Take heart, sweetheart, or I will take it from you

And I will wait for you.

“Hate is baggage. Life’s too short to be pissed off all the time.”

So who esle on here is following the AfD Cola Wars™? So far, we’ve had Coca-Cola, Pepsi, fritz-kola, and Vita Cola. 

What’s going on, you ask? Well. 

1) Coca Cola: There was a fake Coca-Cola ad condemning the AfD (Alternative for Germany, our resident right-wing party which is chock-full of actual neo-nazis), which was then posted on social media (German link about the story here):

(For a tranquil/reflective (this word is damn hard to translate!) time: Say no to AfD!)

AfD fans online were outraged and declared they wouldn’t drink Coca-Cola anymore

The “Director Public Affairs & Communications“ at Coca-Cola Deutschland, Patrick Kammerer, retweeted the picture, saying “Not every fake is wrong”; and the official Coca-Cola Germany account retweeted his tweet.

2) Pepsi: Someone at the AfD then digintally created and shared this picture:

(For a tranquil/reflective time: Say yes to AfD!)

Guess who wasn’t happy? The answer on FB from the official Pepsi account said this:

The poster on this picture is definitely not from Pepsi. We emphatically distance outselves from this political appropriation of the Pepsi brand and are looking into taking legal action against the creator for violation of our trademark rights.

3) fritz-kola: In response to Coca-Cola, this guy wanted to boycott them and, on December 6th, tweeted this (German link about it all here):

(After work a #kola)

Apparently, he didn’t know that fritz-kola is about the most politically minded beverage company in all of Germany, and surprise, they’re not fans of the AfD, they’re leftists. On December 7th, this happened on their twitter:

(280 characters aren’t much. but they’re enough for a big thank you! thanks to all the fritz-friends and all the great people out there who stand for lots of #diversity, #tolerance and togetherness! not everyone likes it, but it’s right! #wearemore) (the signs say stuff like “no kola for fascists”, “open eyes intead of blind hate”, “human rights instead of right-wing humans” etc.)

One might have known, considering they tweeted stuff like this in the past:

4) Vita Cola: Vita Cola is an East-German cola brand. On the 9th, Björn Höcke (oder Bernd, wie heißt der denn nu, verdammt!? ;) tweeted the following:

(Picture: There is an alternative to everything, not only in politics…

Text below: In Thuringia, we drink #VitaCola. This soda is by now market leader here, more popular than #CocaCola. Of course I wish lots of success to our local businesses.) 

Well. This is what Vita Cola had to say (German link here):

The statements issued by Björn Höcke on social media were unknown to us beforehand and were neither authorised nor commissioned by us. Moreover, there is no connection at all and therefore no advertising contract between Mr Höcke and the brand Vita Cola. We would also like to note that we do not see these statements ad an advertisement for Vita Cola.

We generally have no influence on personal opinions voiced on Vita Cola online. As brand we are and behave neutrally and will not be instrumentalised for political strife between parties or in connection with other brands. We hereby distance ourselves from any political misappropriation as well. Instead, Vita Cola stands, among other things, for cosmopolitanism and tolerance.”

Yeah. Looks pretty grim for AfD members and fans who want to drink cola whose manufacturers like right-wing ideology. But at least it’s good for their health if they boycott them?

5) afri cola: AfD politician Malte Kaufmann (he who tried fritz kola before) now drinks afri cola (German link) and writes this:

(I now drink another cola every evening and learn something about the political opinions of the manufacturers. Let’s see if #afri cola will make a statement for diversity, humanity, openness & tolerance. Cheers!)

And the response from afri cola when someone told them about it on FB:

(Hello and thanks for the message. afri cola stands for pop culture, i. e. freedom and tolerance. afri will not let itself be warped, used or misappropriated by political or other groups. greetings from afri)

——————

I’d posted this in my drafts last night. And then today when I went online, this had happened (German link): 

6) Sinalco: Before anyone from the AfD could even try to post themselves with a fizzy drink from sinalco, they posted this:

Lila could not know that she was setting off an earthquake.