I saw it on Facebook, so it must be true.....

Earlier this year, I stumbled across a photo of what appeared to be a dogfight, taking place under a row of Heineken banners. With a caption that made one believe that Heineken was a sponsor of this barbaric event. As with about 95% of crap I see on the Internet, especially facebook, I ignored it, because any rational person would assume an international company, as large as Heineken wouldn't be stupid enough to open themselves up to such awful PR. So, like I said, I ignored it, and moved on to ignoring other stupid crap on facebook in my daily attempt to find the 2 or 3 percent of facebook content that isn't a complete waste of time (its getting harder and harder with each passing day.



This is the photo that cuased all the "uproar"



Well, it seems this picture has popped up again, and well, this time, I have had a few friends actually either send me this pic via email, or one was even "kind" enough to tag me in the picture, gee thanks (I promptly removed said tag). All assuming I would be all worked up about this picture, and asking me if I 'hated Heineken even more now??" Well, my response to them was, well, honestly, my opinion of Heineken hasn't changed a bit, as a result of this photo, since, well, I assume this picture is either fake, taken out of context, or at least given an inaccurate description. One of them got seemingly a little upset with me, that I could brush off something seemingly SO heinous, so easily, without the least bit of research. Isn't it just as wrong to get so worked up about something, and make some horrific accusations without doing the least amount of research? Well, since everyone else seemed to be to friggin lazy to do it, I did, and it took me all of about 12 seconds to confirmed what I already figured was the case.

Ha!

The picture, is not a fake, it is real, it was taken in a nigh club in Mongolia in 2010. Heineken had no financial interest or sponsorship, or even knowledge of the event taking place. The banners were put up, by Heineken, the night before to sponsor (I am assuming a much less barbaric) event the previous night, and, I am sure much to the dismay of Heineken, were not taken down after the event. As a result, Heineken has dissolved its relationship with that night club, even removed all of its remaining stock of products from the club once this was brought to life.

See, Heineken is too classy

I like Heineken's response to this. They were made aware of the problem, and dealt with it, swiftly, and without and grandstanding, or theatrics. The didn't threaten any action, or pander to all the idiots that thought they were sponsoring such barbarism by donating to some charity or something. They did nothing wrong, and they didn't apologize for someone else's discretion's. So, if anything, my opinion of Heineken my have actually gone up a little as a result of this. I still think, as a beer, their product is pretty horrific, but as a company, they seem level headed, and not prone to pander.

So, rest assured my friends, Heineken doesn't sponsor dog fights, they only sponsor those high brow events one normally associates with beer, stuff like beer pong tournaments, and wet t-shirt contests. Oh, they also are the preferred beer of James Bond, so they must be doing something right! So please people, if you are going to pretend to get all pissed off over something, PLEASE make sure it at least makes sense before you go spreading it as gospel. Remember, if you read it on Facebook, its probably bullshit.


Until next time my friends
Bottoms Up
The Beer Czar

You can read the write up on snopes here...