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It's obvious why they changed their logo. It's not the mascot's ethnicity and gender; it's that he looks like he's straight out of a 1990s "100,000 Pieces of Vector Clip Art" CD.

Great observation! It was also too complex to be a tile for an app launcher or favicon. It has to be legible at 180 x 180px these days.

"It has to be" sounds fascist

Some, sure, but most people were upset that it was bland and followed the trend of other companies that have been removing texture or uniqueness from their brand logos in favor of simple branding.

I sincerely doubt Steak 'n Shake tweeting "fire the CEO" was a serious call to action so much as it was jumping on the hate train for fun.

https://x.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1958279379408372204

The framing isn't just that it is "woke", but, more to the essay, that they're destroying a classic American aesthetic.

They're very much making this out to be: it's us vs them, and mythologizing tradition. Equating corporate identity as American history does well to push corporate capitalism, but funnily enough, the logo only goes back to 1977. It's only as old as Don Jr!