Wendy’s social team has had a big 2017, finding its off-handed dismissal of a troll suddenly picked up on as a feel-good reverse David and Goliath narrative, in which a corporate behemoth steps on a tiny troll and everyone cheers because fuck trolls. Since then, the Wendy’s team has gone full-on shit-poster, eagerly getting in other companies’ mentions and even running a Super Bowl ad campaign based on shit-talk. Make fun of our baked potatoes at your own goddamn risk, they seem to be saying.
That tonal shift has lead some viewers to re-envision Wendy’s red-haired, wholesome mascot as instead a smug, shit-talking anime girl. The fit is… natural.
There are a lot more. Given that the people at Wendy’s spent the first portion of the year discovering and refining their new feisty persona, it is only a matter of time before they seize upon this anime-friendly following and begin tweeting out GIFs of Yuri On Ice, claiming that competitors’ french fries are “weak like Shinji Ikari,” and telling followers that their “new sunrise coffee blend is darker than the final episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.”