It Gets Better with Doritos Rainbow Chips [commentary]

BreakingModern — A few weeks ago, Frito-Lay announced a partnership with the It Gets Better project to provide folks with a bag of limited edition rainbow chips for every donation of $10 or more made to the project. It Gets Better was founded in 2010 by Dan Savage and Terry Miller and uses media to provide support and hope for LGBT youth that life indeed gets better.

doritos

You might expect this partnership would bring out some haters on the Internet, but would also yield donations for a great non-profit supporting at-risk youth, and that would be that. But this partnership was announced during primary election season.

With a sea of GOP presidential hopefuls seeking ways to separate themselves from the pack, Mike Huckabee decided that rainbow Doritos were incredibly offensive. Honestly, if you asked what stunt Huckabee might come up with to help with his abysmal poll numbers, perhaps the last thing that would come to mind would be a boycott of snack chips, but in fact that’s exactly what happened.

Huckabee’s primary objection is to Frito-Lay aligning itself with “radical homosexual activist” Dan Savage. Savage is known for his controversial, in-your-face style and while he is one of the founders of It Gets Better, he is no longer affiliated with the non-profit.

doritos

It’s pretty ironic that the former Arkansas governor was so quick to criticize Frito-Lay and encourage his supporters to boycott. Back in 2012, many Americans joined the boycott of Chick-fil-A restaurants in response to the anti-gay comments and actions of its CEO. Huckabee berated Americans, calling the boycott “economic terrorism.”

It’s important to note that in the case of Chick-fil-A, the boycott was not only due to the comments of their CEO. Over several years, the company funneled millions of dollars through its private foundation to anti-gay groups, including the Family Research Council, a designated hate group.

You may not like what Savage has to say — even within the LGBT community he’s definitely a polarizing figure — but in general Americans don’t seem the least bit upset by this partnership. The chips were snapped up by eager consumers and were out of stock almost as soon as they were available.

Personally, I’m hoping Frito-Lay make the chips more widely available — but even if they don’t I’m a big fan of any promotion working to raise funds for programs supporting at-risk youth. And if Huckabee’s continued backslide in the polls is any indication, there are a lot of other people out there that agree with me.

For BMod, I’m .

Featured Image Credit: Europa Rainbow by Robert Couse-Baker via Flickr

Screenshot Credit: BMod Staff

Becket Morgan

Author: Becket Morgan

Based in central Vermont, Becket Morgan covers apps and lifestyle tech for BreakingModern. Follow her at @becketmorgan on Twitter or +Becket Morgan on G+.

Share This Post On

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>