A few months after MEL published the definitive history of how Frosted Flakes spokestoon Tony the Tiger became the most sexually objectified cereal mascot of all time, his official Twitter account went quiet. But mascots can never really die.
Anyone who mourned Tony’s disappearance — which made it all the harder to thirstily harass him — was likely overjoyed to see the brawny, kerchiefed jungle cat reappear on the main Kellogg’s account this week for a corporate Pride Month shoutout. Does this make him canonically queer? Let’s hope so!
People predicted a big reaction from the furry community, but all horny replies were welcome.
And while some Frosted Flakes fans seemed annoyed to see their breakfast connected in any way with LGBT culture, others felt this “coming-out” moment had been too long in the making.
What, meanwhile, did Alex Boivin — the Minneapolis grad student notoriously suspended from Twitter for replying “I’d fuck that tiger” to a Tony tweet — make of this bold branding move?
“I’m normally against rainbow capitalism, but Stonewall was a riot started by 6-foot-tall members of the genus Panthera,” he says, alluding to the Black Panthers’ role in a breakthrough for the LGBT rights movement.
As for the mischievous or irrepressibly aroused individuals risking a timeout in Twitter jail every time they hit a Kellogg’s thread with hardcore Tony porn, Boivin adds, “I hope that in the spirit of openness and honesty, Twitter recognizes the muscle daddy tiger top in all of us and takes action to ban Nazis rather than people who think brands are funny. People with power don’t need your protection.”
I’m sure Tony himself — the big, sweet, well-endowed daddy — agrees: That’d be grrrrrrrrreat.