lizardlicks:

susiephone:

since pride month is coming up, that also means we’re getting closer to the month when there’ll be 10000 posts reminding us that all the gay pride merch is just a corporate cash-in, that these corporations don’t care about us, that the world isn’t really any better, that none of the pride merch and ads actually mean anything, that it isn’t really progressive, blah blah blah

let me just say

i know. most people on here know. you are not the sole thinking person in a world of sheep. i promise you that the person you’re making all these points to has heard it 100 times 100 ways from 100 other people. we know, tumblr. we know. 

but dammit, one month a year i get rainbow everything, and that’s a breath of fresh air after eleven months of straight nonsense. i LOVE seeing pride everywhere, even if it is just a corporate cash-grab. and it’s not like i can just opt out of this capitalist society, so fuck it, imma buy all the rainbow, pride-themed, gay merch i can get my hands on.

the world is a capitalist hellhole and there is no escape, so we may as well have what fun we can with it while we try and make things better.

happy pride, folks.

And hey, you know what you can do if you want merch that doesn’t just feed the corporate wallet?  Go on Etsy, Storenvy, Society6, or just about a bazillion other websites where independent artists sell their products,and support your queer/LGBT+ artists!  Directly!  Hand them cold hard cash, there’s no better direct action than that, my dudes!

Do both! I really, truly believe that people protesting corporate pride merch, (unless they are protesting art stealing which of course they are right about. Stealing art is 100% not ok), are missing the point by a mile. It used to be that you could only find pride merch in small specialty stores that were owned and or frequented by the queer* community. The fact that enough people are safe enough to be coming out as who they are AND as allies, that multiple large corporations know they can make money off it is HUGE. People used to hold protests and try to get companies shut down for even hinting at being ok with the community. So honestly? Take my money. It has become overall unpopular to voice antigay opinions and I really think some of the bigots are going stealth and infiltrating online communities to try to turn us against one another (ace/aro exclusion; bi/pan exclusion; trans exclusion). Buy pride stuff. When possibly buy it from local artists who need to make a living, but mostly, please display pride merch so that the world can see that despite this evil administration, we are still here, queer, (or your preferred term), and fabulous.

(*queer is my identity. If it isn’t yours insert your own term/alphabet soup here. It isn’t a slur any more than all the other words for us. If you don’t like it, don’t use it, but don’t freakin’ flame me over it.)