Peg the Pepsi protest ad as something that seemed like a good idea at the time. The ad starts at a protest with a relentlessly multi-ethnic makeup that seems more exuberant than angry. Then Kendell Jenner, supermodel, emerges from the crowd and approaches the line of police officers. She hands one of the officers an ice cold Pepsi. The officer takes a sip and smiles in appreciation. The crowd roars with delight at this example of a Soft Drink bridging the political divide and showing our common humanity. Naturally, as Hot Air points out, the social justice Warrior crowd went incandescent with rage.
Pepsi has taken the ad down, but we have a YouTube copy below for however long it remains.
For most people, the ad likely seemed to be on the same level of the famous “Hilltop ad” that ran in the early 70s that featured a host of young people singing the virtues of coca cola that the show “Mad Men” suggested was the brainchild of Don Draper. The Pepsi ad had a lot enthusiastic young people, including a hot super model. It had the product. It had feelings of reaching out in friendship as Kendell hands a can to a cop.
The problem is that the sort of people who turn out to Protest these days lack any sense of joy whatsoever. Whether the protestors are Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, or whatever, they are consumed with white hot rage about everything and everybody.
A reason exists that “triggering” is a thing. The social justice crowd is always being triggered by something. A harmless soft drink ad that shows a demonstrable lack of wakefulness is just the latest trigger.
The SJWs are not just mad that their movement is being appropriated (another modern term with a new meaning) to sell soft drinks.
They are angry that it shows people having fun while dancing and yelling in the streets. Public protest is not about having a good time and celebration. Public protest is about burning it all down. One does not pause for a refreshing cold soft drink when confronting the Man, especially the Orange Haired Overlord.
