The worst thing a brand can possibly do during Pride Month is forget that 40% of the US still wants queer educators fired, conversion therapy back in the DSM-V, and trans people snuffed out entirely. With the caveat that some queers’ griping can come off like those devout Christians who throw a fit each December because Starbucks’ holiday cups are too secular, we present this year’s most baffling and egregious examples. But if you were picked on for being different growing up, impulse-buying a trans flag at Kohl’s can give you a kind of vertigo.Īt the same time, the sheer laziness of it all can give rise to a worse feeling: the suspicion that no actual LGBTQ+ people were involved in any phase of a temporary campaign refresh.
Granted, it’s a measure of undeniable social progress, even if equality’s seams are showing. Known as “pinkwashing”, this annual phenomenon elevates a crass kind of money-grubbing identity politics. Offer some to your straight friends before they go extinct. Pride month is a season of extra-cringe pandering, when algorithms and advertising pitch decks unveil rainbow versions of everything from Nike swooshes to Listerine, Whopper wrappers to Lil Nas X M&Ms –– or, in Skittles’ case, a bag of bleached and vaguely pharmaceutical candies because Mars deems the month suitable for tasting one and only one rainbow.
