Another Pride, another boycott: Right-wing media attempt to cancel children’s educator Ms Rachel
Written by Ari Drennen
Research contributions from Vesper Henry
Published
Bud Light. Hershey’s. Target. Nike. Jack Daniel’s. The Los Angeles Dodgers. Adidas. Walmart. The North Face. While Pride 2023 featured a seemingly endless wave of boycott efforts from right-wing media personalities angry at corporations marketing their wares to LGBTQ customers, this year’s cancelation attempts have so far been more restrained, with a number of familiar right-wing media faces focusing on Ms Rachel after the popular children’s YouTuber posted a brief Pride message on TikTok.
With 10 million subscribers on YouTube, Rachel Accurso bills herself as “a passionate educator who creates research-based videos” which “infuse songs, games and nursery rhymes with strategies from experts to help children reach important milestones in the crucial early years of learning.” She also has nearly 5 million followers on TikTok, where she posted a 25-second clip on June 1 wishing a “happy Pride to all of our wonderful families and friends.”
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh shared the video to X (formerly Twitter), calling it “a message to conservatives parents.”
“She doesn’t want your business,” the What is a Woman filmmaker wrote. “You should respond accordingly.”
Walsh also covered the video at length on his June 3 show.
Other right-wing media figures piled on, with anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok accusing Ms Rachel of subscribing to “the child m*tilat*on cult,” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec pointing out that she’d invited trans TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney onto her show, and Daily Wire host Michael Knowles suggesting that her use of the title “Ms” was a red flag in itself.
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro also played the comments on his show, tying them with a similar Pride post by the children’s show Sesame Street.
In a lengthy post claiming “Ms Rachel wants to brainwash your kids into radical ideology,” Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boering perhaps made the logic behind the focus on Accurso transparent while promoting “Bentkey,” the Daily Wire’s children’s television offering, which he said has “hundreds of episodes, dozens of shows, and zero indoctrination.” (At the network’s launch in 2023, Bentkey largely featured re-dubbed European and Asian children’s cartoons.)
Accurso stood by her comments in a response to Fox News Digital, writing, “I am a Christian and in the Bible it says the greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor. I love all of my neighbors and that excludes no one."