Breitbart is declaring a war on advertisers after various companies announced they’re jumping ship over the outlet’s controversial content, the Hollywood Reporter reports.
On Tuesday, Kellogg announced that it would no longer advertise with Breitbart since the site has come under fire for its racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic commentary.
Kellogg is far from the only company to withdraw advertising from Breitbart, but it seems the Kellogg withdrawal really got up their collective nose.
Breitbart and some of its right-wing audience are now declaring a war on advertisers who are dropping the site. The site’s CEO Larry Solov said, “We’ll handle this the way we always do — war.”
Solov added, “What you’re seeing is Kellogg’s and others buying into a false, left-wing narrative that our 45 million readers are deplorables … Our readers are mainstream America and, frankly, that’s who these advertisers risk alienating. They’re creating economic censorship of conservative discourse. They say we don’t represent their values — but we represent American values.”
Mm hmmm. I’m American, and I can say with no uncertainty, you do not in any way represent my values. If you want to say you represent white supremacist American values, fine, can’t argue that one, but you don’t get to speak for every single person in this country. Not yet, anyway.
At least one blogger seemed to agree with Solov’s assessment. John Hinderaker wrote for PowerLineBlog.com that Frosted Flakes should be boycotted — much like Hamilton and Starbucks.
Hinderaker wrote, “I am not generally a fan of boycotts, but this, like so much else in our civic life, has been a one-way street. Executives at companies like Kellogg need to understand that ours is not a one-party state.”
No, American is not a one-party country. What you seem to miss is that freedom, and choice, is not a one way deal. No one ever gets as whiny and starts stamping their little feet like conservatives, when they are reminded that freedom of speech, choice, and freedom of action is not theirs alone – people who disagree with them get those things, too. Oh, they love their free speech until someone dares to criticize them, and then it’s awful, and those critics should be made to shut up. It’s all tears and war and threats whenever anyone dares to disagree:
He added, “A final observation: most cereal like Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops is consumed by children. Who has more children, liberals or conservatives? Right. Kellogg might want to start looking for a new CEO.”
People with a whole herd of sproggen already tend to buy the knock-offs of popular cereals, and as many conservatives embody the quality of the finest skinflints, I expect many of them do the same. People who have a smaller amount of children probably find it easier to indulge their sproggen with preferred brands in smaller boxes. Anyroad, I doubt this will be as simple a matter as you like. People can be oddly dedicated to breakfast cereals. As for Starbucks, you’re boycotting now? Really. Huh, last time I looked, droves of Trumpoids were buying at Starbucks, having the brilliant idear of giving their name as “Trump”, declaring that some sort of glorious victory over us lefties.
Perhaps they should add Apple to the list of companies to boycott, since the App Store officially removed the Breitbart News app last week.
:Laughs: That’s a splendid idea! All you cons, toss all your iPods, smartphones, and lovely Macs into the trash. Go on now, you know you can do without.
Via Raw Story.
“We’ll handle this the way we always do — war.”
Presented without comment.
Joe Strummer summed summed up the alt-rights attitude to Free Speech
“You have the right to free speech…unless you are dumb enough to actually TRY IT”
So they’re declaring war on their actual customers? The people who pay their bills?
I’m not sure I see a downside to this…
AndrewD:
I have joined with others in the resistance in refusing to go along with the attempt to re-brand white supremacy as “alt-right”. It’s white supremacists and white supremacy, or plain old racists if you prefer.
Perhaps the white supremacists should use the Corporate Equality Index as a guide for which companies not to support. ( http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/corporate-equality-index ) I know it is primarily about LGBTQ equality, but it would serve as a good general reference. That way, they could move into their caves or bunkers and never interact with the rest of the world again. WIN-WIN!!!
That’S sadly not a contradiction.
Also, sounds like the people at Breitbart think they are entitled to companies giving them free money….
Giliell:
Definitely a whiny white racist’s value.
This article is either from the early nineteenth century …
… or these advertisers are really slow on the uptake. Wow.
Or perhaps they didn’t mind as much until this kind of ‘commentary’ moved back into the limelight and people started paying a bit more attention. One must always maintain the highest standards, at least while someone else is looking.
Komarov, there was a statement by Kellogg at the article:
I suspect the bolded part is what’s important. The advertising people at Kellogg’s likely were completely aware of where and how they were advertising, but they did the math and decided it was bad PR when some of their regular customers noticed they were advertising on right wing sites like Breitbart.
That’s one of the more amusing (IMO) side effects of being a liberal. Less of us tend to live in the bubble like the right wing, and actually like to occasionally go see what the right wing is actually saying, and not get all our news filtered through left wing sites/sources.
CC:
I don’t really think it matters. I’m sure the advertising is a nightmare snarl; I wouldn’t want to track it. Anyroad, what does matter is that there are companies who are willing to make a stand. Not enough of them, by a longshot, which makes the ones that do even more important.
The Hollywood Reporter article had listed the other companies who jumped off the Breitbart ship, and I’d really like to see that list expanded. For all their blustering about war, there isn’t all that much they can do about companies who decided to spurn advertising there.
I don’t disagree. Much like Starbucks, I’m glad to see these companies make very public stands like this.
I don’t do TV anymore, but I just saw on Twitter that SyFy advertises on Breitbart.
@4, Caine
White supremacists are a major part of the alt-right*, but it is worth noting that the various scumsucking assholes making up that group also come from other bigotries, and just using the term “white supremacist” tends to obscure that. The male supremacists, straight supremacists, and cis supremacists could stand to be pointed out more, and while pretty much all of them are also white supremacists there’s plenty who have one of the others as their focus.
*A term that does need replacement with something.
Knabb @ 14, yes, one could go on and on and on about the various intricacies of bigots, but I won’t do. The attempt to re-brand white supremacy as “alt-right” is well documented, and I refuse to go along with it.
There’s a specific, concerted effort to resist the normalization:
https://proxy.freethought.online/affinity/2016/11/28/tech-stop-normalizing-alt-right/
https://thinkprogress.org/thinkprogress-alt-right-policy-b04fd141d8d4#.vfue7nfwh
I’m not saying that the term “alt-right” should be used, just that white supremacist isn’t a complete substitute, and that the other bigotries these exact same people hold to so dearly also need to stop being normalized. Thinkprogress shied away from neonazi and didn’t even mention neofascist or fascist, but those terms and those like them are arguably worth mixing in.
I favor the term “alt-reich” as a replacement for the term ‘alt-right’. Seems like a suitable umbrella term for all the various bigotries those arseholes revel in.