Part of the ritual of the Super Bowl is the analysis of the adverts shown during the game, when US television networks use the large audience numbers to charge astronomical sums for commercial slots.
This year, during the first Super Bowl of Donald Trump’s presidency, the US brewery Anheuser-Busch used its slot to send a pro-immigration message to the nation.
The advert, Born the Hard Way, portrays a fictionalised version of the journey of Adolphus Busch to the US, where he would go on to help create Budweiser beer with fellow immigrant Eberhard Anheuser.
Trump supporters on social media were furious when the advert was launched before the game, vowing not to drink the beer again.
Never drinking @Budweiser you should respect the AMERICAN president instead you mock with liberal propaganda #boycottbudweiser
— lilojuicy (@lilojuicy) February 5, 2017
@Budweiser @GoingCrazyMomma screw Budweiser. You should have learned from the response you got with Amy Schumer. No LEFTY political BS.
— 🇺🇸Delta MIKE Echo (@MetalMilitia74) January 31, 2017
This, in turn, prompted other social media users to describe critics of the advert as “snowflakes”, the term of derision typically used against students and leftwingers that has gained currency online among the “alt-right”.
The people who spent the last 18 months mocking extreme sensitivity in our culture are mad at a beer commercial pic.twitter.com/x4Hn0AQXCA
— Hippo (@InternetHippo) February 5, 2017
I support your right to be a snowflake who boycotts a product over an ad, but at least spell "Budweiser" correctly. #boycottbudwiser pic.twitter.com/I0MBPXKzXL
— Jun C (@jun_julyaugust) February 6, 2017
Apparently with enough pro-immigrant brand ads, we can reduce the alt-right to living off squirrel meat & pond water #BoycottBudweiser
— DanG (@WriterDanG) February 5, 2017
For some, the idea of boycotting beer on the biggest US sporting day of the year was practically un-American.
So people want to #BoycottBudweiser for airing a benign pro-immigrant ad? You really have to hate foreigners to give up beer on #Superbowl
— Bryan Behar (@bryanbehar) February 6, 2017
And for others, the apparent seriousness with which people were trying to fact-check the story of Busch’s arrival in St Louis was cause for hilarity.
Wait, wait, wait... People are seriously fact checking a Budweiser ad? 😂 At first I thought it was a joke, but I think people are serious. pic.twitter.com/TbXTP9RPXY
— Marybeth Glenn (@MBGlenn) February 6, 2017
For the record, William Knoedelseder, who has written a book about the brewery, told Slate: “What’s true is, yeah, there was a guy named Adolphus Busch. He did land in New Orleans and come up the river to St Louis, and there was a guy named Eberhard Anheuser that he became partners with. But the rest of it, as far as I know, is just fanciful.”
Trump supporters have recently targeted Kelloggs with the #DumpKelloggs hashtag after the cereal company, along with around 800 other firms, pulled advertising from the Breitbart website.
There were plenty of other people also advocating a boycott of the Budweiser brand – but solely because of the quality of the beer, not the politics of their adverts.
Don't boycott Budweiser because it is foreign owned and made an anti-Trump ad, boycott them because it taste like skunk piss.
— MichaelKeyes (@michaelkeyes) February 6, 2017
Budweiser was not alone in taking the opportunity to troll Trump during the Super Bowl, with Airbnb, Audi and Coca-Cola all airing adverts that promoted equality, diversity and tolerance.
