‘You can’t blow your nose without having LGBTQ+ propaganda in your face’ say bigots angry at tissues
Right-wingers are almost beyond parody these days, with the list of things that they’re furious about stretching into the hundreds, possibly thousands.
In the last week alone, they were furious over a trans-inclusive feature being included in a John Lewis staff magazine to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month, and also lost their collective minds because an X-Men character was revealed as non-binary. It must be so tiring and time-consuming to be so angry all of the time.
Now, it’s tissue manufacturer Kleenex’s turn to weather the fury of perpetually outraged alt-right X account Libs of TikTok, as a seven-month-old Thailand Pride partnership has suddenly caught their attention.
Right-wing news site Independent Journal Review picked up the story, writing:
“Disney seems to constantly believe it needs to be involved with the LGBT crowd, this time partnering up with Kleenex to feature rainbow versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse on tissue containers.
“The new collection was launched in a commercial that featured footage from ‘pride’ parades where both men and women can be seen dressed scantily in public.”
The promotional video predominately features people wearing relatively baggy white T-shirts with a Kleenex logo, paired with shorts, skirts and full length jeans. Scandalous and provocative, these outfits are not.
The article goes on to say “Why is this the case? Why do these companies need to find every possible avenue they can to force this agenda on consumers — even if it hurts their business as it did with Bud Light?
“Because Satan wants evil to be normalised, and this agenda is evil.”
Let’s sum up: tissues are evil now. LGBTQ+ people are evil. Disney is evil. Kleenex is evil. Everything is evil.
The Bud Light controversy mentioned above refers to the fact trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney promoted the brand on Instagram in April 2023. Transphobic responses ranged from right-wingers smashing displays in public, bars refusing to sell Bud Light and, in the case of musician Kid Rock, shooting cans of the beer.
Following calls for a boycott, parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev reported in August 2023 that sales of Bud Light in the US fell by more than 10 per cent in spring, according to the BBC.
Similarly, people replied to the Libs of TikTok tweet to say they would be boycotting Kleenex. One person wrote: “Bye bye Kleenex & all of the Kimberly-Clark brands: Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine hygiene products, Cottonelle, Scott and Andrex toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, KimWipes scientific cleaning wipes and Huggies disposable diapers and baby wipes.”
Others tried to get #BoycottKleenex and #BoycottKimberlyClark to trend on X/Twitter, to no avail.
“Of course this has happened, we live in GAYMERICA,” one person said, referring to a Thai promotional video for a Thai product, posted to YouTube by Kleenex Thailand.
What will bigots decide to be angry at next? We’ll just have to wait and see. But we won’t have to wait long.