TWIBS: Skittles of TikTok
Chaya Raichik, aka Libs of TikTok, is going on the offensive against… confectionary? Okay, cool!
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Don’t you just love Skittles?
They’re one of my favorite candies! Well, until I get that family size bag and eat so many they start eating me back and dissolve the insides of my cheeks and tongue so that everything is sore and I can’t taste for a few hours… but that’s besides the point. I think.
I like regular Skittles the most, or maybe those weird berry or tropical ones. I don’t really like sour Skittles, even though all my friends were obsessed with them in high school. I just don’t like sour things that much!
Which is why I REALLY don’t like Chaya Raichik!
My sincerest apologies, I hope that set up was worth the extremely meager payoff. Let me stop burying the lede: On August 31st, Chaya Raichik’s ridiculous self rage tweeted about Skittles, of all things, using her stochastic terrorism machine Libs of TikTok. Her beef—or xanthan gum, or whatever—with Skittles is that, surprise, they support those nasty despicable queers. How could they do this?! Have they no shame?
Raichik’s specific grievance regards Skittles’ 2024 partnership with media monitoring LGBTQ+ organization GLAAD. During the month of June, or Pride as Burger King likes to call it, Skittles donated $1 to GLAAD for every “Pride pack” they sold (these awful gray Skittles meant to suggest they’ll stop hogging the rainbow for one month to support us, I guess), up to $100,000. Considering Skittles apparently sold over $300,000,000 of candy between 2018 and 2019, I feel honorbound to point out that $100,000 isn’t a very impressive donation.
Raichik, established queen of hyperbolic social media callouts that have resulted in countless real world bomb threats, alleges that GLAAD is a “radical leftwing LGBTQ organization which promotes s*x [sic] change surgery for minors.” I find that particularly hilarious considering the extremely lukewarm feelings I expressed about GLAAD when I tore James Kirchick a new one a few weeks ago.
Like… radical leftwing organization? Are you kidding, girl? I know there isn’t much meat rattling between those ears of yours but you gotta start flexing your shriveled little critical thinking muscles just a bit when you go to post.
So anyway, uh… I don’t know. Where do we even start, here? Should I just point out that she’s wrong about GLAAD? Officially, they support the Standards of Care for trans health established by WPATH, and are happy to point out that every major medical association also supports those standards of care. Believe it or not, WPATH does not recommend—and has never recommended—“?s*x [sic] change surgery for minors.”
There you have it. Raichik says, very flatly, “If you buy skittles you’re supporting s*x [sic] changes for kids,” and that’s flatly untrue. Even if GLAAD supported SRS for kids (they don’t and nobody does, despite what the myriad fearmongers would like you to believe), it’s not like they’re a medical organization. They don’t have a fucking OR, do they Chaya?
And look, far be it from me to dissuade anybody from enjoying Skittles or feeling like they’re supporting a good cause, but $1 sent to GLAAD by purchasing a snack is perhaps the most blatant example of a drop in the bucket I can think of. Nobody cares if you buy Skittles! Just remember to brush your teeth! Yes, I am speaking directly to you, ADHD transfemme with life ruining executive dysfunction.
Suffice it to say, this tweet is low quality even by Chaya Raichik’s standards. Don’t listen to this woman, go about your day and enjoy your chewy candy folks.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer who spends too much time playing video games!
