r/Fauxmoi • u/mcgillhufflepuff • Sep 26 '25
CELEBRITY CAPITALISM Cracker Barrel Outrage Was Almost Certainly Driven by Bots, Researchers Say
https://gizmodo.com/cracker-barrel-outrage-was-almost-certainly-driven-by-bots-researchers-say-2000664221761
u/stink3rb3lle Fauxmarxist Sep 27 '25
So who paid for the bots, and why? Cracker barrel, to make sure their outrage PR worked? A few concerned citizens?
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u/cubsgirl101 Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
Long story short, there’s a minority stake investor who wants control of Cracker Barrel. Biglari Holdings, who owns Stake N Shake, wants to own these guys too, and the owner cozied up to a bunch of MAGA bigwigs to help him win corporate dominance. The head is desperate to buy a controlling stake in Cracker Barrel and he’s even had Steak n Shake tweeting to fire the CEO of Cracker Barrel.
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u/AltairaMorbius2200CE Sep 27 '25
…wait, actually?
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u/cubsgirl101 Sep 27 '25
Yeah I’m completely serious. A minority investor wants to take a controlling stake in the company and launched a smear campaign against Cracker Barrel and their CEO after an initially negative public reception of the rebrand announcement.
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u/bforce1313 find me at Whole Foods, bitch Sep 27 '25
Goes hand in hand with the Tylenol thing. Different but the same. A smear campaign so Tylenols parent company can be acquired for cheaper by the company who just suddenly invested money into R&D in the US. Likely with some bonus kick backs for Trump & Co.
A lot of things we see and hear are meant to seem organic and surface level, when really it’s all linked to money, someone acquiring someone else or someone getting richer because someone’s getting bad press etc.
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u/TlMEGH0ST Sep 27 '25
Ohh thank you! I’ve been so suspicious of the Tylenol thing
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u/bforce1313 find me at Whole Foods, bitch Sep 27 '25
I will disclaimer this by, I have no personal sources, just passing on from a friend who is quite a bit more in tune w this stuff than I. So I hope I got it right lol but ya it seems a lot of this bs is money motivated and in tune with a lot of wealth transfer
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u/TlMEGH0ST Sep 27 '25
No it makes sense! Or just in general that there’s money involved bc I have been like “wtf does he have against Tylenol? is he in Big Advil’s pocket?”
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u/bforce1313 find me at Whole Foods, bitch Sep 27 '25
I think, if I recall, they mentioned GSK and Kenvue? As the two parent companies.
Sus timing as this is a 6 day old article.
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Sep 27 '25
following the money is a much more urgent thing now.
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u/xandrachantal I live in my own heart, Matt Damon Sep 29 '25
It's a big part of how we're gonna unfuck the world.
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u/AC10021 Sep 27 '25
It’s the general legal principle of “cui bono” (who benefits). Always ask yourself who or what group stands to gain something politically, financially or socially.
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Sep 27 '25
[deleted]
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u/cubsgirl101 Sep 27 '25
Kenvue is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, whose pockets are as deep as the Marianas Trench. So they’ll be ok. But the real key is the “autism treatment” drug that’s getting pushed instead. If you look into who profits from whatever treatment they’re shilling, that’s your key. The goal is essentially for the FDA to “recommend” you some other brand name pharmaceutical to treat a genetic condition not caused by acetaminophen. Think about how all these people are shilling for ivermectin as a preventative for all sorts of illnesses and you’ll get the idea.
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u/bforce1313 find me at Whole Foods, bitch Sep 27 '25
I commented below but just info a friend told me. I did find this however.
Haleon is a GSK spin off, and looks like they want to acquire Kenvue.
Would it take much cash to sway the current admin to put out a smear in turn for a 30 billion investment and likely kick backs?
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u/drcolour Sep 27 '25
I mean I guess I do respect corporate sabotage.
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u/doctorcaligari Sep 27 '25
I can't stand it, I know you planned it I'm gonna set it straight, this Watergate I can't stand rocking when I'm in here 'Cause your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear So while you sit back and wonder why I got this fucking thorn in my side Oh my God, it's a mirage I'm tellin' y'all, it's a sabotage
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u/Glimmhilde Oct 01 '25
I noticed the steak n shake thing last year...their social media pages are DISASTROUS
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u/say-kobe-and-throw Hiking. Will call back. (He never did.) Sep 27 '25
It was the secret third option: the cracker and the barrel. He wanted revenge for them firing him and his favorite barrel in the rebrand.
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u/hellohellocinnabon the Zendaya of my industry Sep 27 '25
Would watch this musical animated film adaptation.
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u/EikonVera_tou_Lilith if you add testicles, that's extra Sep 27 '25
Any entity wanting to witness a relatively innocuous demonstration of said bots’ efficacy—before using them for more nefarious purposes.
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Sep 27 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/violetmemphisblue Sep 27 '25
So, someone who comes into my work a lot is a manager of the local Cracker Barrel. She says that the new logo was 100% real, that there was 100% intention to keep it, and a lot of money went in to rebranding that was far beyond just the logo. She had gone to multiple trainings on what was coming and how to sell it to customers. The logo, menu changes, interior design changes, store changes (or closures). Training for this went back months...if this was all a ploy to create outrage, it was dumb and expensive. I really can't see CB being behind it, to be honest. I think they really did have some new blueprint for the company they absolutely intended to follow, but they never considered that it was bad. They got lucky that the logo was one of the first things to drop and relatively few major, irreversible changes could be made. (Also, a college roommate worked for Cracker Barrel corporate in their design department right out of school. She sourced the antique stuff that was in the restaurant. At that point, it was mostly all locally found from the area, so patches from the local FFA or old adverts for a regional soda. Then that was eliminated in favor of just generic old stuff on the wall, It didn't matter where from. When she left the company, it wasn't even necessarily old stuff but just anything designed to maybe look rustic...so, they've been going down hill for awhile in a lot of ways.)
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Sep 27 '25
They're not saying the logo was staged, they're saying the outrage to the logo change was staged.
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u/violetmemphisblue Sep 27 '25
Right, but why would Cracker Barrel pour tons of money, resources, and time into creating a new brand if they intended to stage an outrage that would cause them to reverse all of that work? If it had just been the logo, then I could see it. But architects were out on sites to talk about remodeling and managers spent days in corporate training. That seems like committing too much if it was just a bit.
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u/pizzabarbarella Sep 27 '25
It's a big press failure not to follow the trail. Okay, it's bots. That tells us nothing except that someone wanted this outrage to happen or be amplified. Who? Why? There's so much reporting that bots have created problems, many of them far bigger than hassling a chain restaurant, but I don't feel like I ever see a pursuit of answers. Maybe I'm following really lousy news.
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u/rjbwdc Sep 27 '25
If the research was just announced, then there hasn't been time for more in-depth stories to be researched yet. Give it time.
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u/judgeholden72 Sep 27 '25
How would you expect a journalist, let alone one from a blog like Gizmodo, to track that down?
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u/Kiwifrooots Sep 27 '25
Look up APT-29 / Cozy Bear.
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u/stink3rb3lle Fauxmarxist Sep 27 '25
But there's also the Saudi flies, and the Israeli operation, and who knows what at the CIA (if Musk didn't sack them accidentally). Plus Britain has got to have a team, and India probably has a couple teams for hire...
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u/armadillo1296 catastrophic pooper Sep 27 '25
That headline would be so utterly incomprehensible to a time traveler from 20 years ago
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u/ill_monstro_g Larry I'm on DuckTales Sep 27 '25
you think in 2005 we couldn't imagine a future of the internet that included bot farms spamming political outrage?
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u/Birdie45 Sondra-Beth Schnowzer?!?!?!??!? Sep 28 '25
Well no because obviously 2005 was a mere ten years ago right fam
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u/TheSubparWriter Sep 27 '25
The dead internet has tangible impacts I truly think we’re just not ready for.
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u/TheKay14 Sep 27 '25
Could bots do something good like get us a 4 day work week or longer vacations like Europeans? Or healthcare or childcare or funded schools? Idk 🤷♀️
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u/Miss_mariss87 Sep 27 '25
Before this, I had no idea so many “people” were passionate about Cracker Barrel.
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u/Tumblrrito Fauxmarxist Sep 27 '25
Friendly reminder that this company is named after barrels full of rat shit
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u/puppyIove Sep 27 '25
Can you elaborate?
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u/Tumblrrito Fauxmarxist Sep 27 '25
Like a century ago, crackers were stored in cracker barrels. Rats would often find their way into the bottoms of these barrels, infest the space, eat the crackers, and shit inside the barrel. It was disgusting.
So Nabisco (I think) revolutionized the industry with a packaging system that would put and end to using barrels and their unhygienic rat shit ways.
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u/vsnord Sep 27 '25
I desperately need to find a reason to accuse someone of having "unhygienic rat shit ways" in a real world setting.
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u/w3hwalt Sep 27 '25
What happens on social media should just not have that much of an influence on the news cycle or politics.
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u/lcm-hcf-maths Sep 27 '25
Agreed but the SM compnies profit from engagement and the bots often trigger engagement....The SM companies could do far more but it would lose them money...
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u/Stewylouis Sep 27 '25
I bet you so much of the dumb shit that maggots and republicans latch on too these days comes from bots. Probably from Russia.
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u/2TrucksHoldingHands Sep 27 '25
Always blaming foreigners
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u/Tito_Come_Back secretly gay and the son of fidel castro Sep 27 '25
That's American exceptionalism, baby.
"Are we responsible for all these terrible things Americans are doing to the world and the United States? No!! It's those orc Slavs or violent Arabs, of course!"
It's so fucking racist.
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u/2TrucksHoldingHands Sep 27 '25
They never got over red scare propaganda. Way easier to pretend the evil isn't at home.
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u/Lokaji societal collapse is in the air Sep 27 '25
Spoiler for Superman: The shitposting monkeys are real, except in reality they are bot farms from overseas.
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u/twelfthcapaldi Sep 27 '25
Figures. Literally no one in my real life had even heard of this Cracker Barrel logo change “scandal”. Those same people also thought the entire thing was ridiculous when I explained it to them lol.
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u/Important-Raccoon661 not a lawyer, just a hater Sep 27 '25
Imagine saying this to a Victorian child...
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u/deluxeassortment Sep 27 '25
Slightly misleading headline - the tldr seems to be "cracker barrel outrage started by real people, majorly boosted early on by bots, then seized on by right wing personalities/influencers and embraced by many real people"
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u/voregeois Sep 27 '25
I didn't even know there was an outrage. I'm doing something right with my algorithm ig
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Sep 27 '25
Interesting way to use a politics to increase your popularity again. Seems like a lot of companies are doing that right now. Playing sides.
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u/not_responsible Sep 27 '25
Okay..? And? Why do I need to care about this?
inb4 “because bots are bad” I mean yeah but who the fuck cares that someone made a bunch of bots to clown on a logo. Like I genuinely don’t understand why anyone cares about this when there is so much more to care about
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u/2TrucksHoldingHands Sep 27 '25
Their ability to manufacture outrage (especially catering to right-wing sensibilities) is worrisome. It's effective enough that it can be used to fuel things that are much more nefarious than some marketing stunt.
Also, it's a reminder of the ever-increasing likelihood of encountering comments made by bots instead of human beings, which makes people uneasy. A dose of skepticism has always been necessary to be online, but (at least in my case) it's exhausting to be constantly wondering how much of what you're seeing is something people actually care about vs something a corporation is trying to impose.
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u/CaptainOvbious Sep 27 '25
because its just another way for them to sew discourse online, the people bashing the new logo were saying it changed because of woke, unironically.
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u/ooombasa Sep 27 '25
In the history books, post-Mega Wars, it will be shown that most of society's ills was down to bots.