The “Let’s Go Brandon” fad appears to have stayed fresh over a year after it burst into the cultural zeitgeist, with sales for wrapping paper bearing its namesake set double last year’s.
The conservative apparel company Freedom Speaks Up told Fox Business that sales for the “Let’s Go Brandon” wrapping paper has sold over 500,000 square feet (more than 6,000 pounds) of the product in 2022, doubling sales from 2021 when “Let’s Go Brandon” reached the height of its popularity.
According to CEO Seth Weathers, the company made $1 million in sales last year, which it roughly doubled in 2020 with the addition of its “Merry Easter” Biden parody wrapping paper.
“We’re having tons of fun with this, there’s no way to spend $20 bucks and get more smiles on Christmas morning,” Weathers told Fox Business.
The “Let’s Go, Brandon” phenomenon sparked in early October 2021 when NBC Sports reporter Kellie Stavast tried to cover up the crowd chanting “F*ck Joe Biden” when NASCAR driver Brandon Brown scored his first Xfinity Series win at the Talladega Speedway. Since then, the chant has become a fun, vulgar-free way of expressing disdain for the 46th President of the United States.
Speaking with Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal in December of last year, Brandon said potential sponsors have been hesitant to get behind his name due to the chant’s controversy.
It’s hard for a brand to want to attach to somebody who might be kind of divisive in their consumer base. If I’m going to divide Coca-Cola, why would they want to talk to me? So the short answer is it’s been tough to connect with partnerships just because it’s kind of viewed as a ticking time bomb: ‘What is he doing to choose or say and how would that effect our consumer base?’ It’s too much of a risk.’ I understand it on their side but it’s made it really hard to tie everything down.
Brandon labeled himself a Republican but insisted he had no desire to have his racing be associated with politics.
“The unfortunate part is it’s my name and my career that are at stake and the risk is high. If I do something wrong in this arena, my name as a driver falls off very fast,” Brown said.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps has denounced the chant, calling it an “unfortunate situation” while expressing sympathy for Brandon and the reporter.
“It’s an unfortunate situation, and I feel for Brandon, I feel for Kelli,” Phelps told Fox News last year. “I think, unfortunately, it speaks to the state of where we are as a country. We do not want to associate ourselves with politics, the left or the right.”