Why fans of Sean Hannity are posting videos of themselves smashing Keurigs
The Vermont company is grappling with backlash from its decision to pull its ads from the Fox News show.
Some outspoken supporters of Sean Hannity are destroying their Keurig coffeemakers — and it has nothing to do with K-cups.
The Vermont company announced over the weekend that they were pulling their ads from Hannity’s show over the Fox News host’s recent interview with Senate candidate Roy Moore, an Alabama Republican accused of pursuing sexual relationships with teenagers.
The decision has resulted in a wave of outraged conservative coffee-drinkers, who have posted videos of themselves smashing their Keurigs in protest, and an apology to Keurig employees from the company’s CEO.
Why did Keurig and others pull their ads?
Keurig was among a number of companies to pull its advertising from Hannity’s show, Hannity, amid criticism of the conservative host’s coverage of the allegations against Moore.
“Every single person in this country deserves the presumption of innocence,” Hannity said on his TV show last Thursday, calling sexual misconduct “morally repugnant,” while also raising the possibility the accusations against Moore were untrue and urging viewers not to rush to judgement.
“With the allegations against Judge Moore, none of us know the truth of what happened 38 years ago,” he said. “The only people that would know are the people involved in this incident.”
On his radio show Thursday, Hannity appeared to dismiss the allegations against Moore as politically motivated, but later said he misspoke. However, the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters clipped his original comments and began pressuring Hannity’s TV advertisers to pull their commercials.
Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, tweeted at Keurig asking them to reconsider their ads, to which the company replied in a tweet that it had indeed worked to stop their advertising during Hannity’s show.
Angelo, thank you for your concern and for bringing this to our attention. We worked with our media partner and FOX news to stop our ad from airing during the Sean Hannity Show.
— Keurig (@Keurig) November 11, 2017
Keurig was hardly the only one. As Deadline reported, at least five other companies — E-Trade, Realtor.com, Eloquii, 23andme, and Nature’s Bounty — also pulled their ads from Hannity over the weekend. A number of companies also pulled or shifted their advertising from Hannity in May after the host promoted unfounded conspiracy theories.
Cadillac also pulled its ads from Hannity in September at the behest of Media Matters following the Fox News host’s commentary of the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
According to a spreadsheet by Media Matters, a vast majority of advertisers have not pulled their ads from Hannity, which has been the top-rated cable news show since it returned to the 9 p.m. time slot.
Why are Hannity fans specifically protesting Keurig?
It’s unclear why Hannity supporters are specifically targeting Keurig as opposed to any of the other companies that recently pulled their ads.
Perhaps it’s the company’s grounding in liberal New England. Or perhaps it’s the particularly smash-able nature of its product. After all, it’s difficult to smash E-Trade’s financial advice, and it isn’t particularly viscerally satisfying to smash Nature’s Bounty’s nutritional supplements.
It also doesn’t appear that any Hannity fans partook in the expensive endeavor this past September of smashing their Cadillac.
Either way, videos posted online show countless Keurigs being smashed in all manner of ways since the company responded to Carusone’s tweet.
https://twitter.com/princezip/status/930109972251316224
https://twitter.com/vol80/status/929819425469030400
https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/929777702537543681
The hashtag #BoycottKeurig reportedly trended over the weekend and videos of its coffeemaker being destroyed in any number of ways are abundant on social media. A competing coffee company has also looked to capitalize in the wake of the Keurig destruction by expressly marketing itself to conservatives.
Hannity himself actively encouraged and promoted the backlash on Sunday.
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/929887642631720962
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/929890847956652033
How has Keurig responded?
The company’s Twitter feed has been silent since Saturday, which was when the beginning of the #BoycottKeurig momentum picked up.
However, the Washington Post obtained a memo to Keurig employees on Monday, in which CEO Bob Gamgort apologized and said the company did not intend to give “the appearance of ‘taking sides’ in an emotionally charged debate.” Gamgort added that the way Keurig announced it — in a tweet reply to Carusone — was “highly unusual” and “unacceptable.”
The Keurig Green Mountain Brewer and Research and Development headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts.
“I want you to know the decision to communicate our short-term media actions on Twitter was done outside of company protocols,” the CEO wrote. “Clearly, this is an unacceptable situation that requires an overhaul of our issues response and external communications policies and the introduction of safeguards to ensure this never happens again. Our company and brand reputations are too valuable to be put at risk in this manner.”
Hannity took reports of the memo as a fig leaf and appeared to tell his followers on Monday to put a pause on the Keurig carnage.
“Hold on to your coffee machines @keurig has recognized it got caught up & misled by a bigot,” he tweeted Monday afternoon in an apparent reference to Carusone.
However, in his memo to employees, Gamgort specifically cites the “objectionable content” of Hannity’s comments about the Moore allegations as the “catalyst” for the company’s decision to pull its ads. The CEO’s apology was directed only toward his employees who experienced “any negatively” as a result of the situation.
Since the controversy erupted, a fifth woman has come forward to accuse Moore of sexual misconduct when she was a minor.
Keurig did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
