Ben & Jerry’s posted a video on social media to celebrate “National Ice Cream Month” — but got blowback from critics over its controversial Fourth of July tweet which claimed that the US was built on “stolen indigenous land.”
“Find your nearest Scoop Shop now and celebrate National Ice Cream Month with us!” the caption read on the TikTok video posted by Ben & Jerry’s on Thursday.
But TikTok users responded by warning the maker of “Chunky Monkey” and “Cherry Garcia” that it’s having a “Bud Light moment” — a reference to the Anheuser-Busch brand that has seen sales suffer as a result of its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
“Are you trying to get a Bud Light moment?” one TikTok user wrote.
Another claimed to be “shorting Unilever” — or betting that the parent company’s stock price would dip further following calls for a boycott of Ben & Jerry’s.
Ben & Jerry’s parent company lost nearly $2 billion in market cap in the days following the July 4 tweet.
“I hope y’all go bankrupt,” another TikTok user wrote, adding that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was “a– anyway.”
“Ben & Jerry’s to Bud Light ‘hold my beer,’” another added.
Ben & Jerry’s divided customers last week with a July 4 tweet that said: “The United States was founded on stolen indigenous land. This Fourth of July, let’s commit to returning it.”
Ben & Jerry’s added that the US should “start with Mount Rushmore,” writing, “The faces on Mount Rushmore are the faces of men who actively worked to destroy Indigenous cultures and ways of life.”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem defended her state’s landmark, saying: “I’m not going to listen to a bunch of liberal Vermont businessmen who think they know everything about this country and haven’t studied our history.”
“Right now, Mount Rushmore is the greatest symbol of our freedom and history of the United States of America.”
Don Stevens — chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation, one of four tribes descended from the Abenaki that are recognized in Vermont — told The Post last week that he’d like to inquire as to whether the land where Ben & Jerry’s headquarters is located may belong to his people.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
