And one time a candy company nailed it!
A year-end roundup is mandatory, right? So let’s dive right in.
- Anheuser-Busch CEO feels that transphobia is all-American!
Bud Light, a beer that tastes like why wouldn’t you just drink water, had been performing poorly for years when the company reached out to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on Instagram. Alissa Heinerscheid, the company’s vice president of marketing (NOT FOR LONG!), said she wanted to reverse the company’s marketplace slide. “I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light.’” She added, “Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, out-of-touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.” So, the brand, which generally goes undrunk by millennial women who, when they want a low-calorie beverage that tastes like toxic air, drink White Claw, did an Instagram video with Mulvaney. Conservatives went as wild as a cop smashing a car into a gay bar. Kid Rock, wearing a MAGA hat, shot up a case of Bud Light with a semiautomatic rifle, then told the camera, “Fuck Bud Light and Fuck Anheuser-Busch.” Mulvaney received rape threats, death threats, stalkers, and public abuse.
The company’s CEO, Brendan Whitworth, issued a weird statement that was widely labeled an apology.
“As the CEO of a company founded in America’s heartland more than 165 years ago, I am responsible for ensuring every consumer feels proud of the beer we brew. We’re honored to be part of the fabric of this country. Anheuser-Busch employs more than 18,000 people and our independent distributors employ an additional 47,000 valued colleagues. We have thousands of partners, millions of fans and a proud history supporting our communities, military, first responders, sports fans and hard-working Americans everywhere. We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer. My time serving this country taught me the importance of accountability and the values upon which America was founded: freedom, hard work and respect for one another. As CEO of Anheuser-Busch, I am focused on building and protecting our remarkable history and heritage. I care deeply about this country, this company, our brands and our partners. I spend much of my time traveling across America, listening to and learning from our customers, distributors and others. Moving forward, I will continue to work tirelessly to bring great beers to consumers.”
This says nothing. Despite the random use of the word “accountability,” it takes no stand at all, except for “Bad publicity is bad” and “Yay, America.” It doesn’t apologize to the conservative men who were furious that the brand worked with a trans woman. It doesn’t apologize to regular folks upset by the company’s refusal to acknowledge the transphobia unleashed by a single Instagram video. It doesn’t apologize to the universe for making a product so undrinkable that, if were Snarly trapped on a desert island with only a case of Bud Light and her own urine, who knows what might happen. And most importantly, it doesn’t apologize to Mulvaney. She never heard from the company again.
@dylanmulvaneyTrans people like beer too. 🏳️⚧️🍻♬ original sound – Dylan Mulvaney
Heinerscheid, the VP of marketing, also received threats. She and Daniel Blake, Anheuser-Busch’s senior VP of marketing for Budweiser, were both put on leave. Today, he still has his job; she does not. (Shocker.) As for Kid Rock, with his big compensatory pew-pew machine, he was selling Bud Light at his Nashville restaurant by July. He was photographed drinking Bud Light at a country-rap concert in August. And this month, he said he’d forgiven the brand. “Do I want to hold their head under water and drown them because they made a mistake?” he asked, hopefully rhetorically. “No, I think they got the message.” Indeed, we all did.
2. Fancy furniture CEO visits Pity City!
As the CEO of MillerKnoll, which makes expensive and covetable midcentury furniture, Andi Owen hosted a company-wide online town hall in April, urging staffers to do whatever they could to insure that the company met its earnings targets. When asked how employees could stay motivated if they didn’t receive bonuses, she responded with the corporate equivalent of “Ask not what the $7,995 Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman in obsidian leather and oiled walnut can do for you; ask what you can do for the $7,995 Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman in obsidian leather and oiled walnut.” She snapped, “’What are we going to do if we don’t get a bonus?’ Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need and not thinking about what you’re going to do if we don’t get a bonus. All right? Can I get some commitment for that?” She continued, “I had an old boss who said to me one time, ‘You can visit Pity City but you can’t live there.’ So people: Leave Pity City. Let’s get it done.” Owen responded to the very public blowback with an all-staff email. “I feel terrible that my rallying cry seemed insensitive. What I’d hoped would energize the team to meet a challenge we’ve met many times before landed in a way that I did not intend and for that I am sorry.” Why is this a terrible apology? Let’s look at our 6.5 step rubric. Owen doesn’t apologize for what she said; she apologized for how it was perceived. She blames the listener rather than taking responsibility. Her use of “seemed” rather than “was”; her use of “did not intend”; and the extremely limited parameters of what she says she’s sorry for (how her words “landed” rather than what she actually said) are all awful. She reminds me of TikTok’s “Corporate Erin.”
@lisabevolving #corporateerin #boycottstarbucks ♬ original sound – Lisa Beasley
- Ashton and Mila by the poolhouse with a letter-opener!
You’ve probably seen the Instagram video. After actor Danny Masterson was convicted of raping two women, his former costars Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis sent “character letters” to the judge; these letters are used to ask for leniency in sentencing. Kutcher and Kunis apologized, with somber faces and epic badness. So much sorry if-ing; so much passive voice; so much emphasis on INTENT rather than IMPACT (“we would never want to do that, and we’re sorry if that has taken place”). Saying “we support victims,” when the whole point of these letters was to support the perpetrator, is self-serving and disingenuous. The duo’s tortured syntax (“the pain that has been caused by the letters”) reflects their attempts at deflection. Also, saying, “Danny’s family asked us to write character letters” (as if it had been impossible to say no? as if it’s important to tell us that it wasn’t their idea?) and “[the letters] were intended for the judge to read” (subtext: JEEZ, you people weren’t supposed to know about them!) are ways of distancing themselves from their own conduct. Celebrities: If you can’t take responsibility for your actions, don’t apologize at all. Just don’t.
- Jimmy Fallon is embarrassed!
In a boffo Rolling Stone expose, 16 current and former employees of “The Tonight Show” described a nightmare work environment. They said that Fallon screamed at the staff, sometimes seemed drunk or hung over, was capricious and forgetful, and fostered a truly toxic workplace culture. It was so bad, the staff created a “cry room” where they could go to sob after an encounter with Jimmy. After the story came out, Fallon apologized to staff via Zoom, saying, “It’s embarrassing and I feel so bad. Sorry if I embarrassed you and your family and friends. I feel so bad I can’t even tell you.” He added that he never intended to “create that type of atmosphere for the show” and said, “I want the show to be fun, [it] should be inclusive to everybody. It should be the best show.”
Hi! I’m not a douche!
Need we say why that apology blows? Again, let’s go to the steps! There’s that “sorry if” again, and the fact that he makes it all about his feelings, his shame, his mortification, rather than how his behavior affected others (step 3). The issue isn’t that the staff were embarrassed; it’s that they were SCREAMED AT. He doesn’t explain the steps he’s taking to ensure that the bad behavior won’t happen again (step 5). He doesn’t make amends (step 6). And a Rolling Stone follow-up said that staffers are still distressed that Fallon hasn’t made a public apology. Public figures, when called out, need to apologize both publicly and privately. Otherwise, the effect is to convey that problems are simply being spackled over, glibly moved past, coated with something like, oh, a coat of brown greasepaint or something.
- Lauren Boebert is very gropey. Wait, no. She’s very SORRY.
In September, Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert was ejected from a touring production of the musical “Beetlejuice.” Her camp offered two apologies. The first, issued before there was extensive video evidence of what precisely transpired, was snarky bullshit. Her campaign manager offered the neener-neener,“I can confirm the stunning and salacious rumors: in her personal time, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is indeed a supporter of the performing arts (gasp!)” Boebert herself tweeted, “I plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud!” There was also a wee zinger wishing that the Biden administration would police the nation’s borders as capably as the local theater policed people having fun. Also, reports of vaping were fake news!
The second apology was issued after footage came to light showing Boebert repeatedly vaping, being rude to the pregnant woman seated behind her who asked her to stop vaping, giggling as her date kept groping her boobs, and reaching between the legs of her date FOR REASONS. She was also seen wagging her finger in the face of security officers, to whom she apparently offered a “don’t you know who I am?” followed by a threat to “call the mayor.” The second apology was less snarky, but just as bad.
“The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I’m truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community. While none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that. There’s no perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce, which over the past few months has made for a challenging personal time for me and my entire family. I’ve tried to handle it with strength and grace as best I can, but I simply fell short of my values on Sunday. That’s unacceptable and I’m sorry.”
Welcome to a show about death!
Again, this is all about HER feelings (sense a pattern with these celebrity apologies?), how the relentless news media have affected her (“the past few days have been difficult”), blaming her “public and difficult divorce” (so … it’s OUR fault! we’re the public!) and coming up with a creative excuse for initially lying about the vaping:
“Whether it was the excitement of seeing a much-anticipated production or the natural anxiety of being in a new environment, I genuinely did not recall vaping that evening when I discussed the night’s events with my campaign team while confirming my enthusiasm for the musical. Regardless of my belief, it’s clear now that was not accurate; it was not my or my campaign’s intention to mislead, but we do understand the nature of how this looks.”
If she ever says another word about drag queens being a risk to our youth, someone please trot out this footage.
- “That wasn’t me; it was artificial intelligence!”
In a conference call earlier this month, the president of the Illinois NAACP objected to the government providing aid to migrants at the expense of local unhoused Black people. Teresa Haley recorded saying,“These immigrants that come over here, they’ve been raping people, they’ve been breaking into homes. They’re like savages as well. They don’t speak the language and they look at us like we were crazy.” Another NAACP leader, distressed by the comments, resigned. When a local TV station reached out to Haley in Dubai, where she’d gone on vacation, she first denied making the statements, then suggested they were faked. “With AI, anything is possible,” she said. Her apology went pretty much the way you’d expect.
“First and foremost, I express my sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or offended by my comments. I love and value all members of our communities — including immigrants. I have worked tirelessly to advocate for the underserved and the voiceless. I remain focused on denouncing injustices, racism, and discrimination. I am empathetic to the plight of all people, and I proudly serve as a beacon of hope to the hopeless. I embrace the mission of the NAACP, which is to ‘Achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination, and accelerate the well-being, education, and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.’”
That’s a whole lotta words about how wonderful she is, and a whole lot of not addressing what she actually said.
AND FINALLY! SorryWatch resolves to taste the rainbow, even though we’re M&Ms people
Look, we need to end this post on an upbeat note. Behold, one really good corporate apology.
In 2013, lime Skittles were replaced by green-apple Skittles. Lime lovers were upset and extremely vocal about it. Nine years later, the company launched an “Apologize the Rainbow” campaign. Skittles went live on Twitch and Twitter — and on an electronic billboard in Times Square — to deliver 138,880 personal apologies on Twitch and Twitter to all 138,880 people who’d complained online about the loss of lime Skittles. All 138,880 people were also offered a free package of Skittles consisting entirely of lime Skittles. (OK, eagle-eyed reader will note that this happened in 2022, but it got a bunch of advertising awards in 2023, so it counts. Also, we didn’t hear about this in 2022. #SorryNotSorry.)
In addition to this video, there is a 36-minute version with the delightful nebbish-y actor reading dozens of tweets and saying “We’re sorry” after every single one.
A creative director at DDB, the agency charged with creating the campaign, said in an interview, “We looked at so many corporate apologies, and they all had a few things in common: They were pretty hollow, generic and really gave the impression they were being forced to do it. We took the exact opposite approach. Not only did we make ours insanely personal by literally apologizing to each of the 130,880 person who complained, we also proudly surfaced all that online anger towards Skittles since it actually showed the passion people had for Lime.” The exec, Colin Selikow, added, “Apparently, changing the flavor of green Skittles has ruined childhoods, and it’s responsible for evil winning.”
Oh, Colin. As long as individuals — whether they are famous, non-famous, or candy — are willing to apologize well, and as long as people of good faith are willing to accept apologies made by people who apologize sincerely and want to do better, evil will not win.
Here’s to a 2024 in which celebrities provide less dipshittery and real people impress us with their ability to listen, learn, and apologize.
Image Credits: rainbow photo by Marjorie Ingall
