Pride is not in retreat, if rainbow Twitter avatars are any guide
What corporate Pride branding looks like in 2023
Due to conservative corporate boycotts and legislation targeting trans people and drag performances, Pride 2023 is playing out differently than years past. By one imperfect measure, though — corporate rainbow Twitter avatars — Pride is not in retreat.
Of the top 50 U.S. companies on this year’s Fortune 500, 10 updated their Twitter avatars or banners for Pride, the same number that had rainbow logos last year.
The companies with rainbow and Pride themed Twitter avatars or banners in the top 50 this year are: ExxonMobil, McKesson, Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health, Centene, Bank of America, Citigroup, UPS, Pfizer Inc., and Freddie Mac.
The fact there’s no decrease in the number of top companies willing to do a temporary rebrand this month on Twitter stands in contrast to shrinking Pride display floor space at Target. The retailer is not among the companies to change its logo this year, but… the official Target account also hasn’t tweeted since last October. CVS, another company that hasn’t tweeted in 2023, was among the companies that changed their logos last year but not this year, for their dormant account.
Should other companies abandon the platform, a future drop in Pride-related branding on the site could have more to do with a loss of confidence in Twitter than with conservative boycotts.
Rainbow avatars are of course a flawed measure of a company’s commitment to queer communities. Many companies that use Pride branding in June donate to anti-LGBTQ politicians, as the newsletter Popular Information reported, and not all companies that support LGBTQ groups go rainbow in June, like Apple, which kept a black-and-white avatar but has an out CEO, a special 2023 Pride Edition Sport Band and matching watch face, and donates to groups including Equality North Carolina, Equality Texas, and the Utah-based Encircle. Hun, that’s gay.
Still, the connection between politics, Big Business, and Twitter can be a telling indicator of political culture:
Researchers at the University of Chicago found an increase in partisan corporate speech from Twitter accounts for companies listed on the S&P 500 between 2011 and 2022. They found that while corporate speech on Twitter used to be more similar to that of Republican politicians due to references to topics like economic indicators, that changed beginning in 2016 as companies’ tweets began to have more in common with speech from Democratic politicians.
Researchers found companies began to mention topics like diversity, equity, and inclusion (or DEI), climate change, and health issues related to the pandemic that had more in common with Democratic speech, with peaks occurring following the death of George Floyd and the passage of new voting laws in Georgia, according to a preliminary copy of the paper.
Companies have moved to the left with the culture on issues like racial justice and LGBTQ rights, and this year’s conservative boycotts are an attempt to fight back against that trend. It’s more than just logos, though. The Human Rights Campaign said queer Americans are facing threats today that are “real, tangible and dangerous.” The group issued its first-ever “‘State of Emergency’ for LGBTQ+ Americans,” Tuesday, citing “an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year.” More than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been passed so far this year, the group said.
Keith Haring just got his first-ever L.A. museum show
Believe it or not, The Broad’s recently opened Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody exhibition is the late pop artist’s first museum show in the city.
The exhibition spans Haring’s career from his time as a student at New York City’s School of Visual Arts through 1988, two years before his death, and it focuses especially on his political art about issues including environmentalism, nuclear disarmament, the anti-Apartheid movement, and AIDS. There are more than 120 artworks and other items in the show.
“When you look at what Keith Haring’s concerns were and what he attempted to do and say through his art and personal activism — AIDS awareness, his critique of capitalism, his critique of global social justice issues that focused on South Africa and apartheid, his critique of what, in the ‘80s, was called consumerism or commodification — he was looking for change,” Broad president Joanne Heller said in a statement.
I’m in love with the pink leather jacket Haring painted that was worn by Madonna in 1984 and his 1988 poster for National Coming Out Day. The museum is converting its gift shop to pay homage to Haring’s own retail space, the Pop Shop.
Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody is open in Los Angeles through Oct. 3 before heading to Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario from November 11, 2023 to March 17, 2024, then to Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center from April 27 to September 8, 2024.
The Maryland license plate that promoted a Filipino gambling website has been fixed
Please double check your government agency’s GoDaddy account and make sure any websites aren’t about to expire.
The state of Maryland learned this the hard way after a Reddit user last week found the web address on the state’s 2007 commemorative War of 1812 plates — www dot starspangled200 dot org — directed to a site promoting online casinos in the Philippines. Here’s what the site used to look like vs. what it looked like after it redirected to the gambling site:
Nearly 800,000 Maryland license plates use the design, according to Vice, and the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration told the site it “does not endorse the views or content on the current website using that URL, and is working with the agency’s IT department to identify options to resolve the current issue.” As of earlier this week, the casino version of starspangled200 dot org no longer loaded, and when I checked today, it now redirects to the MVA site. Hurrah!
The MVA said the commemorative War of 1812 plate was designed by the War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, a nonprofit that previously ran the educational website commemorating the National Anthem being written at Fort McHenry.
Have you seen this?
Hunter Biden’s art dealer says his gallery has been targeted by hackers. “Everything is secure and nothing was compromised,” Gallery owner Georges Bergès said. “We caught everything on time, but we did feel obligated to report it to the police.” [Artnet News]
Who’s got the best logo in the Republican primary? Working on a story on this now, but interested to hear what you think.
Wait, did Barbie actually cause an international pink paint shortage? Rosco Paint said it ran out of a shade of pink, but that there were already shortages due to pandemic-related supply chain issues and the 2021 deep freeze in Texas. [Vulture]
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