M&M’s, the iconic candy that most will describe as meh before proceeding to house an entire bag in two minutes flat, have announced an all-new Caramel Cold Brew flavor, and people are already losing it.
The Mars candy brand revealed the new M&M flavor via their website, which will be a “delicious combination of smooth, robust coffee flavor and sweet, chewy caramel, covered in a class M&M’s milk chocolate and wrapped in a colorful candy shell.” Per PR Newswire the Caramel Cold Brew M&M’s are slated to be released in February 2023 and will be a permanent part of the candy’s lineup. It will be the second coffee-flavored variant M&M’s has released, with the first being a limited-edition espresso variety that will be available this winter holiday season.
To herald Caramel Cold Brew as the latest addition to the thin candy shell family, M&M’s is introducing its new anthropomorphized character, Purple. Voiced by actor Amber Ruffin, Purple has already made a few appearances on YouTube and is “known for embracing her true self, embodying acceptance, and authenticity.” It’s a wonderful message if perhaps a little saccharine and used in service of peddling commodity chocolate. And some members of the conservative news-sphere hate it.
It it because Purple might be trans? One host whose name I don’t know and won’t bother looking up suggested this recently on the One America News network, the TV channel best known for rotting your grandpa’s brain. This continues the tradition of conservative TV hosts caring way, way too much about the gender of fictional candy mascots, started famously by Tucker Carlson who once did a news segment on the “sexy boots” (his words) of the Green M&M.
Mars and the M&Ms brand have not yet made any official comment on the gender identity of Purple. but if it makes Tucker Carlson mad, I think it’s fair to assume that every single anthropomorphized M&M character is queer. In fact, let’s make that canon: each and every M&Ms mascot is a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. I won’t enumerate which color M&M has which identity—they can do that once they are ready to share such information with the world, on their own terms and in accordance with their own journey—but suffice to say, these candies are all very, very gay, and they love to vote.
Anyway, M&M’s Caramel Cold Brew will be out in February. They sound pretty good so I’m going to give ‘em a whirl.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
