It’s Pride Month, and that’s mostly about rainbow attention and events. In the US, it’s also used a lot for marketing purposes. But that month, and all Pride parades and parties, are still regularly questioned: is that really necessary? Yes, because although a lot has been achieved, it’s still unbelievable how much negativity there is around the theme ‘LGBT+’. How a 6-second reel goes viral and lures the trolls out of their holes.
Just as an intro: I have been doing PhD research
Marketing the Rainbow for a few years now, in which I look at the how and why of organizations, brands and companies that use the LGBT rainbow, or focus on the rainbow consumer. And then I sometimes come across ‘remarkable’ things, to put it mildly. Here is a remarkable experience with a tram in Amsterdam.
GVB
For years, GVB Amsterdam has been paying attention to Pride Amsterdam, the city’s largest event. Without commercial gain: simply to show support and celebrate. In 2021, they decided that the tram, which they had dressed in rainbows, would continue to run after the Pride festivities: “It is important to always remain visible. At GVB, we want to create a safe environment for everyone, both at work and in the tram, bus, metro and on the ferries. Not just this Pride week, but 365 days a year”.
So I regularly see that colorful tram passing by. The texts email data on it say among other things “ Everyone is welcome here ” and #Youareincluded . Beautiful statements, bright appearance. And with “ Everyone ” they mean everyone – but apparently not everyone agrees with that.
Now I know of course that you should ignore the comments
in general, but certainly those of trolls: see also my previous article “ Haters and trolls on social media: the ‘letters to the editor’ of the 21st century ”. But because this is what I base my research on, I find it useful to scroll through it. It doesn’t really make me happy.
Line 2
When I recently saw Lijn 2 approaching on the Spui, I made a video of exactly 6 seconds, which I posted on the Facebook page of my research Marketing the Rainbow. Fesoasoani i pisinisi ma pisinisi Facebook suggested to me, a boomer, to make a reel of it, so – why not? I almost felt Gen X, maybe even senior Millennial…
Now, for me, that page is just one of the platforms for by lists publishing blogs and examples from my research, but not the most important: there are only 1,300 followers, while I have five times as many on YouTube . Not shocking, but I did have 1.8 million views there last year. It’s not all commercial, but scientific. In my articles, I do give a score to a brand or company, but I don’t get paid by them. An average post on my FB page gets 100 engagement with any decency. I’ve gotten 1,000 with a reel on FB.
