All they’re saying is, give Pepsi a chance.
As demonstrations sweep the globe in the name of the unarmed black lives lost in police custody, some marchers are using the protests as an opportunity to further roast Kendall Jenner’s revoked Pepsi commercial from the 2017 Super Bowl.
At a June 2 demonstration in Los Angeles, California, comedian Everett Byram re-enacted Jenner’s widely mocked commercial — in which the model ditches a photoshoot to join a protest and offers a cop a can of Pepsi. In the parody, Byram approaches an LAPD officer while holding out a soda.
“Hey, you guys, like a Kardashian over here, hey, look, it’s a Pepsi, want Pepsi? Have it!” Byram says, walking toward the police. “Have a Pepsi, dude!”
The officer tells Byram he appreciates the offer, but to back up. “But it helped in the commercial,” Byram responds.
“I don’t drink soda,” the cop responds.
In a separate incident, a protester walked up to a line of police in riot gear, arm outstretched with an offering of a plastic Pepsi bottle.
“I can’t believe someone actually did it,” tweets an onlooker who captured a now-viral image of the moment.
In addition to being tone-deaf, Jenner’s nearly three-minute ad was also criticized for oversimplifying activism in the name of corporate profit.
Jenner did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
That sentiment again resounded this week during #BlackOutTuesday, when many social media users posted and then deleted black squares in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
The squares, critics argued, were an overly simple act of solidarity that drowned out useful information for demonstrators on social media platforms.
The Pepsi offerings from 2020 protesters draw a stark parallel to the famous photos of anti-Vietnam War protesters bringing flowers to law enforcement. The difference is that the soda gifts are meant as a meme-based mockery of commodification while the flowers were sincerely intended as a peace offering.
COMMENTS