It’s 2013 and we’re still dealing with “outrage” over the depiction of an interracial couple in a Cheerios ad.
Cheerios’ new ad, titled “Just Checking” uses the often-cited claim that the cereal is heart healthy. In the ad, a girl asks her mother if what her dad said is true. Are cheerios actually good for your heart? Her mother confirms that yes, they are. The little girl then runs off and pours a box of Cheerios on her sleeping dad’s chest. Cute. Effective. Controversial?
You see, the mom in the commercial is white and the dad is black. Cue angry internet racists.
Check out the ad:
Shortly after posting, the YouTube comments filled up with racially-charged vitriol. So much so that Cheerios was forced to remove the comments and disable commenting altogether.
@codypermenter thanks for the heads up Cody.They’ve since been removed.
— Cheerios (@cheerios) May 29, 2013
AdWeek says that the comments featured “references to Nazis, ‘troglodytes’ and ‘racial genocide.'” Classy.
You can see more of the hateful comments on reddit, where the video made it high on the r/videos subreddit.
“Fake couple. That lady looks too white to be married to a black man. Cheerios needs to fire their casting agent. Plus….a black man in his childs life?…lol,” says one commenter.
To be fair, there are more comments that praise the ad than ones that deride it. And reddit’s voting system has relegated the racist comments to the bottom of the thread. But this ad is just another reminder that these kind of feelings still exist – and the anonymity of the internet just makes it worse.
Proud to play the mom in this adorable new @cheerios commercial! bit.ly/13XhPC2
— Whitney Avalon (@whitneyavalon) May 28, 2013