episode 3

The speaker discusses the concept of Rainbow Capitalism, where companies profit from the LGBTQ community during Pride Month by creating products and using rainbow imagery. They argue that while it's a nice gesture, companies should back it up with substantial support for the community. The history of Rainbow Capitalism is traced back to the late 1970s when alcohol brands placed ads in queer newspapers. The speaker also highlights the importance of representation for LGBTQ individuals and shares personal experiences attending a small town Pride event. They mention an incident where Target faced backlash for their Pride collection and had to remove some items due to threats. Hey guys, so I may have lied, so if you tuned in to the last episode of the podcast, which was episode 2, where I had Ash on the show, and we talked about tipping and wages, stuff like that, at the end, we said something about making an episode based on, you know, just the older generation, how we feel about them, our experiences with them, and Ash was actually not available today to record, so hopefully that episode will be coming out eventually in the future, but today it's just me. So, since it's just me today, I just wanted to talk about something that's a little bit personal to me, and that would be Rainbow Capitalism and Pride Month as a whole. So, if you don't know me personally, I am a part of the LGBTQ community, and I am actually a WGS minor, which is Women and Gender Studies, so not only do I live through, you know, the oppression and I hear all the negative words every single day, I'm also studying it. So, to start out this episode, I just wanted to give everyone a brief description of what Rainbow Capitalism is. So, basically, Pride Month is the month of June. It was declared that by, I believe, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, I can't remember which, but it's a celebration of the LGBTQ community, you know, just being proud of who we are. And so, Rainbow Capitalism is whenever companies, they switch their profile pictures to a rainbow flag for just that month, and July 1st, boom, it's gone, it's right back to the regular logo. So, they also may create products, you know, just slap a rainbow on a product and say, Happy Pride Month, basically profiting off of the LGBTQ community, and most of the time, the companies don't actually care about the LGBTQ community, like, they use it to gain more money during that month. So, overall, it's pretty problematic. And, well, I mean, there are some companies that do, they donate some of their proceeds to different groups. So, I'm not saying this is a blanket statement that all companies who create pride-based products are bad. I'm just saying, majority of the companies don't care. So, I watched a video from PBS News, and the speaker in this video is Karen Tongson, and this is a quote, and she says, Well, I think we must understand that it's a gesture of support, but gestures of support, nice words, and visible images of solidarity aren't always enough. They're often never enough, actually. And so, it's not that people are angry that corporations are showing some effort at making a gesture to the LGBT communities, but it's like, what backs it up? What is there behind that gesture? Is there anything substantial and material that will actually help transform the world that we are in and make it better for us? And I think that that really hits the nail on the head, because it is a nice gesture. I walk into a Target, and I see the pride collection, and I'm like, wow, that's me. That's who I am. I belong in this community, and there is stuff here for me to purchase, to wear, to show off my identity. So, it's not terrible, you know, it's not an awful thing that they are making some sort of gesture, but it's like, where's your support whenever there are laws being created that target our community specifically, you know what I'm saying? So, a little bit of history about Rainbow Capitalism from the Washington Post. They actually have an article that goes through a very detailed timeline of queer marketing. So, a quote from them says, Major corporations' earliest efforts to court queer consumers happened after the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and the first Pride March in 1970, a major turning point in the visibility of LGBTQ plus people in the early years of the modern gay rights movement. Another quote from them says, In the late 1970s, brands such as Millerly, Budweiser, Coors Light, and Jagermeister, I don't know if I said that correctly, I don't drink, so I don't really know, started placing ads in regional queer newspapers. Swedish vodka brand Absolut followed suit in 1981. So, Rainbow Capitalism has been happening for a while. According to this article, it happened in the late 1970s specifically with a bunch of alcohol companies posting ads in queer newspapers, which if you guys don't know a lot about queer history, queer newspapers, queer magazines, queer art basically was all that we had. We didn't have TV shows, we didn't have movies, we didn't have a lot of this, but the way that we could communicate with each other was through paper media, I guess you could say. The third quote that I have from this article says, Gradually, big companies branched out from queer publications. IKEA, the Swedish furniture company, became the first major corporation to run a U.S. TV commercial depicting a gay couple in 1994. The ad, which featured two middle-aged men shopping for a dining room table, ran only after 9.30 p.m. in New York and D.C. It was hailed as a groundbreaking gesture of queer representation. So, 1994 is whenever the first queer couple was shown in a commercial, but the problem that I have with this is that it was only shown in New York and D.C. and only shown after 9.30 p.m. So, it is good. I mean, it's awesome that this happened in 1994, because to me, as a queer person, that seems so far in the past, and I feel like there was nothing for the LGBT community then. Especially with the AIDS epidemic, pandemic, I think it was epidemic, I don't know, I might have confused my words, and the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 80s, that is huge for me. So, my personal opinion on rainbow capitalism is, yeah, I believe that companies need to back up their stuff, as I think it was Karen said, yeah, Karen said in the PBS video. If you're going to make a product and slap a rainbow on it and try to get our money, I really would appreciate it if you took some of those proceeds and donated it to something like the Trevor Project, or even better, local LGBTQ plus resources. Because while the Trevor Project and the huge organizations are good, in my opinion, it starts locally, it starts in the small communities. There is a very small organization called Lexington Pride in North Carolina, I'm from around the surrounding area, and I went to one of their pride events and there was like maybe 70 to 80 people there. It was super duper small, super low key. There were vendors, there was a drag show, but it starts in the small communities because I was nervous going. I was nervous going because growing up in a small town, I knew what the opinions of majority of the population were, and I knew that they did not support us. They honest to God probably would have shot us dead if they could. But being in that place, in that small town, surrounded by people in the same community as me, and just feeling the love and the support, it was just amazing. I feel like if I were younger, when I was still confused and still angry and sad that I was different, and I went to this event, I feel like it would have saved me a lot of heartache because it's just so important to see things like that happening in small towns. Sorry, I had to take a sip of my water. I was also talking to my friend about Rainbow Capitalism because I went to visit him at work and their company had sent them pride bracelets to wear and to celebrate the LGBTQ members of their company. It was a very, very small conversation. It wasn't very lengthy, but we both agreed that Rainbow Capitalism is not the greatest thing, but it all boils down for me to the representation. While I would like for them to donate to causes or just intervene whenever policies are being made, the fact that I can see myself being represented on the Target shelves, on the Walmart shelves, on the Five Below shelves, it makes me feel better. It makes me feel like I'm allowed to exist there. Speaking of Target, I remember, I think it was during Pride Month, I'm trying to remember if it was early or late Pride Month, but they had released their Pride stuff and the attacks on the LGBTQ community had just been ramping up, especially on our transgender brothers and sisters and our non-binary siblings. It's just been awful. If you look at Florida and all the policies being made, not just Florida, but Florida is the one that comes to mind, the bathroom bills, all sorts of things. So this Pride Month specifically, Target, whenever they released their Pride collection, people were pissed. And by people, I mean conservatives and bigots and all that. I think that I saw on some news channels, news articles, that employees were actually being threatened, that the stores were being called and threatened with bombs. And I actually, I found an article here by NBC News. Now this was published on May 25th, 2023. So the language in this article is, it's a bit dated because that was about four or five months ago. The quote says, Target announced Tuesday it was pulling some LGBTQ plus themed items from stores following what a company spokesperson described as threats to employees over this year's line of Pride Month merchandise. In the interview, Target customers and employees at stores in North Carolina and Texas said the company moved Pride collections away from the front of the store. Now, Target has been doing Pride collections for a while now, I think. While a few years ago, they may not have been as big as they are now, because I know if I go on the Target app and I look up the Pride collection, you know, there's a bunch of products. But they've been doing this for a long time. And I just find it kind of odd that all of a sudden, conservatives and the hate groups are just now having an issue with it. Like they made a huge fuss about it. And I don't know if it's because I'm just, I've started paying attention more. I don't know if it's because I, I've been living in the city for a while, and I came back to a small town and it just kind of hit me. But I just don't understand why it's a big deal now when they've been doing this. I mean, the first commercial with a gay couple and it came out in 1994. Like they've, we've, we've been in the media for a while, we've existed for far longer than that thousands and thousands of years ago, like I don't understand why it's happening now. And it just, like in the whole Bud Light thing, I don't know if any of you listening to this podcast, you know, pay attention that much, but Bud Light basically had Dylan Milvani on it. And she is a transgender TikToker, I think, or influencer of some sort. And she did a, like a, like a TikTok ad or something, and conservatives lost their mind about it. And they called for a huge boycott of Bud Light. And they were like, I'm never gonna drink Bud Light again, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I don't know, it's just, I love being represented in the media. And I love seeing people like me in the media in marketing and commercials. And I love having things that, you know, correlate with my identity being sold. But at the same time, like seeing these reactions from people in my hometown, and just from people on the internet, it really sucks. I've gone, I've gone off topic, but I just, that's, that's, that's, that hits home for me. I mentioned that I moved to a bigger city, and I lived there for a while while I was in school. I'm about to go back now, actually. And just the difference in, for those few short months, like, I'm thinking I was away for like, maybe seven, eight months. It was astronomical. Like, I could go outside and wear, I could have a pride flag on my bag, I could wear a pride flag on my shirt, I could publicly announce, you know, that I'm queer, and talk about being queer and not feel ashamed of it. And I felt like I was very accepted, and I felt like I could, I just could be me, you know. And there was, I was about to say during Pride Month, not during Pride Month. There was a speaker that came to my school, and he worked for the Daily Wire, which I mean, I feel like if you know what the Daily Wire is, you know. But this guy is very, very ignorant and very, very bigoted. And so the day that this guy showed up to give his talk, the amount of support that I saw from the staff, from the students, it was amazing. I mean, there was a group of students on the lawn, they were handing out pride flag stickers. They had a megaphone, like, they were just being very, very loving. And the Women and Gender Studies program, they had chalk outside, they had temporary tattoos, they had, what else did they have? They just had like a bunch of stuff, and you know, you could draw on the sidewalk, you could write whatever you want. It was very therapeutic. And I feel like, like, if I went to the community college here, in my small town, and the same speaker came there, no one would stand up for us, like face it up for us in that big city. And this is, this is incredibly off topic, but off topic, but I feel like I just, I just need to say it, you know what I'm saying? I just, I feel like I need to give some context for my feelings surrounding rainbow capitalism. But going back, so I don't ramble for too long, the whole local charities and big charities thing with rainbow capitalism, I have some statistics here from the National Network for Youth to share with you. Quote says, research has shown that those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning have a 120% higher risk of experiencing some form of homelessness. They are also more likely to experience assault, trauma, depression, and suicide when compared to non-LGBTQ plus populations, while also being homeless. These statistics are even worse for black and indigenous people of color, LGBTQ populations who suffer from racial inequities and discrimination. I feel like if the companies, you know, genuinely cared, they would donate to help solve this problem. Homelessness is a huge problem within my community. And going back, you know, in the first episode of this podcast, the pilot episode, we discussed intersectionality and how being, you know, if you're black and gay, you know, you, you experience both racial discrimination and discrimination based on your sexuality. And that's just a huge problem, and companies should donate some of their proceeds to help resolve these issues. And another quote that I have from the same source, it says, some LGBTQ plus homeless youth have reported discriminatory practices and policies when trying to access homeless youth services. Others have been assaulted by peers based on their sexual orientation or gender identity while participating in programs designed to help homeless youth stabilize their lives. So, I feel, you know, about the homeless LGBTQ youth thing, people probably say, they come out and they're like, well, why don't they go stay with someone else? Why don't they use the homeless shelter? Why don't they use these resources that are available to them? Well, per that last quote that I just shared with you, that's not always an option because discrimination is everywhere. I feel like, you know, if we want to help LGBTQ plus homeless youth, we need to create organizations and resources specifically for the LGBTQ plus homeless youth. We can't always rely on just a generic homeless shelter or resources to help them because in many, many states, like it is still legal in some cases to discriminate. So, you know, I think there's a lot to be said about that. You've seen the court cases and the news articles about the whole cake situation. I think it was like a gay couple wanted a wedding cake or they wanted a cake of some sort and the baker told them no. And a more recent one was about a website. A website creator wouldn't create a website because the person who requested it was a part of the LGBTQ community. So, discrimination is totally legal and totally acceptable in many places. So, LGBTQ youth can't always access the same resources. But that is my opinion. I've been going for 20 minutes and it's hard for me to go for this long while I'm by myself. My throat starts to get dry. I've had to drink a lot of water while I drink this episode. Well, I did this episode. Oh my God, I can't talk. So, a little summary of this episode is my entire opinion on rainbow capitalism is it's both good and bad. It's good because, you know, we are able to buy products that have our flag on them, that have our identities on them. Our identity is related to the product in some way. And it just makes us feel better, feel more secure. Me, personally, it makes me feel more accepted and like I am, you know, allowed to be there and exist in that space. But it is problematic in the fact that it's going straight to the corporation and majority of the time we don't actually benefit from it. We may benefit short term, like feeling happy or feeling accepted, but in the long run, you know, it's not going to stop the policies that Ron DeSantis is putting out. It's not going to help stop youth homelessness. It's not going to stop transgender kids from being kicked out and killed, you know. The problem is much bigger, much, much bigger. And I feel like we need to push for these people, these corporations to give back. If they're going to have a pride collection, if they're going to profit off of us, they need to help us out. So, if you feel like, you know, this is a problem that you're interested in and want to fight back, I'm sure there are petitions online. There are groups that you can look up and donate to them or reach out to them in some way and see how you can help. The group that I mentioned before, Lexington Pride, they have an Instagram and that is where they post a lot of their updates and information. And it would mean a lot to me if you went and supported them just because they're local and they're very, very small. Support your local charities, LGBTQ charities. They really, really need it and it makes a bigger impact than you think. So, not entirely sure if the next episode will be what I promised about talking about ageism and the older generation and all that with Ash. I'll have to check with him and see if he can actually, you know, be there. If not, then it'll just be some other topic. So, thank you all so much for listening and be sure to check out the past two episodes if you haven't and share with your friends. I appreciate it so much.