Just one little bit of thought I’d add to your excellent article, Alex. I’ve seen clunky Pride marketing produce active, eye-rolling hostility among some LGBTQ people.

If a company is trying to market to us by draping their products in rainbow colors when we know they are not our allies, we are apt not only to be unswayed by the marketing in a positive sense, but to feel actual hostility toward the advertiser.

Budweiser comes to mind.

Knowing that Bud USA has been deaf to activist requests to stop funding events and organizations that hurt queer people, seeing them display the rainbow in June makes many of us hate them, when otherwise we probably would just have been neutral.

Many LGBTQ people I know choose not to buy Bud products because of Bud’s queer marketing efforts. I imagine that’s not the effect they were looking for.