CRACKER BARREL IS FOR CRACKERS
Aug. 23rd, 2025 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogITEM: Cracker Barrel has changed its logo for the first time in 47 years.
And MAGAland is absolutely flipping the f*** out.
Do I have thoughts? I kinda do, yeah.
1. For Pete's sake, get a grip, MAGA!
2. Logo changes are always controversial. But how the new one is in any way remotely "woke", I have no idea.
3. I guarantee no MAGA talking head who eats at Cracker Barrel gave two hoots about the folksy guy with the barrel until the company dropped it.
4. Personally I don't think the classic logo needed changing, but I also think it was fake nostalgia for a time that hasn't existed in most of America since the 1960s or earlier. Certainly none of the talking heads complaining about it ever once shared stories leaning on a barrel.
(Fun fact: the first Cracker Barrel opened in Lebanon, TN in 1969, at which time Lebanon had about 12,000 ppl, with no country store selling stuff out of barrels where townsfolk gathered to talk turkey.)
5. So, yeah, this is more classic manufactured MAGA outrage over a minor issue to throw more fuel on a sociopolitical culture war that they started.
6. FULL DISCLOSURE: I ate at a Cracker Barrel once.
Once.
Because I had to.
(I have family back in TN and that's where they wanted to go for the family dinner when we visited one year.)
It wasn't terrible, but it didn’t rock my world, either.
The other thing is that, having grown up TN, I'm not big on "Southern Cuisine", especially when it's packaged as an ersatz Simple Country Life sales gimmick.
To be clear, there's lots of good Southern food that I like. IMO, Cracker Barrel mostly serves the other kind. And of the food I do like on their menu, I can get it elsewhere for the same price or lower, and without the “downhome country values” propaganda.
Roll out the barrel,
This is dF
And MAGAland is absolutely flipping the f*** out.
Do I have thoughts? I kinda do, yeah.
1. For Pete's sake, get a grip, MAGA!
2. Logo changes are always controversial. But how the new one is in any way remotely "woke", I have no idea.
3. I guarantee no MAGA talking head who eats at Cracker Barrel gave two hoots about the folksy guy with the barrel until the company dropped it.
4. Personally I don't think the classic logo needed changing, but I also think it was fake nostalgia for a time that hasn't existed in most of America since the 1960s or earlier. Certainly none of the talking heads complaining about it ever once shared stories leaning on a barrel.
(Fun fact: the first Cracker Barrel opened in Lebanon, TN in 1969, at which time Lebanon had about 12,000 ppl, with no country store selling stuff out of barrels where townsfolk gathered to talk turkey.)
5. So, yeah, this is more classic manufactured MAGA outrage over a minor issue to throw more fuel on a sociopolitical culture war that they started.
6. FULL DISCLOSURE: I ate at a Cracker Barrel once.
Once.
Because I had to.
(I have family back in TN and that's where they wanted to go for the family dinner when we visited one year.)
It wasn't terrible, but it didn’t rock my world, either.
The other thing is that, having grown up TN, I'm not big on "Southern Cuisine", especially when it's packaged as an ersatz Simple Country Life sales gimmick.
To be clear, there's lots of good Southern food that I like. IMO, Cracker Barrel mostly serves the other kind. And of the food I do like on their menu, I can get it elsewhere for the same price or lower, and without the “downhome country values” propaganda.
Roll out the barrel,
This is dF
