On a Scale From U.S. Marines to the Spice Girls, We’re Ranking Branded Pride Tweets

Hi, gays. Happy pride month! As we all know, June hearkens the time-honored queer tradition of making fun of Brands who try to do Gay Posts while ignoring LGBTQ+ people the rest of the year. Sadly, it seems that in 2022, many companies have caught on to the fact that posting an obligatory tweet on June 1 and changing your profile picture to a rainbow version of your logo is corny and bad. Thankfully though, some poor unfortunate social media managers have not yet caught onto this fact, meaning that there are still plenty of laughs (and ratios) to be had. Below, here are some of the branded pride tweets we’ve seen today, ranked from worst to best.

To kick things off, let’s start with a banger from the U.S. Marine Corps Twitter. The institution chose violence (literally) by sharing an image of a camo helmet with rainbow bullets strapped to it, with “PROUD TO SERVE” written on the strap.

Not only are we talking about the military here — the institution that gave us “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and where 80% of LGBTQ+ servicemembers reported experiencing sexual harassment — our armed forces are also just straight-up evil and should not exist. In fact, the term “pinkwashing,” which is often used to describe the kind of empty pride marketing we see every June, originated from writer and activist Sarah Schulman’s critique of Israeli imperialism. Considering that anti-militarism has been a cornerstone of radical queer activism for decades, we’re giving this one a 0/10.

Similarly to the above, Boeing, also known as the world’s second largest defense contractor, dropped a pride month tweet on Wednesday. The company shared a link to its pride landing page, which details employee perks including coverage for gender-affirming care.

Once again though, this is a company that makes literal warplanes. Not very #LoveWins of them, IMO. The Twitter account “Performative Pride” also noted that Boeing donated at least $4,500 to Florida state senators who voted in favor of “Don’t Say Gay,” but again, even if they didn’t, the whole “making billions of dollars off of war” thing would be enough to give this pride tweet a 0/10. Boeing has an official pride merch line that is so ugly that it made me cackle like a witch, though, so we’ll give it a 1/10 for the serotonin boost.

The company’s pride tweet/landing page appears to be a masterclass in How To Do Pride Marketing In A Non-Performative Way, complete with Corporate Memphis-adjacent illustrations and unspecified “partnerships” with national LGBTQ+ organizations.

But Starbucks, much like Target, is insidious as hell for its fluency in the language and aesthetics of “progressivism” in an attempt to erase their very active efforts to suppress (largely queer and trans) workers organizing for better conditions. Props to the coffee company for name-dropping the National Center for Transgender Equality and InterAct, I guess, but its pride tweet gets a 3/10 from me.

Honestly, Spotify’s pride tweet isn’t horrible. The video spot (and accompanying content hub) showcases independent queer creators who aren’t just skinny cis white monied gays, and it even uplifts the TransLash Podcast, which is run by trans people. 

Too bad Spotify also has an exclusive podcast deal with the famously-transphobic-despite-being-on-HRT Joe Rogan. The Joe Rogan Experience, in which the titular host has spread rampant COVID misinformation and rampant transphobia, is currently the number one podcast on the streaming service, which pays him $100 million annually. Also, there’s the fact that artists (including the LGBTQ+ ones that Spotify loves to playlist during June) don’t even get one cent per stream. Another 3/10!

The beloved fast-fashion manufacturer of summer fits for basic gays of all genders (myself included, don’t get it twisted) introduced its pride month YouTube spot with a thread defining “chosen family.” I don’t know about you, but I personally choose to blame Rina Sawayama for making the brands aware of this concept.

The video itself is slickly produced and beautiful in a somewhat uncanny valley way. There’s the suggestion of domesticity and intimacy, but it all plays out on a set that looks kind of like a dollhouse filled with actors who are styled to look like Bushwick NPCs. We’ll give it a 5/10 for production value.

Did I think I’d be seeing a pride month tweet from the International House of Pancakes this year? No, and yet it makes sense deep in my heart. Yes, the idea of “putting the pan in pancakes” is a little corny and would have done numbers on Tumblr in 2011, or perhaps as a twee Etsy graphic t-shirt.

But I vastly prefer this approach to brand marketing as opposed to IHOP trying to posit themselves as Champions of Equality and Liberation through tax deductible donations to nonprofit organizations. For minding their own business, IHOP gets a 6/10.

The Best: The Spice Girls

No, the Spice Girls do not offer to support the community in any material way in this tweet. But they’re undeniably gay icons, which this tweet acknowledges. Not only that, but both Mels in the group are queer.

The girl group has previously released (charmingly ugly) pride merch with 100% of the proceeds benefiting AKT, an organization supporting LGBTQ+ homeless youth. (Your favs could never.) Lastly, the graphic was designed by nonbinary creative director Aries Moross, who the Spice Girls tagged in the post. We love a band that hires and credits queer creators appropriately! For all of the above, the Spice Girls win best pride tweet we've seen so far.

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