover a post in which she said she hoped for a day when TERFs were "so vilified they don't dare speak their views publicly, let alone act on them."
Others who were less ideologically riled up one way or the other by Johnstone's spokeswoman run expressed that Hershey's has committed far greater "sins" than highlighting a trans woman during Women's History Month.
In 2021, Mars, Nestlé and Hershey were hit with a lawsuit accusing the companies of using child slavery on cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast. Those aware of that controversy felt that people getting mad ad Hershey's for putting a trans woman on their candy wrappers did not have their priorities in order.
For Johnstone's part, she has yet to engage with the controversy, instead retweeting messages of support and expressing that she hopes she can be a role model to transgender youth.
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SSmotzer
Sir, it's a rectangle of chocolate.
MCC1701
WUT?
Nukegirl
Conservatives are desperately trying to keep up with the left after the Hogwarts Legacy fiasco, I see.
It would be a shame to fall behind in the race to be the dumbest.
Gumshoe
Conservatives were already way ahead on this stuff. They're way more organised and have a much stronger media apparatus to drum up stink over completely inane shit. They're also kind of on the losing side of most cultural battles, so they have way more fights they get to pick.
Spaztastic Man
Lot of good exposure for the trans community this week.
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Cringe: boycotting Hershey's to own the libs
Based: boycotting Hershey's because it's bad for you and tastes like literal vomit
Nox Lucis
I never picked up on the vomit per se, but I always felt it had an oddly waxen aspect to its taste, like eating crayons.
MCC1701
There is a peanutbutter cup I think was carried by walmart under their own label for years then picked up by a conglomerate of "local" grocery stores all owned by the same parent company: Randalls, Safeway, Albertsons, etc.
I can't tell if there's a nostalgia factor as I just rediscovered them last year, and they are pricey compared to Reeces, but they completely blow Hershey's out of the water, plus they don't have foil around EVERY piece so eating them is much more pleasant.
I don't really have anything to say about the boycott, I just like to share delicious chocolate.
DonKonga
You can dislike them for their inhumane business practices and the methods they use to distract from their inhumane business practices.
Nukegirl
I don't think this Abigail Shrier person would've ranted about companies "always having despised" "real women" if she cared at all about Hershey's actual wrongdoings – or at least more about them than at the fact that they accept a person in spite of her pursuing her own happiness.
Hell, I'd almost be surprised if she could even foresee that this was a smokescreen.
Gumshoe
This isn't a "distraction" though. None of these things are. Nobody was talking about other stuff Hershey's was doing before this, so the idea that they needed to be distracted away by something else makes no sense.
Also, that Abigail Shrier person clearly has no qualm with any human rights abuses by Hershey's. That's not her problem at all, and she's not mad that they're trying to "distract" from it. She's mad because they put a trans person in an ad, because the hates trans women and thinks they should not ever be recongised or treated as women. That's really it. If there wasn't a trans person in the ad, she wouldn't have talked or thought about them at all.
Görktürks are furries
Exactly. I don't understand why people are acting like you can't dislike a company for more than one reason.
Rhettorical
Don't mind me, I'm just here before the comments get locked.
postpizzapocalypse
either boycott it to show corporations that they shouldn't try and hijack a movement for brownie points
or boycott it because you don't believe in supporting [EXPLETIVE REDACTED]
Excitebot theLEGO
Imagine getting mad over vomit-flavored candy.
…That's not a joke by the way.
postpizzapocalypse
I always wondered why I didn't like chocalate and was always confused why people were so hyped about it
Nox Lucis
Huh. I always wondered why imported chocolates taste so much better.
Görktürks are furries
This is just some dumb meme pushed by shitposters on /int/. They even vandalized the wiki article to back it up. In reality, the butyric acid doesn't give it the taste of vomit but, rather, parmesan. So still gross by most standards, just not literal vomit-tier stuff.
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Phhase
….truly.