Country music singer Travis Tritt has joined in on the massive tantrum conservatives are once again throwing over companies partnering with LGBTQ+ folks. After Anheuser-Busch sent trans TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney cans of Bud Light featuring her likeness to celebrate her “Day 365 Of Girlhood,” Tritt tweeted a declaration that he would be excluding the company from his rich person thing.
“I will be deleting all Anheuser-Busch products from my tour hospitality rider,” he said. “I know many other artists who are doing the same.”
This turned out to be bold online move for a country singer, as the genre often makes use of some rather flamboyant outfits. Perhaps Tritt was unaware of the fact that the internet never forgets, but he understands it well now that that the account for the band Eve6 posted an old photo of him in an outfit that might get him arrested in states like Tennessee.
The photo shows Tritt on stage in a rhinestone-studded teal leather jacket with a serious fringe and matching pants, placing his hand on his hip and pursing his lips in a way that could have gotten him his own Bud Light sponsorship.
For those who don’t know, a “rider” is a list of demands issued by famous musicians and other performers for before and after the show, very often including specifically desired food and drink for the band and crew. Many performers treat this kind of thing with respect and consideration and are normal about it, while others demands some really odd and specific things and get extremely upset if they don’t get what they want.
We can only guess what type of famous guy Tritt is based on his current course of action.
It’s also hard to say how much this will hurt the profits of Anheuser-Busch, a U.S.-based alcohol conglomerate that is now the biggest of its kind in the world, owning a long list of well-known beer brands such as Coors and Red Hook. Tritt did not list a single one of the alleged “other artists” who won’t be drinking their products on tour anymore, but unless they’re all massively problematic drinkers, Busch probably isn’t sweating right now.
The company enjoyed a revenue of $57.786 billion in 2022.
Tritt, however, claimed that nobody else’s name is coming up in this supposed rider boycott because he’s the only one brave enough to stand up to the nefarious threat of “cancel culture.”
A large number of transphobic conservatives had yet another meltdown related to something “going woke” (as they say) after Dylan Mulvaney, who has been highlighting her transition for a whole year on TikTok, made videos announcing the partnership. Some well-known right-wing pundits derided Bud Light, potentially alienating a lot of their fans, while smaller Twitter accounts posted videos of themselves pouring the beer they’d already bought with their own money down the drain.
Then there was Kid Rock, who turned an assault rifle on three cases of the stuff.
The cycle of reactions to companies embracing diversity of any kind has become rather predictable, and it always ends in a nice crop of jokes for the rest of us to enjoy.
