
Since today is a day of national unity, here’s a recent ad that created some controversy on social media—which has been a universally positive development in the history of the human race!
First, though: we love Popeye’s. Not afraid to say that fried chicken, biscuits and mashed potatoes are the best thing to buy when you get back home at 12:45 AM on a Friday night/Saturday morning after a round of 3 or 5 or 12 drinks at the local watering hole.
That said, a recent ad by AOR GSD&M in which former NFL star Jerry Rice promotes the chain while wearing a chicken helmet has inspired some takes of varying hotness.
The products were fun, especially the napkin shirt. But some of these tweets…
Jerry Rice is a spokesman for Popeyes..and they have him holding giant biscuits and wearing a helmet with a piece of chicken on it 🚂#wtf pic.twitter.com/Zg5goUuj7U
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) January 18, 2017
Y’all these Jerry Rice Popeyes commercials pic.twitter.com/MCivRWuweo
— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) January 20, 2017
i just wanna know how much popeyes paid jerry rice
like popeyes is dope but not a big biscuit and wearing hot wing helmet dope pic.twitter.com/0SSd5y4LJy
— Ahmed/Sampha Stan (@big_business_) January 18, 2017
Not all of the feedback was negative.
Yal seen that Popeyes x Jerry Rice commercial ? LMAOOO
— Lucky Charm❣️ (@QueenLaTilly) January 7, 2017
Here’s one from a guy who launched his own multimedia production company.
I wonder who was the creative director behind the Jerry Rice Popeyes commercial!!
— Martellus Bennett (@MartysaurusRex) January 6, 2017
Oh jeez…here it comes.
NFL Hall Of Famer Jerry Rice Roasted For Wearing Popeyes Fried Chicken Helmet – https://t.co/zYNVJzJ8HL
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) January 19, 2017
Part of this may stem from the fact that Rice recently stepped into the political arena by commenting on Colin Kaepernick. He later apologized, writing, “When I said {All Lives Matter} I didn’t know about the movement going on between {Black Lives Matter}.”
Delenda Joseph of Uproxx also writes, “the image of a grinning black man wearing a helmet with a spinning drumstick plays too much on the ‘black people love chicken’ stereotype. Oddly enough, the stereotype has its roots in A Birth Of A Nation, the 1915 silent movie about the founding of the Ku Klux Klan.”
We can only say that Popeye’s is delicious when you’re drunk.