Welcome to the first week of Pride Month! Every year, all of June is dedicated to the expression and acceptance of LGBTQ+ pride. This is an exciting time of year for many people, even those who aren't a part of the group but consider themselves allies. However, a trend that has been increasing in recent years is the overcommercialization of Pride Month. At first, it was celebrated, as pride became a more mainstream topic and with corporations backing it, but it seems the empty corporate platitudes have worn thin.

Start Of The Fall

Soon that joy and acceptance of the commercialization, the woke sales tactics, became just a little too obvious, and people started to meme the pandering to gay culture or the exploitation of Pride Month. The crack in the armor started last year with Companies When Pride Month Ends. These memes centered around how immediately after June ended, all the companies that had rainbow flags and Pride Month messages shifted back to their regular talking points and disregarded their previous branding, like Halloween decorations being taken down on November 1st.

Corpo Pride 2021 Pushback

Leading up to June this year, people were already anticipating the large corporate shift that was obviously about to happen. As expected, on June 1st, many public entities, subreddits and corporations changed their profile pictures to filters with rainbow flags and put up messages supporting LGBTQ+ initiatives. What they didn't expect, however, was a large upswell in memes mocking them for their predictable behavior. On various social media and meme-sharing sites, anti-corporate memes with a pride element were posted and shared in abundance, completely dominating the weekend leading into the start of Pride Month yesterday.

Alternative Takes

Some took a middle road when it came to memes about pride. Instead of poking fun at LGBTQ or the corporations, some decided to just make memes about the month itself, or rather the idea of a "pride month" in a metaphorical context. This can be seen in a multitude of ways, but usually through the use of Photoshop and Impact font on still images.

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