I think there’s a conversation to be had about how unhealthy that culture is,” said Adams. Here, the FaceApp has just turned the volume up to 100 so the subjects now sit in a sort of social media uncanny valley. We’re used to seeing women channeling this overstylized glamor on magazine covers and in Instagram influencer posts. With lips plumper than a Kardashian, contouring better than Adele’s, and a complexion that has been smoothed over more than Calista Gingrich’s on FaceTune, each yassify photo looks cartoonishly ridiculous - but also strangely familiar. Mostly.If all of this sounds absurd to you by now, that’s kind of the point.
“It’s about my journey as a queer person and getting free Baja Blasts for life,” Johantgen said. In a reply to her own tweet, she urged Taco Bell to donate to groups that support the LGBTQ community and also suggested that the company send freebies her way. Not that she’s above trying to parlay her tweet’s virality into some corporate swag. “I like that format because I hate capitalism,” said Johantgen, 30. Or maybe people do? Sometimes it’s not so clear. Being a paid ambassador, being a paid content creator, that gets normalized,” Shrodes said, adding that memes could be “a way to use humor to create some distance from those trends and say, ‘Oh, this is actually kind of weird. “In the social media world that we live in, influencer culture gets normalized. Shrodes said that humor has been used for decades within queer and trans activist movements as a way to question dominant norms.
“Especially within queer and queer of color activism, there’s a really long history of using humor to survive and resist interlocking structures of oppression,” Shrodes said, citing the work of activist group ACT UP and Jose Muñoz, a queer theorist who wrote, “Comedy does not exist independently of rage.” “And this year, I’ve been noticing this anti-capitalist, anti-corporate joke around influencer commodification in Pride spaces. “Usually there is a Pride joke that happens around the month of June,” Shrodes said.
T-shirts bearing the slogan are available in her online shop.Īddie Shrodes, who recently completed a doctorate in education from Northwestern University, has researched online humor in LGBTQ communities. Her opening line - “Hi, gay!” - became internet shorthand for corporate pandering. In 2021, comedian Meg Stalter uploaded a video of herself playing a representative of a butter shop making a clumsy attempt to court gay customers. These corporate initiatives are familiar enough that they’ve become common fodder for satire.
A PDF of the image is available for download on Ikea’s website. Ikea is also encouraging customers to take selfies with the company’s “HOME PRIDE HOME” cross-stitch design. Throughout June, Ikea is donating proceeds from sales of its rainbow shopping bags to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization that focuses on the LGBTQ community. Raytheon Technologies released a statement Wednesday outlining its commitment to its LGBTQ workers and noting that the company “is regularly recognized by the Human Rights Campaign as one of the best places for LGBTQIA+ employees to work.” “LIVE YÁÁÁS” is fictitious, but Taco Bell does have an LGBTQ-focused employee resource group called “Live Más Pride” and is sponsoring a 10-show drag tour hosted at five of its Taco Bell locations.ĭoorDash is hosting several events for employees this month that include drag bingo, Pride trivia and a donation and letter-writing campaign in support of trans people via the organization Point of Pride. Notably, each of the corporations mentioned has its own 2022 Pride campaign underway.