M&M’s ‘spokescandies’ controversy, explained – Polygon

Say goodbye to both the sexy green M&M and also her feminist, sneaker-wearing counterpart. Mars Wrigley, the maker of the colorful chocolate candies, has pulled its M&M’s ‘spokescandies’ mascots “indefinitely” from its marketing and branding. Instead, M&M’s will be represented by the real-life comedian and actress Maya Rudolph.

After a branding change to be more inclusive of characters, the news follows the fallout from Tucker Carlson (far right conservative pundit) condemning the changes. The statement, tweeted from M&M’s official account, reads:

In the last year, we’ve made some changes to our beloved spokescandies. We weren’t sure if anyone would even notice. And we definitely didn’t think it would break the interent. But now we get it — even a candy’s shoes can be polarizing.

A slew internet comments have been written about the confusing sequence of events. The tweet that announced the change was quoted over 14k times at the time of publication. You will find a variety of responses. Here’s how we got to this point.

Why are the M&M’S ‘spokescandies’ leaving?

Roughly a year ago, Mars Wrigley updated the look of its M&M’s characters, when the company announced an initiative to make the mascots fit a “more dynamic, progressive world.” As part of these changes, the company introduced new designs of some of M&M’s characters and wrote weirdly elaborate backstoriesFor others. Most notably, the company made green M&M less “sexy” by shortening her legs and replacing her high-heeled boots with sneakers.

At the time, the change prompted both criticism from feminist activists (being hot isn’t a problem unto itself) and far right conservatives who cast it as another battle in the culture wars. Tucker Carlson died Jan. 2022. criticized the rebrandDuring a show segment.

Carlson revisited this topic on his podcast more recently and was able to reignite the debate around the issue. On the episode he said, “Woke M&M’s have returned. The green M&M got her boots back, but apparently is now a lesbian maybe? And there is also a plus-sized, obese, purple M&M.”

We don’t know why Carlson decided to talk about M&M’s again. Mars Wrigley has not made any recent changes to the M&M characters. Carlson refers to two images in the episode as references for critiquing the brand’s new identity. First, an image of brown and green M&M from 2015 and the other was of purple M&M, who was introduced back in September. All of these are not new facts. Mars Wrigley however teased the possibility that Mars Wrigley might be appearing in the Super Bowl.

TikTok users started using Carlson’s audio clip to make funny videos. People lip-sync and imagine being there that day. The audio clip was used nearly 9,000 times in total since its publication on January 12. Many TikToks made with the audio clip have been shared and viewed widely last weekend.

It’s hard to say whether the social media shit storm following Carlson’s comments prompted Mars Wrigley to stop using the mascots. It’s also possible that this could be a very strange marketing ploy leading up the Super Bowl, similar to how Planters killed Mr. Peanut and replaced him with baby nut.

As for what’s next, well, Maya Rudolph expressed optimism about the brand deal to Today. “I am a lifelong lover of the candy and I feel like it’s such an honor to be asked to be part of such a legendary brand’s campaign.” Let’s just hope she doesn’t appear on stage in regular old sneakers, instead of high-heel boots.