It is no secret Pride month has become less about queer liberation and more about big business. Providing funding for Pride events aside, June has become marked by billion dollar companies’ lazy attempts at making a quick buck by slapping a rainbow filter on their logos and participating in meaningless “Love is Love” campaigns that are as boring as they are useless.
Long gone are the days when global corporations would genuinely risk losing customers or upsetting the public if they were to release a TV commercial that showed a same-sex couple (gasp!) holding hands or baking cookies. Nowadays, it’s all about meaningless money-grabbing through ads that boil down to repeating “LGBT people can give us their money too, (rainbow emoji).” Some are subtle, others are not. As Pride continues, here are five of the worst and most useless Pride campaigns of 2021 so far as told by LGBT Twitter:
1. Bud Light, what’d you call me?
Not to give into the stereotype that beer drinking is reserved for cis-het men, but has any queer person in their right mind uttered this sentence? Or is the company calling the community “queens”? If that’s the case, huh?
2. Google, because who needs employment when you can click on your flag?
In Google’s defense, the search engine’s popularity means a small logo edit can bring worldwide attention to issues of their choice. However, the company’s discriminatory practices against non-binary people trumps any amount of rainbow flags popping up on our screens.
3. Chipotle ft. Ru Girls’ “Bow Down!“
Thanks to that RuPaul’s Drag Queen Year Competition television series, past contestants have been given some of the biggest social media followings around. Chipotle was quick to cash in on that influence, but someone must’ve forgotten to tell an intern that different captions were needed for different queens.
4. Skittles, can we just have candy? Please?
Skittles’ rainbow campaign is not clever nor powerful. It’s vague enough to where it won’t detract homophobic or transphobic customers from purchasing the bag. But worse than that, it is ugly. We deserve better than ugly.
5. This is a tie between American Airlines and AT&T. Which color in the rainbow is Mitch’s favorite?
If Chick-fil-a has taught us anything, it is to look at where the money we give corporations is going. As Congresswoman Pramila Jaypal points out, American Airlines and AT&T don’t only share a rainbow filter on their social media avatars, they also donated thousands of dollars to Senate minority leader and repugnant bigot Mitch McConnell’s 2020 campaign.
As June continues, it is important for the LGBT community and our allies alike to take in Pride content with a weary eye and prioritize giving money to charities prioritizing queer liberation before monetary gain.
