Everybody is weighing in on Ben & Jerry’s decision to end sales of ice cream in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. People are very angry on one side and proud of the company on the other. Either way, they’re speaking their minds to comedian Matt McCarthy on Twitter. Why? Because they’ve mistaken him for the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, Matthew McCarthy.
“It’s happened before but the recent Ben & Jerry’s news completely revved it out of control,” said McCarthy, who goes by @mccarthyredhead on Twitter, in an interview with the Journal. “[I receive] at least one [tweet] a day. Since I’ve started leaning into the nonsense recently it’s been more tweets from people in on the joke.”
McCarthy doesn’t mind; even when people are attacking him, he has fun with it. After someone tagged him in a post about the situation, McCarthy thanked the man and told him, “Our newest flavor will be called No Retreat, No Surrender.” The man then posted, “Love that spirit,” and McCarthy responded by posting, “This guy’s bio says he is an NYU Law School professor.” The man later deleted his tweet, perhaps realizing his mistake. But a reply from him still lingers on McCarthy’s page: “Thank you for your bold and principled move!”
Here’s one where McCarthy cut straight to the point. When a customer asked him, “Hi gentlemen, Please, could you bring back the most fantastic Ice Cream of B&J, New York Chocolate Crunch please. We can not anymore buy it in France? A problem of a range too wide? Please it’s one of your best perfume,” McCarthy replied, “Thank you for reaching out. No.”
That same person said to McCarthy, “Be careful, the less you listen to your clients, the more sales you lose. This Ice cream was the better chocolate one, and I’m sure, I’m not the only one thinking that.” McCarthy responded, “Thanks for reaching out. You don’t have the balls to stop eating my ice cream. What’s your second favorite flavor? I’m discontinuing it as well.”
Still, the original poster didn’t catch on. He also tweeted something completely in French to McCarthy. McCarthy replied, “I don’t know what this says because I only speak Ice Cream but I assume it says I’m awesome and Ben & Jerry’s is running wild all over the competition.”
The comedian, who has over 10,000 followers, posts pictures of himself “checking in” on “his products” in grocery stores and tweets at other ice cream companies that he’s coming for them, along with funny GIFs. He also tweets pictures of direct messages, like one from a user who told him he is “personally complicit in war crimes, ethnic cleansing and apartheid policies” and that “history will not be on your side Matt.” Someone replied to that, “I love you CEO of ben and Jerry’s you stand with humanity now I’m buying Ben and Jerry’s anytime I need Ice cream. Thank you for standing up for injustice!!!”
When asked whether or not people are catching on that he’s not really the CEO, McCarthy said, “It’s hard to say. Mostly I’ve been replying back like the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s is an action hero from a bad ‘80s movie. And still they don’t notice.”
While McCarthy does have a favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor (“Cherry Garcia, maaaaan”), what he doesn’t actually have an opinion on is what’s going on with the Israel situation.
“I watch pro wrestling VHS tapes and collect comic books,” he said. “I’m the last person you want discussing world affairs.”
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