After 131 Years, PepsiCo Is Dropping Aunt Jemima
PepsiCo is retiring the controversial brand name and mascot, Aunt Jemima.
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Aunt Jemima to be rebranded after 131 years
- Thread starter KoolAid
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Can't wait to see lots of "ruined childhood" post by Karens everywhere that they can't buy products with racist caricatures anymore.
What other products exist out there that desperately need a rebrand? Obviously in sports the Cleverland Indians and the Washington football team need a name change badly.
What other products exist out there that desperately need a rebrand? Obviously in sports the Cleverland Indians and the Washington football team need a name change badly.
same
aunt jemima has never not been an uncomfortable pancake product, like i never got how people just casually bought it and didn't feel compelled to question the name or anything. it's a weird fucking holdover.
just get hungry jacks or something it's all the same shit
I hope they make it obvious to whatever it's changed too in case I miss the re-branding I love that pancake mix and syrup it's so good.
The Sporkful had an episode on how whites used racist branding on food depicting blacks as servants, like Aunt Jemima.
The fact that it took this long. Did y'all know Disney had an Aunt Jemima restaurant as recent as 1970? SMH.
To be honest, I'm surprised it got closed in 1970. There are enough racist people out there that wouldn't think twice about such a place even in 2020.
There is definitely a huge cultural shift happening right now, and I'm glad to see it happen. It proves why the BLM protests are so important.
I dont get the venn diagram of racists and not batting an eye at an aunt jemima pancake mix I thought it was symbolic of a family recipe, but now that I've read the story of it theres a lot of misses associated with "aunt jemima" becoming the package and brand
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I too thought it was a family recipe until I read the history.
Log Cabin is the best syrup out there.
Maybe they could change it to "Mrs.J" or Ms. J, and obviously change the look of her to be a non caricature look.
That's why it's so insidious. Starts as wildly racist caricatures, and then "becomes part of family branding" so it's harder to unroot, while still subliminally messaging stereotypes of black inferiority.
Same, I think that's why it lasted as long as it did. If you weren't aware of the Manny character it just seemed like a Colonel Sanders situation.
Maple Syrup from a Maple tree is the best syrup out there.
Why did it take them so long? We have all these things like taking down Confederate statues and ending racist stereotypes on brands, why wasn't this done in the '70s or '80s? Why did it take this one example of police brutality to change?
i don't know how a 10 year old me in small town ohio knew in 1995; the backstory behind the branding has always just felt super obvious to me. but of course that's fine if you didn't know, we all gotta learn sometime.
yeah but it doesn't come in a bottle that you can microwave, so take that
(it also doesn't cost a fortune)
Holy crap, it never occurred to me that a product people are talking fondly about could be some corn syrup stuff. Genuinely surprised tbh, but I'm pretty ignorant, I was also blown away when someone mentioned "real honey", and I had to learn about fake honey.
Aunt Jemima is more than just fake maple syrup. It's a whole line of pancake mixes as well.
Oh of course, I forgot about that too. I always think of them as the Pancake syrup.
My father-in-law has his own sugar shack but real maple syrup is so boring. It's basically brown sugar water. Give me my corn syrup and fenugreek thank you very much.
The Virginia official state song was about a freed slave wishing he could return to the days of slavery on his master's plantation, "where the old darkey's heart am long'd to go" until a Republican Governor suspended it in 1997...
It's still referred to as the state song emeritus. It took 57 years for people to really enough outrage for them to change it.
I'm really curious to see this rebrand.
Do they try and abbreviate, like Aunt J or AJ's? Or do they go with a completely new name?
Do they try and abbreviate, like Aunt J or AJ's? Or do they go with a completely new name?
It's all terrible fake stuff, just buy actual maple syrup and make your life that much better.
I don't really think it's one example of police brutality, it's the string of them plus the lockdown amping people up plus the fact that Trump is in power. He accelerated things so there's been a corresponding pushback.
We're basically living the wider cultural equivalent of Gamergate, where the reactionary attitudes have just led to the exact opposite of what they wanted. If people hadn't resisted change so hard I don't think most people would care about a statue here or a mascot there.
Do I wanna go down this rabbit hole? This country is so ingrained in racism that nothing will surprise me.
I kinda assumed they'd keep the name and drop the image, but who knows.
Curse you for putting Aunt J, your cool black pancake aunt who probably raps in the commercial, into my mind.
They already changed the image once to try and modernize it. Anyway, it's right in the OP that the name is changing as well.
Ah. I didn't read the OP because I'd heard the news elsewhere - clearly didn't get that detail.
Haha. It's such an obvious corporate move it jumped into my head the second I read the OP. Happy to share!