Mythbuster: The Budweiser Story
Posted by Brad at 6:42am Monday, June 16, 2008
Just like many other people, I am the recipient of many, many forwarded emails with stories that are deemed to be so important that they “must” be passed on to everyone else I know. Typically, stories include the phrases “not a joke” and/or “this is true” are a tipoff that they are just another viral myth.
After receiving one this morning (from a well-meaning friend), I thought I would start a new ongoing “mythbuster” feature on this blog in which I check out suspect stories and share the results here. The first story to kick this inaugural edition is…
The Budweiser Story
(not a joke)This is TRUE!
How Budweiser handled those who laughed at those who died on the 11th of September, 2001…
Thought you might like to know what happened in a little town north of Bakersfield , California . After you finish reading this, please forward this story on to others so that our nation and people around the world will know about those who laughed when they found out about the tragic events in New York , Pennsylvania , and the Pentagon.
On September 11th, a Budweiser employee was making a delivery to a convenience store in a California town named McFarland. He knew of the tragedy that had occurred in New York when he entered the business to find the two Arabs, who owned the business, whooping and hollering to show their approval and support of this treacherous attack. The Budweiser employee went to his truck, called his boss and told him of the very upsetting event!
He didn’t feel he could be in that store with those horrible people. His boss asked him, ‘Do you think you could go in there long enough to pull every Budweiser product and item our beverage company sells there? We’ll never deliver to them again.’
The employee walked in, proceeded to pull every single product his beverage company provided and left with an incredible grin on his face. He told them never to bother to call for a delivery again.
Budweiser happens to be the beer of choice for that community. Just letting you know how Kern County handled this situation. And Now The Rest Of The Story:
It seems that the Bud driver and the Pepsi man are neighbors. Bud called Pepsi and told him. Pepsi called his boss who told him to pull all Pepsi products as well!!! That would include Frito Lay, etc. Furthermore, word spread and all vendors followed suit! At last report, the store was closed indefinitely.
Good old American Passive-Aggressive A$$ Whoopin!
Pass this along, America needs to know that we’re all working together!
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And, this particular email included this fine gems at the end…
If you can read this,
thank a teacher…If you are reading it in English….
THANK A SOLDIER!!!If you do not send this
you have no soul !!!!
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Nice touch! It helps with the “credibility” of the story.
The email has been floating around since right after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and has a few variations with different companies mentioned. The one above is the most common variation. And as I suspected, this story is false, as Snopes.com reports.
The Budweiser version is every bit as much a fiction as all the rest of this genre: The events described never happened, said Dennis Muleady, marketing director for Advance Beverage of Bakersfield, the Budweiser distributor for the McFarland area. As well, a query to Anheuser-Busch produced the following response:
Please know that we have investigated the matter and have found there is no truth to this story. We’ve checked extensively on this story in a number of different locations, with wholesalers and retail accounts and there is no report of a customer reacting in such a manner. Therefore, no product has been pulled from any retail account.
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Unfortunately, too many people buy into emails like this that perpetuate and exacerbate race-based fears, tensions and bigotry. I often wonder what it is within us that allows us to be so easily duped by stories that should raise suspicions simply because of their blatantly prejudiced tone and propaganda nature.
When I can, I respond to the email sender as well as any other recipients listed to try to help correct the record so that they do no longer inadvertently spread false rumors and urban myths.
