Anger machine on the InternetSitting bunny, standing bunny, grotesque bunny? How the Easter bunny is being turned into a political issue
Petar Marjanović
18.4.2025
Facebook users were already up in arms about a supposed Easter bunny ban in 2018.
Facebook
Chocolate Easter bunnies were called "standing bunnies" or "sitting bunnies" over 40 years ago. However, right-wing influencers stirred up anger with false information and claimed that "Woke" had banned the Easter bunny. This is how it came about.
18.04.2025, 00:00
18.04.2025, 08:45
Petar Marjanović
No time? blue News summarizes for you
"Rage bait" is a manipulation tactic used to provoke outrage. Influencers use it to earn money or spread political content.
This tactic has been used for years in connection with an alleged ban on Easter bunnies. This year too, politicians and influencers claimed that the Easter bunny should no longer be called the "Easter bunny".
The tactic is effective. According to studies, many internet users only read headlines.
Anyone who has been on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, X or other social networks in the last few days is likely to have noticed the debate: Can the Easter Bunny still be called the "Easter Bunny"? Or have "woke", "Islamization" and alleged "dictatorship of opinion" led to chocolate bunnies only being allowed to be called "sitting bunnies" or "standing bunnies"?
How the outrage started
Anyone looking for the origins of the discussion will quickly recognize a pattern: shortly before Easter, the claim regularly spreads that the term "Easter bunny" should no longer be used for political reasons.
Easter bunny/Sitzhase debates in recent years
Example 2016: On March 22, a Facebook user posted: "Finally the stupid Easter bunny is being abolished and the more politically correct 'sitting bunny' is being introduced...ALLAHU AKBAR!". This year, there were terrorist attacks in which Islamists propagated the call to God "Allahu akbar" (God is greater). Easter was on March 27 this year.
Example 2018:Another user wrote on March 28: "Probably to avoid hurting religious feelings, Karstadt no longer sells Easter bunnies, but 'traditional bunnies'. Submission and self-sacrifice are progressing. I won't spend another penny there." The article was circulated thousands of times. Easter was on April 1 this year.
This year, a Facebook user named Markus Vollk sparked the outrage. On March 24, he posted a photo from a Lidl brochure in which a chocolate bunny was referred to as a "sitting bunny". The post quickly went viral and generated numerous angry comments.
Outrage is fueled
What the waves of outrage of recent years have in common is that they are based on false information and were subsequently spread by right-wing influencers and politicians.
In 2018, for example, the AfD-affiliated politician Erika Steinbach took up the aforementioned Facebook post and commented on X: "If you don't want to sell me any more Easter bunnies, you can do without me."
Erika Steinbach (now AfD) published this tweet: "If you don't want to sell me any more Easter bunnies, you can do without me."
X
This year, YouTuber Alexander Raue ("Landlord's Diary") caused a stir. In his video "Lidl with woker disaster - customers completely freak out!" he claimed: "Lidl has now seriously banned Easter bunnies." Raue made numerous exaggerated statements in response: "A supermarket has to sell food, not play politics." Or: "Easter is a Christian festival. Since the Easter bunny hurts the feelings of our new citizens too much, they have to be banned."
As evidence, he cited an article from "Der Westen", but did not mention that it made it clear that the term "sitting bunny" was not unusual.
The result: within a short time, the video was viewed by over 350,000 people. Many believed the depiction and called for a Lidl boycott in comments.
Anyone who read the article carefully realized that the answer was "No". Nevertheless, the headline left many readers with the message "Abolition" in their minds. The newspaper also advertised the article on Facebook with the question: "Chocolate bunny in danger?"
On April 7, 2025, the "Kleine Zeitung" advertised its article on the sitting bunny.
AfD parliamentarian Dimitri Schulz, for example, claimed: "Out of consideration for someone, the good old Easter bunny at Aldi and Lidl is now being relabeled as the 'sitting bunny'." These posts were widely shared and caused fears about traditions. One pensioner commented: "It's all just ridiculous what they're doing to our traditions." Another woman said: "Another piece of our culture suppressed."
The AfD spread the Easter bunny misinformation with several accounts on Facebook.
Facebook
And then came Switzerland
On April 11, Swiss politicians took up the discussion. An SVP politician from Aargau posted a picture of a Coop chocolate bunny and provocatively asked: "Sitting bunny? Seriously? When is the Ramadan chocolate moon coming?"
Vivienne Huber (SVP) on X: "Sitting bunny? Seriously, when is the Ramadan chocolate moon coming?"
Screenshot
An EDU politician from Lucerne also commented: "How far should this ingratiation go? When there was an online protest against the Mohrenkopf, Migros immediately removed it from its range. Do retailers also react when normal citizens protest?" The posts reached tens of thousands and were even picked up by three female National Councillors.
Finally, the Swiss media also took up the issue. Blick ran the headline: "Islamization of Easter?" and the portal nau.ch asked: "Has the Easter bunny been renamed the 'sitting bunny' because of 'Wokeness'?"
Rage bait instead of facts
The term "rage bait" helps to understand why these debates are politically effective. It describes a manipulative tactic that deliberately provokes outrage. The method originally comes from social networks such as TikTok, Instagram or YouTube to generate clicks and revenue.
However, this "rage-bait" tactic can also be used politically. In an interview with "The Tyee" in 2022, political scientist Jared Wesley said that right-wing politicians deliberately stir up anger with outrageous stories: "They know how to feed these narratives." It's not just obvious lies like the one about the Easter bunny ban that are spread. "Sometimes even obvious lies are enough to fuel this anger," said Wesley.
Finally, this: No, the Easter bunnies have not been renamed. In 1983, for example, Denner was already advertising Rast sitting bunnies, Milka standing bunnies and a Pfister Grotesque bunny for Easter.
On March 22, 1983, Denner placed an advertisement in the NZZ advertising a sitting bunny, a standing bunny and other products for Easter.