Doritos Facing Boycott for Partnering with Trans Influencer
Doritos could face a boycott for partnering with a trans influencer who penned social media posts mocking rape victims and sexualizing minors.
The company that makes Doritos is facing calls for a boycott after the brand aligned with a transgender influencer with a history of problematic social media posts.
Doritos partnered with Samantha Hudson, a transgender singer, actor, and political activist from Spain with 370,000 Instagram followers, for a social media campaign promoting the brand, releasing an Instagram video on Sunday.
But the campaign was soon interrupted after conservative and anti-LGBTQ online activists unearthed social media posts that the now-24-year-old Hudson had written as a 15-year-old or 16-year-old back in 2015.
In those posts, Hudson mocked rape victims and posted about wanting to do “depraved things” to “a 12-year-old girl,” according to a report from Rolling Stone.
Hudson later apologized for her statements, calling them “barbarities” and a form of “dark humor.” Even though the posts appear to have been deleted, screenshots continue circulating online.
Doritos later deleted the Instagram video after Hudson’s posts were uncovered. It also released a statement condemning the posts, which critics say encouraged gender-based violence and pedophilia.
Doritos, a product of Frito-Lay, which is owned by American food giant PepsiCo, also confirmed that it had ended its partnership with Hudson, reports the BBC.
“After the campaign started, we were made aware of Samantha’s deleted tweets from around 2015,” the company said in a statement. “We strongly condemn words or actions that promote violence, or sexism of any kind.”
Right-wing and anti-LGBTQ activists took umbrage at both the decision to partner with a transgender influencer and the objectionable content of Hudson’s posts, raising the issue of boycotting not just Doritos but all products produced by Frito-Lay and PepsiCo.
Calls for a boycott were particularly strong in the United States, although some Spanish conservatives lambasted PepsiCo over the controversy.
“You should know that if you buy any of these products, you will be financing people like Samantha Hudson,” Arturo Villa, a Spanish political analyst wrote in a post on X with a picture of various PepsiCo food products.
“I love Doritos. But I cannot accept the fact that they endorse and promote such degeneracy. It’s boycott time,” wrote one user.
I love Doritos. But I cannot accept the fact that they endorse and promote such degeneracy. It's boycott time pic.twitter.com/7VXkTzmcyM
— Daily Dose of Libs (@Daily_Dose_LIBS) March 4, 2024
“Wow. Besides being absolutely horrible for your health, here’s another reason to boycott @Doritos,” wrote another user.
Wow. Besides being absolutely horrible for your health, here’s another reason to boycott @Doritos https://t.co/J06yWQ0DZk
— BoJo22🇺🇸 (@jo22bo) March 4, 2024
Jenna Ellis, a former advisor to former President Donald Trump who served as part of his 2020 campaign’s legal team, blasted the company on X.
This is disgusting.
Give Doritos the Bud Light treatment. #BoycottDoritos https://t.co/1CDdgLFk9m
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) March 5, 2024
“This is disgusting. Give Doritos the Bud Light treatment,” Ellis wrote, referring to the successful U.S. boycott of Bud Light for partnering with another transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, last year.
Although there were no reports of offensive conduct concerning Mulvaney, conservative and anti-transgender activists objected to Bud Light’s partnership with her for a social media campaign, arguing that the use of any transgender female spokesperson would not only give credence to the idea that a person’s gender identity can differ from their assigned sex at birth, but would serve as a mockery of women.
As such, they called on Americans to refuse to buy Bud Light, as well as other products distributed by Bud parent company Anheuser-Busch. After distancing itself from Mulvaney, the company also found itself being boycotted (informally) by left-wing activists, with some LGBTQ bars refusing to sell Bud Light for abandoning Mulvaney to fend for herself amid right-wing attacks.
As a result of the conservative-led boycott, Bud Light sales plunged and the once-popular beer brand lost its footing as the No. 1 beer in America. Recent analyses suggest that the company lost out on nearly $1.4 billion in lost sales.
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