About

Someone You Know Is Gay and Maybe Even Someone You Love, also known as Think Before You Speak Hate, refers to an exploitable meme template based on a graphic showing the gay, bisexual and transgender pride flags under the captions, "Someone you know is gay / bi / transgender," followed by a flag or pattern unrelated to LGBTQ+ pride under the phrasal template "someone you know is X," "X" relating to the flag or pattern. The graphic originally started circulating online in 2019 and first became the subject of memes in 2021, becoming increasingly popularized over the following years.

Origin

It's unclear where or when the exact "someone you know is gay" graphic originated, with it seemingly evolving over a period of years. On September 24th, 2015, Tumblr^[1] user babyblake5510 reblogged a now-deleted user who posted a graphic of a pride flag patterned heart captioned, "Someone you know is gay. Maybe even someone you love. Think before you speak hate" (shown below, left). The image is tagged with "soldiers for homophobia exposed," potentially the group who coined the phrase.

On December 26th, 2017, the I Support LGBT Facebook^[2] page posted a graphic using the same phrase with an image of the gay pride flag, garnering over 1,800 shares in seven years (shown below, center). On January 26th, 2021, the Facebook^[3] page Women Of America Heard posted a version of the graphic adding the trans pride flag, garnering over 17,000 shares in three years. On March 3rd, the Facebook^[4] page Lizzy the Lezzy shared one adding the bisexual pride flag, garnering over 15,000 shares in roughly the same span of time (shown below, right).

On the same day, X^[5] user @mikejaret posted a version of the graphic adding the Italian flag to the row of flags alongside the phrase, "someone you know is Italian," garnering around 75 likes in three years (shown below). This is the earliest known meme using the graphic.

Spread

The Italian flag version of the meme gained viral spread that year, inspiring new variations of the meme. On March 4th, 2021, it was posted to the subreddit /r/PewdiepieSubmissions,^[6] garnering over 790 upvotes in three years. On March 5th, a version was posted to /r/Ska^[7] that gained over 250 upvotes in three years (shown below). On March 7th, the Italian flag meme was posted by now-deactivated Tumblr^[8] usertonysopranobignaturals, garnering over 15,000 notes in the same span of time.

On June 17th, 2023, Instagram^[9] user mlpshitposting posted a version of the meme submitted by Instagram user mlpmemes2 featuring My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic characters, garnering over 16,000 likes in a year (shown below, left). On December 21st, 2023, Tumblr^[10] user immoralfag posted a version of the meme about solitaire that gained over 60,000 notes in six months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References