Image: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images
By Chloe Bryan
“Mr. Peanut” has “died,” according to the Planters mascot’s official Twitter account.
The sentient legume’s demise is part of a Super Bowl ad campaign, according to AdAge, which began with a video of Mr. Peanut sacrificing himself to save his friends Wesley Snipes and Matt Walsh in the wake of a harrowing Nutmobile accident.
His funeral will reportedly air during the third quarter of the game.
On Twitter, reactions to the nut’s death were, unfortunately, mostly positive. The official platform of brain worms has never handled weird brand tweets particularly well — people tend to either play gleefully into the brand’s strategy or get way meaner than a probably-beleaguered social media manager deserves — but Mr. Peanut is already divisive.
It is with heavy hearts that we confirm that Mr. Peanut has died at 104. In the ultimate selfless act, he sacrificed himself to save his friends when they needed him most. Please pay your respects with #RIPeanut pic.twitter.com/VFnEFod4Zp
— The Estate of Mr. Peanut (@MrPeanut) January 22, 2020
Last December, for example, MEL Magazine published a story painting the nut (accurately) as an aristocratic, capitalist war criminal who profits from the death of his own kind. He doesn’t just profit, either: There are multiple images of him eating peanuts himself. God!
It’s perhaps for this reason, along with a deep-seated distaste for brand posts in general, that so many people want Mr. Peanut to be in hell.
Mr. Peanut is in Hell. He spent decades as the smiling face of a company that sold the boiled and roasted corpses of his people as a snack
— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) January 22, 2020
me earning a marketing degree in 2012: huh, denny’s has a quirky tumblr page. this would be a fun career
me in 2020: i’m glad Mr Peanut is dead https://t.co/SJhKCyoWqx— patrick mcmahon (@patrickmcmahonn) January 22, 2020
Let’s think about this logically, though. At Mr. Peanut’s funeral, his corpse will probably be buried in the ground. From the ground, we imagine, will grow a new peanut. A cute baby peanut or something. Don’t worry: No brand would let 104 years of rocky marketing die that easily.
