Last week Hershey’s chocolate upset some people when they put a trans woman on their candy bars. It was National Women’s Day and since no one learned anything from the M&M transwomen stunt, they went full steam ahead. Now ask yourself, do you remember when you learned that the company whose candy you only eat around campfires betrayed you? How deep did it cut? Were you enraged?
If you’re like me, you probably rolled your eyes and went on with your day.
But Daily Wire’s Jeremy Boreing saw an opportunity. It’s not what you think it is. See, the average entrepreneur needs to identify a need and create an interesting way to fill it. When you own a massive media company, you can identify an outrage opportunity, stoke the fire, and create a solution. When life gives you fire and chocolate bars, make s’mores. In 36 hours “Jeremy’s Chocolate” sold more than 300,000 chocolate bars.
No one actually needs conservative chocolate. They just need to feel like they’re winning.
[Something, something, facts, something, feelings]
As I observed on Twitter, “Maybe we should start encouraging people to eat more local, whole foods and fewer chocolate bars. But that’s none of my business.” No, it’s Jeremy’s business, and he’s raking in the cash. Nothing was actually accomplished here. The libs weren’t owned. Conservatives were. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
Now, apply this to other things.
Are there other products (eg: news, music, programming) that we’re being manipulated to feel outrage over so that we spend our money on an alternative. I’m all for capitalism, but this manipulation of our reactions is, frankly, unethical. Anything that begins with a lie (“You need this to stick it to the other guy!”) will never come to a good end.
Maybe you’re saying, “Oh Trevor, it’s all in good fun.”
Well, maybe it’s time to stop playing games and do something. In this case, Hershey’s set the tone and is still controlling the narrative. I’d rather see DW do something so amazing that the liberals have to counter with a woke version. Right now they act, DW reacts, we react. Give me something new. Show me you can lead and not just follow. Right now everyone is just telling knock-knock jokes into the void when we need something of substance to fill it.
Let’s go back to local, whole foods.
We often criticize the pharmaceutical companies for making problems so that they can sell us solutions, and we accuse the politicians of taking payoffs to perpetuate the problem. So many illnesses could be solved with a change in diet, but there’s no money in that. Similarly, so many of our cultural ills could be solved with solutions that don’t put money in the pockets of the pundits. So we’ll never hear about those.
Imagine, if you will…
An egg farm goes woke. They start selling rainbow colored eggs laid by trans-roosters. Outrage! What’s Jeremy going to do? I doubt he’ll start an online egg seller (though they do exist). He’ll probably run some articles about it, but that’ll be it. No stoked flames. No “Jeremy’s Henhouse.” We all just roll our eyes and buy normal eggs.
What should the reaction be? Buy local.
I noticed that store eggs have suddenly dropped in price. But I’m going to keep buying my eggs from my neighbors. Not only are they better quality, but all that money goes toward their daughter’s homeschooling activities. The cash stays in the community, and she can buy art supplies, chicken coops, or a pig to show at the fair. As I visit their house every week I’m building a relationship. We’ve talked hunting, homeschooling, family life, and even politics. I don’t care if we don’t agree (though we aren’t that far apart, either).
They’re good people and they’re my neighbors.
The media companies (even those we like and admire) will never encourage us to go to independent creators, which is exactly where we need to go. I don’t need DW to start publishing books any more than I need them to start laying eggs, because I want to buy more self-published books.
Look in my refrigerator and you’ll see I don’t need to buy any more eggs.
Shopping local, buying directly from creators, doesn’t own the libs and it doesn’t matter anyway. To them. To me. When I shop I want it to be out of appreciation, not because I was conned into it through outrage or righteous indignation. There’s more than one kind of value, and I value human connections more than making political points.
