Winners, Losers & Embarrassments
It’s Monday.
That means a return to the land of the living.
If you’re like the majority of sports consuming Americans, you’re licking your betting wounds & furiously playing catch-up on the “happenings” in the world so you don’t look ignorant at work. The others are thirsty-ass men & women with minimal game, in need of constant affirmation. And after having attended Coachella this past weekend, are now dying to have any reason to casually brag to the cute girl in the office about rubbing elbows with 1/10 of the cast of “Vanderpump Rules”. They’ll ask “did you do anything fun this weekend”, begrudgingly knowing it wasn’t them.
Yes, I said it. Sorry I’m not sorry.
I’m not in the business of lying. The moment women stop craving attention inside & out of the workplace is the moment I’ll pull this post. And the moment men stop being hypnotized by yoga pants, is the moment I turn in my press creds.
For you easily triggered, this hurts to hear. Let me ease your fragile little tushies:
“What an insensitive take. I’ll quietly scold myself in a safe space of my choosing.”
There. I publicly denounced it. Give me an award for being so virtuous & stand-up.
Now, back to reality….
“Weekend Recaps” are one of the few things Americans look forward to on Mondays. With all the madness happening in the world, sometimes it’s nice to NOT focus on how far America has slipped in the world rankings (one spot is one spot too many. Thanks, Chiden). So, while I’m still fuming mad from PHX losing Game 1 at home to LAC (predictable), I’ll try to keep it light-ish as I unveil the “Weekend Winners, Losers, & Embarrassments”
First, we have WEEKEND WINNERS:
The DC Defenders of the XFL.
Vince McMahon’s second stab at a farm-system football league has seen clear results, no more apparent than in the nation’s capital yesterday when the DC Defenders hosted the Arlington Defenders to a sellout crowd.
We aren’t talking about an opening weekend matchup, either (when withdrawaling NFL fans are chaotically scrambling for more football after the Super Bowl). They did this Week 9 of the XFL.
Somehow, the DC Defenders have tapped into a fan base hungry to celebrate something good. If you would’ve told me after last season’s showing that any USFL or XFL football team would have a sell-out crowd in any game this year, I would’ve bet the farm against that.
And I’d be homeless.
WEEKEND LOSERS:
The Miluwaukee Bucks (MIL), Phoenix Suns (PHX), Cleveland Cavaliers (CLE), and the Memphis Grizzlies (MEM).
All of these teams dropped their first playoff game at home this weekend. Some of them were a shock (MIA@MIL), and some of them were predictable (LAC@PHX).
Sharp money would say that all of these teams will pick up Game 2. Except maybe the Suns. Arizona teams have the worst fans, in part because our teams ALWAYS CHOKE. The other part is the fact that there is too much potential screwing & peacocking happening at all times. Sex sells.
Fun fact: PHX has the longest championship drought in the NBA with ZERO chips. The Arizona Cardinals have the longest championship drought in ALL OF SPORTS. Honestly, I am more upset about the Suns because they’ve been a good franchise for a long time (minus the back-end of the “Sarver Years”). The Cardinals…..not so much.
WEEKEND EMBARRASSMENTS:
#1. Anybody over the age of 30 who continuously goes to Coachella.
Just stop.
I get that it’s a status symbol for famous people & those desperate to be affirmed, but don’t be that guy. Once is perfectly fine. You’ve never been & want to experience the hype. Unfortunately, if New Year’s Eve had a music festival….
Your second trip is a redo. Your plan is to atone for all the mistakes you made the year before. Problem is, you cut the head off one old mistake, two new pop-up in their place. Your third trip is supposed to be your coming out party, undoubtedly taking on a more leadership role in the event planning. You’re a veteran now, & know exactly what it takes to optimize your group’s entertainment efficiency. You know when to go to which concerts for good viewing pleasure. You know where to score the coke for your drinkers & low-level influencers, and you know where to find the hallucinogenes for the mystics in your crew. Minus a few snags, the trip is a great success. Problem is, that’s as good as it gets. You’ll be chasing the proverbial “dragon” to replicate your good times for the rest of time. It’s the equivalent of +24 yr old college graduates going on Spring Break. Every year, you get older, and you become that much lamer.
Eventually, you age out. Like a foster home or orphanage. You are no longer welcome. And that’s how it should be. Leave the new experiences for the kiddos. Don’t be Kendall Jenner on her 18th Coachella trying her hardest to get over a break-up with Devin Booker by enlisting his stunt double as her chaperone. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but even Leo DiCaprio (the king of smashing girls 20 years his junior) should have an expiration date on his Coachella VIP passes.
#2. Bud Light:
By now, we have all heard the name of that trollop, Dylan Mulvaney. If you haven’t, DM is your standard trans-female who plays daily dress-up in order to act out her favorite “teenage valley girl” stereotypes. I thought feminists were fighting against those offensive characteristics being normalized. Personally, I could give two shits. You do you, babe.
Here’s the controversy:
Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, Harvard grad & Club groupie Alissa Heinerscheid, decided the keg beer’s image was “too fratty” & “out of touch” with their drinkers. To remedy this problem, she looked to enlist an LGBTQIAR2S+- celebrity to galvanize the base of the “real consumers” of Bud Light:
Trans-women.
Unfortunately, what Weinerscheid didn’t forecast was the absolute backlash by ACTUAL Bud Light drinkers:
Straight, white males.
The reality is, the average American is tired of being inundated by whatever fad issue is trending on Twitter for the month. They’re tired of media & entertainment companies teaming up with social justice warriors (SJWs) to virtue-signal to the rest of us how much better they are (based on them sewing “Black Lives Matter” patches onto their clothing or using rainbow emojis in their social media bios.
The reality is, Americans are over it. And they said so with their pocketbooks.
Bud Light has taken a $5B hit – that’s BILLION with a “B”- since their ad campaign dropped two weeks ago (plastering DM’s face on their famous blue can, celebrating her “Year of Transformation” from a boy to “girl”). Since then, board members are no longer able to ignore this out-of-touch branding.
Oh, the irony.
We are starting to see financial backlashes surface more & more, as a result. It is no secret that the only thing politicians & big-wigs understand is money (especially when it disappears overnight). Some companies, like streaming service “Netflix”, don’t kowtow to the obnoxious professional activists who spend their days picketing outside whichever office from whatever company has “triggered” them that week. They tried to cancel Dave Chappelle after his stand-up special where he joked about the trans community, but it didn’t take. He’s a cash cow for Netflix.
Why didn’t the boycott of Netflix work? If the trans community was in the majority for support, then shouldn’t they have been able to crater Netflix’s stock?
Oh that’s right. They’re not, and it didn’t.
Prediction: This trend will continue. Jack Daniels is next. Companies whose consumers are straight white males 18-55 years of age, who try and plaster their support for the more extreme of fad causes on all of their products, will only be met with a deficit on their earnings sheet. Most people don’t care if any of the 105 genders (and growing) want to play “Pretty Pretty Princess”. They don’t take them seriously, which is partly why they cry louder. As long as the consumer doesn’t have these causes shoved down their throat, they tend to ignore whatever stance particular companies are taking.
But similar to the NHL, once media/entertainment companies start mandating their staff/players wear “Pride Night” jerseys & other LGBT(I’ve lost track) apparel, whose beliefs don’t align with the affluent white liberal female demographic, you’re going to see citizens (and consumers) scale back their support & purchasing for these organizations & their products.
I’m not trying to take potshots at the trans-community, either. I get how my rhetoric looks, and it’s offensive to the brittle-minded. As long as you’re an adult (and you leave children out of it), you do you. I judge people based on their character. Like a dog, I watch what people do, not what they say. I’m merely pointing out the embarrassment in business logic Bud Light subscribed to when they saddled up Nancy Drew and her inclusivity campaign.
If you’re a company looking to profit, let me help you out. Here’s a little marketing tip:
Keep your loyal consumers happy. Don’t rebrand shitting on those loyal consumers.
It’s Business 101. At least it was.
That being said, Jack Daniels is next.
Write that down.