People Are Legitimately Pissed Land O' Lakes Ditched Its Native American Woman

Hey, did you ever think that we'd reach a point in human evolution where folks would develop very strong opinions on butter packaging? That throngs of irate consumers would use a billion dollar company's global communication system _ on which some 145 million individuals daily view and share news, media, videos, photographs, and textual snippets — to voice their strong opinions on fatty dairy product provider, Land O' Lakes, for being guilty of "virtue signaling"?

It's no secret that Native Americans got a raw deal after European immigrants came to check out the New World. After barely surviving their first winter in New England thanks to the assistance of indigenous people, colonizers decided to repay the favor with violence, theft, subjugation, and blankets chock full of small pox. Let's not forget discrimination and making a mockery of native peoples' cultural practices and beliefs.

Dehumanization of Native Americans has existed in a lot of popular mediums. Sports franchises are pretty obvious offenders, with several  teams across a variety of professional associations using caricatures of indigenous people as mascots, or giving their teams' names rooted in racism.

But Native American likenesses are also used in advertising and brand recognition, and Land O' Lakes probably has one of the most recognizable product images bearing such a likeness.

In the interest of being more progressive by doing away with the imagery of a smiling Native American woman in order to move their butter, Land O' Lakes ended up angering a bunch of people who felt very strongly about keeping that imagery intact.

Seriously, there are people who are genuinely livid they can no longer buy the company's products with a picture of Mia, aka, its "Butter Maiden" on it.

While outrage over ridiculous subjects is kind of Twitter's MO, people turning a butter company's decision to not use a fictional indigenous person's likeness into a grand socio-political protest has to rank up there with some of the more questionable large-scale movements that have occurred on the platform.

Believe it or not, some people have even vowed to never buy Land O' Lakes products ever again because the company's decision to change its logo means it's guilty of "virtue signaling."

Others have even said that the only reason they buy the company's butter is because of Mia's image on the packaging. I personally can only speculate that these same folks decide which cereal to buy based on the activities on the back of the box, or the random prize hidden inside.

My guess is the real reason people are upset about Land O' Lakes removing Mia from its packaging is people won't be able to pull off the folding knees/boob trick. If you need a video to show you how to do it, you can check out the full "tutorial" below. All you really need is an exacto knife, knowledge of how to fold paper, and a 7th grader's sense of humor. 

It's interesting, considering we're in the middle of a global pandemic and all, that people are up in arms about butter. Or maybe that's precisely the reason this is even a thing in the first place — because so many of us have too much free time while social distancing at home.

Do you think that folks who are upset about the butter package changing have a valid point about social justice warriors "ruining" everything? Or is this a case of folks making mountains out of molehills for no reason whatsoever?