Burger King’s new Pride Month hamburger has created quite a stir on social media.
The fast-food chain’s Austrian locations will serve a “Pride Whopper” with “two equal buns” — either two top buns or two bottom buns — until June 20 to promote “equal love and equal rights,” the company announced last week on Instagram.
Burger King said in the post that the new burger’s “little twist” is “meant to put a smile on our faces and to remind us to treat each other with respect and peace.”
Some social media users found the new burger amusing, while others chastised the company, claiming that the joke was offensive and an example of “rainbow washing” — the practise of companies expressing surface-level support for LGBTQ+ people without taking concrete steps to improve their lives.
“Burger King Austria made a Pride burger that’s either two tops or two bottoms… what in straight hell?” Jarett Wieselman, a manager at Netflix, said in a Friday tweet.
But an Instagram user, who goes by the name unacornium, saw the funny side.
“As a gay person, this is the funniest thing I have ever seen and I don’t think I’ll ever stop laughing,” unacornium said on Monday.
It is unclear if Burger King intends to donate any proceeds from the Pride Whopper to LGBTQ+ organisations. When CNN Business reached out for comment, the company did not respond immediately.
Burger King drew attention to rival Chick-fil-troubled A’s history with the LGBTQ+ community last year. It stated that for every Ch’King chicken sandwich sold during Pride Month, it would donate 40 cents to the Human Rights Campaign, the United States’ largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organisation.
