Some brands didn’t do rainbow logos this year, I wonder why?
It’s Pride month, and you know what that means
It’s Pride month, and you know what that means: here come the rainbow social media logo makeovers.
The trend was popularized in 2015 after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, but don’t expect quite as many of them for Pride 2022.
Here’s what I found looking through Twitter profiles for top U.S. companies, brands, and professional sports leagues:
Just ten out of the top 50 biggest companies in the U.S. have rainbow logos: Walmart, CVS Health, McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Bank of America, Pfizer, Citigroup, and IBM.
Two of the top 50 companies had rainbow logos last year, but not this year: AT&T and Verizon. Both have tweeted about Pride.
Of the major professional sports leagues, the MLB, NHL, and WNBA all changed their logos. The NFL didn’t, but their bio currently reads #Pride365.
The award for best rainbows goes to the Coca-Cola Co. and Grindr for their gradients.
Obviously a temporary social media logo change doesn’t necessarily say anything about how a company values queer employees or customers, but it’s an especially interesting Pride to watch when it comes to corporations.
Gay exhaustion and eye rolling continues, evidenced this year by the “…that’s why this month for Pride I’m partnering with…” meme format, and companies are getting pressure from the left and right.
From the left, closer scrutiny of corporate political donations means some companies risk looking like they’re simply “rainbow washing” their brand by changing their avatars. All three companies that opted to not go rainbow so far this year after doing it in 2021 were major corporate contributors to anti-LGBTQ politicians, according to Popular Information. Since 2021, AT&T has donated at least $1,052,000 to politicians who support legislation that negatively targets queer people, Verizon has donated at least $559,762, and Walmart, which changed its logo to a rainbow version after data was gathered for this story, has donated $954,250.
From the right, companies are being pressured to stop sounding off on social and political issues altogether. Last month State Farm canceled a planned program to provide LGBTQ-themed books to teachers and libraries, and Exxon included Pride and Black Lives Matter flags among the “external position” flags prohibited from flying at its corporate headquarter’s flagpole.
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Update: This post was updated on June 3, 2022 removing Walmart from the list of top companies that had a rainbow logo last year but not this year after it updated its Twitter avatar.
reALLy bro? that is your consern?