How Dylan Mulvaney's Career Has Soared Six Months Since Bud Light Boycott

March 28, 2024

Haters will always hate, but they also have inadvertently helped boost Dylan Mulvaney's career.

The transgender influencer became the target of a conservative mob after she was sent personalized, not-for-sale cans of Bud Light with her face on them. The gift was supposed to mark the one-year anniversary of her gender-affirming transition, but became the spark in an ongoing culture war that has seen increased rhetoric against LGBTQ+ people.

Conservatives called for a boycott of the brand. Mulvaney spoke about receiving death threats for her relationship with Bud Light, which also included posting promoted content for the beer brand's March Madness campaign.

Despite the dark times, Mulvaney has seen her star rise from landing lucrative sponsorship deals to gracing magazine covers, and she has well and truly claimed her role in the cultural zeitgeist.

Mulvaney rose to fame as a prolific TikTok poster where she documented her gender-affirming transition and culminated in the documentary, 365 Days A Girl, but shortly after that came the Bud Light fiasco.

Even though she was under a lot of pressure from anti-transgender people, Mulvaney went on to score partnership deals with major brands such as Nike, Kate Spade and Ulta Beauty.

Mulvaney has also worked with Lady Gaga's Haus Labs cosmetics company, skincare line CeraVe, MAC, KIND Snacks, KitchenAid, Ole Henriksen, Instacart, K18, Aritzia and Rent the Runway.

But that's not all. In 2023 alone, Mulvaney has graced the covers of Them and The Cut magazines. Allure magazine even named her on its A-list for 2023.

In August, Mulvaney won her first Streamy Award for best breakout content creator.

She has graced many an exclusive red-carpet event, including the Tony Awards, and delivered a keynote address at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in San Diego.

Still facing hateful trolling six months on from the Bud Light debacle, Mulvaney had a curt response to one person who asked "are you dead yet?" She replied, "no I'm modelling," and shared the interaction on an video Instagram of her fiercely parading down the catwalk at New York Fashion Week.

Social-media analytics company Social Blade even gave Mulvaney the enviable grade of A- for her TikTok presence. She boasts 10.5 million followers on the video platform and managed to get more than 6 million likes in the past 30 days alone.

Amid the rise in her star power while dealing with transphobia, Mulvaney also managed to mark 500 days since she began her gender transition.

She shared what she has learned in that time with her 1.8 million Instagram followers, including that "blondes have more fun."

"You know who came through for me these last few months? It was trans people and queer people. A lot of [whom] saw all of this coming, because they knew what it was like to be burned and I didn't," Mulvaney said of the backlash she had faced this year.

"I gave myself and my identity to people who didn't deserve it. Then the trans and queer community was there to pick me back up without pity. Thank god for that."

Mulvaney added: "Today, on [day] 500, is dedicated to my younger self who didn't get to celebrate so many awesome discoveries because I was just hoping to get by.

"Today is actually day 9705 of being a woman, because I've always been one. My four-year-old self knew that, my 10-year-old self knew that and my 15-year-old self knew that and they deserve to celebrate these wins too," Mulvaney said.

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