Outrage doom loop ensnares Americans
Circus showman P.T. Barnum famously said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Plenty of public relations professionals disagree, but if there is any truth to Barnum’s statement, then a now-controversial restaurant is enjoying an embarrassment of riches. However, instead of proving there is no bad publicity, this demonstrates that a lot of people need to grow up and worry about more important matters.
The outcry centers around Cracker Barrel updating its logo. “The chain replaced its longtime logo, featuring a man in overalls leaning against a barrel, with a streamlined version featuring just the chain’s name,” wrote the Wall Street Journal. “The move engulfed the restaurant in a culture-war firestorm, with commentators online and some customers accusing Cracker Barrel of eschewing its country charm and heritage for a sanitized image.”
The redesign was admittedly underwhelming. I prefer the previous country-styled design, but I really don’t care that much. Cracker Barrel can do whatever it wants. Companies update their logos regularly to keep things fresh, and that seems to be the case here. There’s no evidence of any malicious intent.
Despite this reality, the change has especially offended conservatives who have labeled this some sort of unreasonable woke makeover that must be reversed. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a message, reading: “Cracker Barrel’s new logo isn’t an accident — it’s CEO Julie Felss Masino’s project. She scrapped a beloved American aesthetic and replaced it with sterile, soulless branding […] She should resign and be replaced with leadership that will restore Cracker Barrel’s tradition.”
Meanwhile, actor James Woods complained, “Cracker Barrel was the only place I’d ever stop. No mob fights, a fun corny atmosphere, and delicious food when you’re hungry and tired. I’ll never stop foot in one again.”
I honestly didn’t know that so many conservatives had such a strong attachment to men in overalls, but the anger is palpable. “The fallout has shaved tens of millions of dollars from the public company’s market value [and] spawned calls for boycotts,” the Wall Street Journal continued.
In short order, Cracker Barrel reversed its logo decision thanks to the conservative outcry. Meanwhile, liberals rightly saw no reason to be particularly upset over this makeover, but before you crown them the voice of reason, they have also expressed outrage over advertising.
Many of them went into full meltdown over an American Eagle ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. If that sentence doesn’t mean anything to you, then don’t feel bad. I didn’t know American Eagle was still in operation and had no idea who Sweeney was until recently. That aside, American Eagle’s advertisement shows Sweeney—a blonde haired, blue-eyed young woman—wearing a denim jacket and jeans. The advertisement is titled “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” and she is promoting—you guessed it—jeans. The obvious wordplay subsequently offended the online liberal mob.
Before this, conservatives were once again up in arms over an advertisement. In 2023, Bud Lite partnered with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney and sponsored an Instagram post. The backlash against Bud Lite for partnering with a transgender person was swift and fierce. “Conservative politicians including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized the company. People posted videos of themselves pouring out the beer, and Kid Rock posted one showing him shooting cases of Bud Light with a gun,” NPR noted.
Conservatives boycotted the beer company in droves, which proved effective. “Bud Light, an Anheuser-Busch brand, had been America’s best-selling beer for more than two decades. But following outcry from the right over Mulvaney’s sponsored video, Bud Light has fallen to second place behind Modelo Especial,” NPR reported in 2023.
I guess not all publicity is great for sales, but what does this say about Americans? I’d venture to say that outrage culture is becoming ingrained across the political spectrum, keyboard warriors labor to find ways to be offended, and people increasingly have a juvenile worldview: If they are mildly offended by anything, then they kick and scream and demand companies that service millions of people conform to their personal views. It’s an outrage doom loop that plays out with regularity on both sides of the political aisle.
By all means, shop wherever you want and boycott whoever you want, but I think being angered by relatively trivial matters might make you lose sight of more important issues. There’s a war in Europe, Israel and Gaza are still at odds, the United States is so far in debt that our future is imperiled, elections are looming, and so forth. Yet advertisements and logos continue to dominate Americans’ attentions.
If P.T. Barnum were still alive, I think he’d be less interested over whether all publicity is good publicity. He’d instead attempt to figure out how large segments of American society have devolved into the kind of circuses he used to promote.