Innocent Drinks have partnered with a charity called Mermaids, but why are people demanding a boycott of the smoothie company?
The ongoing culture war taking place between conservative pundits and brands that have celebrated the LGBTQ+ community appears to have migrated across the pond from the US to the UK. Innocent Drinks, the smoothie brand known for its quirky marketing approach, is the latest company to face boycott calls after it published a Twitter thread written in collaboration with Mermaids – an LGBTQ+ charity.
Innocent Smoothies enlists the help of Mermaids charity
Wednesday, May 17 marked the annual commemorative celebration known as International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, or IDAHOBIT for short.
In order to mark the occasion, Innocent Drinks took to Twitter on May 30, just shy of two weeks after the occasion, to help educate their 295,000+ followers on a selection of terms and issues associated with the LGBTQ+ community.
In order to do so, Innocent enlisted the consultancy help of the British charity Mermaids, who seemingly advised the soft drink merchants over the direction of the thread. “We’re always looking for ways to be more inclusive, so, we asked Mermaids to teach us what’s okay to say”, said Innocent.
Innocent proceeded to name and define the following four concepts: deadnaming, misgendering, gender diverse and gender dysphoria.
UPDATE: Innocent Drinks has now deleted the Mermaids Twitter threat, and published a statement at 19:32 BST on May 30, stating: “Today we posted about what we learned from one of these talks, and in the past few hours, we’ve started to see lots of comments that weren’t in line with our values.”
“We always want to make sure our social media channels are respectful and inclusive, which is why we’ve deleted the thread.”
What is the Mermaids charity?
According to its official website, Mermaids was founded in 1995 and has gone on to become one of the “UK’s leading LGBTQ+ charities” in the years since.
The Mermaids charity aims to assist children and young people up to the age of 20 who identify as transgender, non-binary or gender-diverse.
The list of services provided by Mermaids includes community groups both online and in person, assistance with the running of LGBTQ+ emergency hotlines and the provision of support for the families of those who are gender non-conforming.
While the thread was intended to be something of an educational resource, Innocent’s Mermaids collaboration has been met with a great deal of anger from certain elements of Twitter, leading to Innocent having to hide a number of replies that contained strong language, or could be described as being threatening.
Why are people calling for boycott of Innocent Drinks and smoothies?
The anger directed at Innocent for their Mermaids IDAHOBIT thread appears to be in a similar vein to the recent anger directed toward US retail giants Target over certain items in their 2023 Pride range.
Essentially, a small but vocal core of Twitter users appear to be taking issue with brands taking part in LGBTQ+ community celebrations like Pride, or marketing products toward LGBTQ+ people.
Many of the people complaining about these brands, particularly in the US, market themselves as conservative pundits or commentators and are subscribed to Twitter’s verification system – thus amplifying their voices on the algorithm.
Such an attitude was optimised by one Twitter user who replied “Thanks, you are now on my ‘do not buy’ list” to the thread. “Like your product but I stop buying it from today. Bye”, tweeted another user in support of an Innocent smoothie boycott.
Mermaids were recently subjected to a hit piece in The Telegraph that claimed the charity had assisted The NHS in planning gender clinic services for children, though they refuted such claims on Twitter.
For support via phone, one-to-one chat, or email you can contact The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender National Hotline: (888) 843-4564. There is also The GLBT National Youth Talkline (youth serving youth through age 25): (800) 246-7743.
You can also contact Trans Lifeline at (877) 565-8860, a trans-led organization connecting trans people to the community. They also offer details of support and local resources.
Please visit PFLAG for more support and helplines here.
For UK support, visit LGBT.Foundation/helpline or call 0345 330 30 30, or email helpline@lgbt.foundation. There is also a 24-hour crisis text service available at 85258 from Give Us A Shout, or you can call 0300 330 5468 for MindLine Trans+
The post Innocent Smoothie's educational Mermaids Twitter thread prompts boycott calls appeared first on HITC.
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