‘Woke tears’ water, Hillary toilet roll: the US right’s ‘parallel economy’ – in pictures

3 months ago 2

Last year, an intense transphobic backlash erupted in response to Bud Light using a trans influencer in a social media campaign. Bomb threats were called in to breweries, bars stopped selling Budweiser products, people posted videos of themselves pouring Bud Light down the drain, and Kid Rock filmed himself shooting several cases of it with a submachine gun.

Against that backdrop, a company launched a Bud Light alternative called Ultra Right Beer, marketed as being “100% Woke-Free.”.

Ultra Right is one of many products in a consumer movement that’s been picking up steam in recent years: the so-called parallel economy. The parallel economy is an attempt by conservatives to create a separate economy made up of businesses and services that are less “woke” than those in the mainstream. (It’s also referred to as the “patriot economy” and the “freedom economy”.)

I’ve had incredibly jarring moments exploring the parallel economy. Like when I was browsing a parallel economy Christmas catalog put out by the rightwing social networking site Gab, and ended up on the website of a candle company that was selling products featuring swastikas and racist caricatures of Black people (the owner of that candle company has since been arrested for allegedly mailing threats to a rabbi).

I’ve been attempting to document the parallel economy for the last year or so, and have photographed dozens of businesses and services. Things like ForTrump Cookies, an alternative to regular fortune cookies that contain messages like “CNN is fake news”; and Maga Realty, a Florida-based real estate company that offers a free AR-15 with every home purchase; and Patriot Mobile, a company that bills itself as “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider”.