Outrage Cycle: Cracker Barrel and its CEO Targeted Amidst Logo Controversy
After Cracker Barrel's logo redesign, alt-platform users attacked the company's female CEO, criticizing the company for trying to be "woke."
TLDR
Cracker Barrel faced an eruption of social media outrage last month after the company refreshed its logo with a modernized text-only design. After five days of outrage from customers and political figures, Cracker Barrel scrapped its new logo.
Open Measures sought to better understand the swell of anger directed toward Cracker Barrel and how popular narratives about the company’s new logo related to broader online trends. To assess these sentiments, researchers identified more than 18,000 posts across 17 platforms that mentioned the company around the time of the controversy for additional analysis.
Our researchers found that about 25% of these Cracker Barrel-related posts also referenced terms related to social justice and diversity. About 14% of the posts referenced the company’s CEO.
Context
On Aug. 21, 2025, US-based restaurant chain Cracker Barrel unveiled an updated logo as part of a larger effort to rebrand and modernize the company. The new logo did away with signature elements of its prior design—most notably a drawing of a man nicknamed “Old Timer” leaning on a barrel—in favor of a text-only design.1
The new logo drew swift outrage from high-profile conservative news personalities, who criticized the logo’s minimalist design and claimed it was “woke.”2 National outlets and news wires reported on the backlash, further legitimizing and amplifying the remarks. National political figures, including President Donald Trump, joined in criticizing Cracker Barrel as the controversy spread online.3
Five days later, on Aug. 26, Cracker Barrel announced that it would keep the old logo featuring “Old Timer” and his barrel. The White House claimed credit for the company’s reversal.4
Our Approach
Open Measures sought to better understand the outrage directed at Cracker Barrel following the attempted debut of its new logo. Using our proprietary tooling, our researchers analyzed posts mentioning Cracker Barrel from Aug. 14 to Sept. 3, 2025 (from a week before the new logo announcement on Aug. 21 to approximately two weeks after). Researchers chose this timeframe to capture the height of backlash against the company and calmer periods surrounding it.
To find all mentions of Cracker Barrel during this period, we used a simple Boolean search string:
(”Cracker Barrel” OR “CrackerBarrel” OR #CrackerBarrel)
Researchers applied their search string to 17 platforms known for hosting large conservative user communities, given that outrage over the logo change was strongest from those political factions.
The results of this search included all posts mentioning the restaurant chain during the period, including posts potentially unrelated to the logo change. We used the results of that inquiry as a baseline to measure additional searches against.
Filtering Our Data
We filtered results that also included terms related to the logo change using the following search string:
(”Cracker Barrel” OR “CrackerBarrel” OR #CrackerBarrel) AND (”logo” OR “icon” OR “style” OR “brand” OR “branding” OR “uncle hershel” OR “old timer”)
Researchers also filtered results to find posts mentioning Cracker Barrel that also included references to “DEI” (shorthand for diversity, equity, and inclusion workplace programs) and “woke” (a term associated with social justice causes):
(”Cracker Barrel” OR “CrackerBarrel” OR #CrackerBarrel) AND (woke* OR diversity OR dei)
We also sought to identify mentions of Cracker Barrel that also included direct or indirect references to the company’s president and CEO, Julie Felss Masino, with the following search string:
((”Cracker Barrel” OR “CrackerBarrel” OR #CrackerBarrel) AND ((”CEO” OR “chief executive”) OR (Julie Felss Masino)))
Our Findings
Following the method above, our researchers identified more than 18,000 posts that mentioned Cracker Barrel across 17 platforms in Open Measures’ dataset between Aug. 14 and Sept. 3. The data showed relatively few posts mentioning Cracker Barrel in the days before the company shared its new logo, though mentions spiked into the thousands after the new logo debuted.
On Aug. 21, the day after the new logo announcement, our researchers identified at least 2,250 posts mentioning Cracker Barrel, a local peak in daily post volume. That figure was surpassed only on Aug. 27, the day after Cracker Barrel announced it would keep its old logo, with at least 3,300 posts. After the surge on Aug. 27, daily mentions of the company gradually declined.
Of all platforms included in our researchers’ analysis, the highest number of posts mentioning Cracker Barrel appeared on Truth Social, a micro-blogging platform founded by Trump. Other platforms with dominant conservative user bases—such as micro-blogging platforms Gettr and Gab, anonymous imageboard 4chan, and video platform Rumble—also had many posts containing Cracker Barrel-related narratives.
Posts Referencing DEI and Social Justice
Mainstream conservative political discourse frequently includes criticism of social justice causes (often using the keyword “woke”) and initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (often using “DEI” related keywords).
While “woke” and DEI exist in their original contexts as distinct ideas, conservative media personalities often use these concepts interchangeably to disparage their perceived political opponents.5 As such, our researchers also analyzed whether posts mentioning Cracker Barrel also included references to “woke” or DEI and in what ways.
About a quarter of posts mentioning Cracker Barrel on the platforms we analyzed also included a reference to “woke” or DEI. That ratio was highest on Gab, where about 37% about the company also included a related keyword.
Of the five platforms with the most posts mentioning Cracker Barrel, the percentages of those posts that also referenced “woke” and DEI were as follows:
Truth Social: ~26%
Gettr: ~35%
Gab: ~37%
4chan: ~8%
Rumble: ~21%
Posts Referencing Cracker Barrel’s CEO
As women business leaders have been increasingly targeted in online harassment campaigns in recent years, our researchers also assessed how many identified posts mentioned the company’s CEO, Julie Felss Masino.
Of the posts our researchers identified mentioning Cracker Barrel, about 14% also referenced Masino by name or job title. Many of the posts targeting Masino exhibited implied or explicit misogynistic attitudes.6 Some prominent pro-Trump social media personalities faulted Masino for the logo controversy and demanded she resign from the company.7
Across the five platforms with the most number of posts related to Cracker Barrel, the percentage of posts that referenced Masino was as follows:
Truth Social: ~14%
Gettr: ~21%
Gab: ~21%
4chan: ~6%
Rumble: ~10%
Conclusion
Open Measures found that users who posted about Cracker Barrel on alt-platforms frequently tied criticism about its new logo to anti-diversity narratives promoted by conservative political figures in recent years. These findings suggest that anti-diversity narratives in conservative media played a significant role in generating outrage over the restaurant’s updated logo design.
Identify disinformation and extremism with the Open Measures platform.
Organizations use Open Measures’ tooling every day to track trends related to networks of influence, coordinated harassment campaigns, and state-backed info ops.
“Cracker Barrel unveils a new logo as part of wider rebrand efforts, sparking ire among some online.” Associated Press. 21 August 2025. Here.
Matthew Cantor. “‘A proxy for America’s culture war’: why Cracker Barrel’s new logo sparked ire on the right.” The Guardian. 28 August 2025. Here.
Phil Helsel. “Cracker Barrel will go back to old logo after conservative backlash.” NBC News. 26 August 2025. Here.
Aaron Pellish. “White House takes credit for Cracker Barrel logo reversal.” Politico. 26 August 2025. Here.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “The War on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” The New Yorker. 8 February 2025. Here.