To explain the need to signal allegiance, let’s look at the influence of the love hormone. To be consistent with our actions, an internal monologue goes something like this: You’re an ally, not a homophobe, so you must buy rainbow socks for the parade. The intertwined relationship of rainbow products and believing in social issues makes it easy for people to be pitted against their beliefs. Those who consider themselves “allies,” people committed to the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights without necessarily being part of the community themselves, are pressured into buying rainbow as well. This belief that having rainbow clothing is synonymous with supporting a social issue extends outside the LGBTQ+ community too. It becomes difficult for a person’s internal monologue of pride to be true without the ownership of products from this year’s rainbow line. Pride retail makes the assertion that a person who’s truly proud of their identity would be covered head to toe in rainbow to show their support. But what happens when something challenges a person’s ability to be proud? This happens with Pride retail when they add rainbows to their clothes just for the month of June. To continue this internal belief of pride, we commit to actions enforcing it explicitly, like marching in any one of the Pride parades from San Francisco to New York, boycotting Coachella because its owner donates to anti-LGBT causes, or buying clothes from gender-inclusive brands like Wildfang.
Being proud of who you are is the essence of Pride Month-but also its pressure. In relation to Pride Month, we return to the internal belief that members of the LGBTQ+ community should be proud of their sexual expression. When there’s tension between inconsistent beliefs and actions, cognitive dissonance allows a person to either find some way to justify their actions ( “This burger won’t hurt, since I worked out today anyway, right?”) or change their beliefs ( “I’m not really a healthy person, I just like to workout a lot these days”). But if we make a choice that violates our internal beliefs (say, eating a delicious double-patty hamburger after a workout), there’s tension: enter cognitive dissonance. For example, if we believe we’re a healthy person, then we’ll make conscious choices about what we eat, and so on. As we learned from the cognitive dissonance in veganism and our consumer behavior, we want to act in a way consistent with what we believe. The reality of ‘coming out’ creates an internal belief of having to be proud of one’s sexuality, but this internal belief can be exploited when you consider the role of cognitive dissonance.
#Rainbow gay pride shoelaces movie#
The 2018 movie Love, Simon-a coming-of-age story set around closeted gay high school students-pokes fun at this concept in a scene where children come out to their parents as straight, highlighting the weight of how important ‘coming out’ is for the community. The current culture assumes people are straight until otherwise blatantly stated on social media or in-person, which is why ‘coming out’ is an important aspect in validating one’s sexuality. The LGBTQ+ population can often feel vulnerable because they constantly have to prove themselves, endure a tremendous amount of prejudice, and are underrepresented in media. ‘Coming Out,’ Cognitive Dissonance, and the Psychology of Beliefs To understand the tendency to voice our solidarity with social causes through purchases, let’s breakdown the psychology behind our beliefs, sense of belonging, and pride. There is a (heavy!) pot of gold, after all. With the so-called ‘ pink dollar,’ the purchasing power of the LGBTQ+ community, worth close to $1 trillion in the US, brands’ marketing strategy are undoubtedly effective. Simply owning rainbow-colored shoelaces, for example, can signal we’re an ally.
Turns out, our Pride purchases give us a sense of moral superiority in our commitment to a social cause. But is it only because there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Suddenly, the world is filled with rainbows-from the Converse shoes, (controversial) Marks and Spencer LGBT sandwich, to the packaging of KIND granola bars we buy.
We’ve come a long way since Katy Perry’s breakthrough hit ‘ I Kissed A Girl’ in 2008.Įvery year, retail brands undergo an overnight mass makeover to celebrate Pride Month.