The internet almost quite literally melted down yesterday when Pepsi released their homage to protest movements, starring a glamorized Kendall Jenner who suddenly becomes woke by drinking a can of Pepsi and solving racial tension in the country by handing a police officer a cool can of refreshing social justice while protesters around her dance and sing. The reception was less than ideal for Pepsi, but personally I remain mystified as to why.
This was everything protest culture has been clamoring companies do for the past six or seven years. It was the culmination of a culture and a presidency that already feels out of sight in the rear view mirror.
The Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial is the Fonzie jumping the shark moment for eight years of protest culture. It’s Vanilla Ice dancing with the Ninja Turtles. The moment something thought to be culturally relevant sells out and becomes a corporate parody itself. That would be completely true if movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter already weren’t products being sold.
DeRay Mckesson, who is never one to turn down any form of corporate shilling, found the Pepsi ad to be “trash.” But DeRay is also a product. He is branded with his own catchy repeat slogans and trademark blue Patagonia vest.
Kendall Jenner ripping off her blonde wig and totally jumping into the protest (you guys!) was the official death blow to Barack Obama’s eight-year crusade to socially re-engineer the country into a permanent aggrieved protest class, searching out injustice wherever they found it, and getting really thirsty doing it!
The problem for leftist protest culture is they don’t realize they have been a product the entire time. Occupy is selling you something. Black Lives Matter is selling you something.
All other social justice movements, in fact, revolve around products. Is that Netflix show woke enough? Is that shampoo being culturally sensitive with the logo on their bottle? Did that Cheerios commercial have the appropriate level of diversity?
Celebrities and companies who don’t comply are shamed by the mob while a cultural and social media puritan walks behind them ringing the bell. The recent and completely contrived outcry over the “whitewashing” of the Scarlett Johansson (one of their most vocal supporters) film Ghost in a Shell is a perfect example.
Brave culture warriors believe their movements start online with movies, or music, and translate over to companies and celebrities promoting social justice.
Jenner is the perfect spokesperson for this moment and this generation. From being excoriated over braiding her hair, to the shade of lipstick she wears to micro analyzing anything she says in an interview, Jenner only matters to these people because they make her matter.
She is whatever 18-25 year old millennial want her to be. Pepsi recognized her role and gave her generation what they’ve been demanding. Drink up!
And millennials made her a millionaire. They watched her TV show. They demanded she line herself up with their own personal beliefs. They embraced every aspect of a faux celebrity culture because they believed they could attach whatever beliefs they have to Jenner herself. Pepsi is simply acting on the instincts of it’s audience.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is the exact same phenomena that elected Barack Obama president. It’s the same phenomena as attempting to make 75-year-old socialist Bernie Sanders into some kind of hip cool kooky pop culture meme.
Obama was also a product. He was packaged up with a slick logo, catchy slogans and a great marketing campaign and people were allowed to attach whatever they wanted to him.
Obama was a can of delicious and refreshing Pepsi. His domestic policy never amounted much to other than “fair shot” or “yes we can” and having subordinates in the media push his message out to take to the streets or block traffic as a means of somehow attempting to get politicians to change what they believe and vote the way he wanted them to on issues he cared about. Legislating was never an option. Symbolic gestures of marching across bridges is what sold.
When a Cambridge police officer arrested a professor friend of his, he wasted no time calling the officer stupid, encouraged protests, and in the end lectured the country over a beer summit over the mistake he himself made.
When a Florida teenager was shot in an act of self defense, Obama wasted no time ginning up the masses. When Michael Brown robbed a convenience store in Ferguson Missouri and assaulted a police officer, resulting in his death, members of the Obama administration attended Brown’s funeral. Leaders of the movement that “sprung” up from it were invited to the White House and encouraged to keep the outrage machine at full spin. Franchises awoke in places like Baltimore, Chicago and New York.
They were commodified on CNN and in the pages of the Washington Post. Like any other product they became something cool, a fad. Celebrities lectured us through black and white camera ads. CNN anchors held their hands up at their desk. Oprah cried. Simply opening a Twitter account and tweeting #OscarsSoWhite meant you were a part of the movement. Anyone could do it. The oceans would recede. The sun would come out and we would finally reached that promised land. Except that didn’t happen because it never will.
And after eight years of screaming about every grievance online or off, what does the Obama inspired protest culture have to show for all of it? A Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial and a Donald Trump presidency.
Everything leftist protest culture does is aimed at turning their movement and pet cause into a product for mass consumption. Why should this be any different? Jenner isn’t some concoction of corporate America’s version of leftist movements like Black Lives Matter, she’s a direct reflection of them.
Update: Pepsi removed the ad following backlash.