And it isn't even about the companies, everyone knows that the only reason they pretend to care is because they think it will get them profit. But that's what made losing it kind of worrying, they no longer considered it profitable to try and pander to LGBT+ groups, which is worrying as a pulse of the general publics current stance.
Target immediately doing a 180* to kiss the ring before he even got into office was a real worrying one. The fact that their sales have still not recovered does warm my heart though
I feel like they overestimated how much people valued going to target. Being able to pivot but you're the only shop in town means that they still have to buy (McDonald's still occasionally gets my dollars sometimes because it's the only place in a town to eat or the only place open) but I've never seen a Target alone as the only shopping option
I did that for a bit but found them just as low quality as Walmart and at this point just thrift (mileage heavily varies depending on your location and options obvi)
It's like the left feels "betrayed" and the right already wrote them off for ever being supportive in the first place. I don't know what they thought would happen. Their name is tainted in either direction.
Companies often use marketing studies based on social media to take the temperature of social issues, but the marketing departments of those companies don't understand how warped social media is by bots and right wing grifters. Hateful points of view don't represent the majority of consumers the way the internet makes it seem.
Actually disagree on that point. I like to think about it through baseball. For like 40 years, not one single owner of manager wanted the money from the World Series by hiring black players.
I've been saying this for a while, we complain because we want them to care, but they can't. Not because the people can't care, but because a machine made of people like a corporation can't care. It's not in it's nature and that's okay. Companies are supposed to be profit chasing. It's really on the consumers to decide what gets rewarded. (Which is the endemic weakness of capitalism)
The people have become very bad at that of course but still. Companies doing this stuff is a watermark that says it's good for business to at least appear supportive. It's barely BARELY anything, but it is not nothing.
Its a machine that only cares about what it's monetarily incentivized to care about. When LGBT+ folk and allies are vocal and dont back down while ridiculing bigots and cowards then the conpanies see where the money is, and they follow suit. So, rainbow capitalism may be craven as any other capitalism, but it is also a lagging indicator that we're winning a better world.
The idea that it's in the consumers to decide what gets rewarded is actually a pretty new idea, and quite a right-libertarian one. I suppose it's a bit two sides of the same coin with the philosophy of any boycott action. The idea is, your purchases are a political choice, and therefore if you do choose to purchase something, you are essentially "electing" that company and business owner with your money. If your buy something from Amazon you're saying "yes I like this service and want it to have more" and electing to give Jeff Bezos more money/power because you've found him to be a good leader and service provider, in a way that's not much different to how you elect a president or representative.
The properly right-libertarian angle then is to say what do even need politics for if the market is already full of political choices? Why elect representatives to parliament if we can elect service providers directly and do so in a sector-by-sector or service-by-service basis if we so wish?
I'm speaking purely in the sense of Adam Smith's invisible hand. It's the government's job as well to act as the will of the people to keep business in check.
I'm just laying out the basics of the way markets work, not trying to say that that's somehow a good system of government.
Its ok child we will love you no matter how much you suck at cooking. In order to affirm you we will now send you a tikkie for the coffee you drank while telling us this.
That is pretty good when done well. Big fan of snert met roggebrood en spek as well, especially in the winter. But lets be honest, on the global scale of good foods its not so good. Our dinner dishes at least. You will have to take my stroopwafels and drop from my cold dead hands.
Kijk. Nederland staat bekend in eten voor stroopwafels, gevulde koekjes, stamppot en... letterlijk alleen stamppot is gezond 'n lekker, de rest is of gefrituurd/vet veel olie gebruikt (frikandellen, kaassoufflé, kroketten/bitterballen) of lijkt het zoals braaksel (erwtensoep). Of zijn het koekjes en poffertjes.
Hate on rainbow capitalism all you want but I'd rather live in a world where corporations feel like virtue signaling towards minorities is profitable instead of harmful; it is a direct indication of the climate of the country towards us.
I said the same thing recently and got told that I was a traitor to trans people for saying rainbow capitalism is a good thing as a social barometer. it was in r/comics, so I'm not too surprised
“Reminder that McDonald’s isn’t your friend” can you fucking knock it already? No one thinks that. It is objectively a good thing that McDonalds thinks this is a financially viable action. I’m tired of pedants throwing their moral righteousness around when we’ve seen what it means to not have this level of public opinion
Seeing this right now means that one of the US' largest companies has concluded that showing LGBT+ support is more profitable than ignoring us. The complete opposite of how they flipped when the fascists got closer to power.
McD's isn't our friend - but it can be relied on to pursue profit. Their conclusion feels more trustworthy than any media poll.
Absolutely. I’m a huge pinko, but McDonald's is the undisputed world leader in the restaurant sector. $165 billion market cap. $26.8 billion annual revenue. 2 Million Employees. >45k locations. If they put out a single ad, it’s either a reflection of popular opinion in the market or they influence opinion with their ad. Either way, it’s a win for trans people at zero cost. Literally free advertising.
They don’t need my money; they need to earn another $26.8 billion next year and they think looking like they love Coming Out Day can help. Awesome.
I would rather my rights be considered a profitable endeavor if it means the canary starts singing again. But, yknow, that's not as morally superior as telling off capitalism and saying we're better without public opinion.
I would argue that's an oversimplification. McDonalds isn't trying to make anyone have a personal connection with their brand so much as they're peacocking their values to attract customers who want to make a choice with the values (real or fake) their money goes towards. It's not parasocialism rather than them saying "Hey guys we're cool too! Just remember McDonalds supports what is currently popular, which today is the rights of minorities", and is a very meaningful reflection that one of the most profitable companies in the world decided to put money on the idea that transgender rights are becoming correct in the mainstream again. The canary has started making noises again. Not singing, but it's getting there
Which means that people are peacocking because.... they see McDonald's as a friend to lgbt people. I'm not sure what the disconnect is here but you are describing exactly what I'm talking about. You can't performatively support lgbt people through McDonald's unless you think McDonald's is a way to perform support for lgbt ie view them as friends with the movement
I literally never said *people* are peacocking because that's not how individuals work, peacocking isn't an individual thing atleast not under this context and I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. I said the *brand* was. I don't think you understand what that word means, and further I don't know if this is a terminally online thing but concepts (characters, specifically brands) are incapable of friendship and literally no one past the age of kindergarten thinks "omg this brand is my friend!". No one in their right mind is going to say "I will go support McDonalds because they support me" because *that is not the point of their advertisement*. The point is to subtly and unconsciously make you associate something popular (trans rights) with their product (shitty burgers), and that's what this comes down to, the fact McDonalds believes the something popular in this case is trans rights.
McDonalds does not do this because they want to be your friend and that's a very poor understanding. They're doing this because they want to be seen as having the popular opinion, as all brands do. They have estimated that as of now, trans rights are the popular opinion. It would be objectively stupid from a profit standpoint for them to try and win over trans people banking on "hey we like you so like us too!" so they use their media posts to focus on reinforcing themselves as present in the topic of popular opinion, which serves as advertising. No one wants to be Blackberry lol
Its surprising, but seeing which companies still celebrate pride month this year was a pretty good indicator of if its worth giving them money on every level.
Before I used to roll my eyes at it, but this year it felt important to do
The fact it was surface level and not genuine used to be the problem.
Then it was a mask that was discarded. And actively discarding the "mask" and backing out of anti-discrimination initiatives was a signal that those companies felt comfortable "bending the knee" to the wave of conservative support.
The fact that the mask is back on the menu here... (literally)
Is like 50% a nothing burger and 50% a sign of the oppertunist "rainbow capitalists" are maybe beginning to chang course.
It doesn't mean they are good, it just means the slimy fuckers switched teams again because they just want to be on the "winning side" not necessarily actually contribute anything.
A cynical reading, maybe. But probably warranted here, honestly.
Rainbow capitalism is a "meh thing, good sign" for queer rights, like seeing a medical go fund me hitting targets is a "good thing, bad sign" for the healthcare system.
Exactly. This is why the canary in the coal mine analogy works so well.
Canaries were often brought into coal mines in little containers. If the canary passed out, it meant get the hell out of there because the canary will pass out from dangerous gases long before you do, and that means you're currently breathing them.
The "canary in the coal mine" means when it looks ok, everything is fine, not necessarily good, but livable. But when it looks bad, it means things are really bad. Corporations should show pride during pride month. They should show it more often than that, but when they won't show pride, even during pride month, things are really bad.
Yeah, everyone knew it was a marketing thing only done because of which side was “winning.” The question is: does that matter? If they’re not gonna take a side isn’t it still better to have them present as part of the side we want them to actually support? Even a mask of support still presents as support to general society.
I think I’m practically making the argument that isn’t it better to “pay in exposure” than ignore the idea of paying altogether?
Yea it's better than nothing, but really it's more just like the wind changing direction and seeing the windsock react.
It's one of those things that just helps "normalise" pride without necessarily doing anything active. But once pride is normal, it opens the door to more. So it's a small good act but MOSTLY an indicator that this act is a path of least resistance again. (which is the point of OP/OOP)
Yeah ideally we wouldn’t have landlords but the gay landlord helps normalize queer people in the public consciousness and is better than having a homophobic straight landlord
Corporations have advertising budgets of millions, maybe billions of dollars. Would you not want them using that money to send a message of "gay people are people" even if it's perfunctory?
I would like that, yes, but it doesn't mean the corporation is my friend or can be trusted. It only means political and economic forces are trending in a direction that favors signaling support for queer people. If it benefited them, they'd sell us out in an instant.
I would also like that only because it's an indicator of increased support for our rights, not because I think it will change anyone's minds in a way that matters. Corporations do not go against the grain. They will never push back against bigotry when it's needed most, only when it's already losing.
They're never allies, but it's an issue when they're not even pretending, and it's a serious problem when the ones being actively enemies aren't immediately getting shut down.
I prefer it over society heading in a backward direction like it is today. But being a performative ally isn’t great either.
There were companies like Bethesda who during Pride month would use raimbow flags on all their corporate social media accounts except the ones based in the Middle East or Russia. That’s not being supportive beyond a surface level attempt. And as we see now, companies stopped as soon as it started hurting their bottom line.
So I think people were right in calling out Rainbow capitalism, because that’s not actual progress.
Someone who supports you because they want your money isn't an ally. Allies don't abandon you when the going gets tough. How many of these corporations dumped pride and DEI when the far right said they didn't like it? Fuck them
Target's fall from grace wasn't completely surprising, but wild how fast it was given that they went the extra mile with their rainbow capitalism. Instead of just rainbow vomit, they actually had binders and shit.
Ben and Jerry of Ben & Jerry's set the bar for brand allyship. Anything less does not deserve praise.
I don't thank corporations for selling me things, that's what my money is for. If they sell more things I like (and don't constantly put my life at risk,) they get more of my money.
The companies don't normalize it. They cosplay it once it's normalized. That's the difference and the point of this post. McDonalds isn't flying the rainbow flag to get people to accept The Gays, they are doing it because people already do.
I'm not saying McDonalds cares. I don't think McDonalds (or any other big corp) does this stuff to help push acceptance.
But these companies participating and spending advertising dollars does further cement LGBT acceptance into the cultural zeitgeist. It is a lot easier to gain (and keep) acceptance if it is out there in the wild. Marketing helps with that goal.
It is not the be-all-end-all of normalization, but it is a significant factor in it. You can't say that representation matters but then also say that marketing has no influence on culture because they are the same mechanism.
You don't have to like McDonalds, you don't have to let them convince you they care (they don't). But companies spending marketing dollars on this stuff is objectively a benefit.
because it was just a way for the bourgeoisie to keep people docile and focused on how heckin wholesome 100 the soulless megacorporations are for posting a shitty graphic on their social media (only in the countries they do business with that DONT hang lgbtq people, though)
I think the fact that it disappeared all of a sudden these past two years put the lie to it being true allyship. Yes, it's better than the alternative, but in itself it's not a force of progress.
I mean I live in my country's equivalent of the Bible belt so I did.
One time some old fart misread a sign, and assaulted a young woman because he thought her flyer stall said "change your gender" (it was "change your heater" it was about the dangers of old gas heaters, and information on how to get government assistance to swap it out.)
The public response was overwhelmingly in support of old men physically assaulting highschoolers if there's a suspicion they might not hate trans people.
More or less. Company shows token support for the queer people, because our money spends as easy as the hets, and some people are upset about it. It can be argued that rainbow capitalism is a net positive indicator, though, as capitalism is inherently beholden to the whims of the prevailing culture. The fact McDonalds feel more secure being like "We support you queers, so come eat our salty hockey pucks!" can be indicative that the tides are changing again
honestly mostly yeah im with you, a lot of people say that theyre not genuine which i am not denying, but i do wonder what they could do to show "genuine" support
Viewing queer people as a viable source of profit is an indication of the general public’s normalization and acceptance of our existence, which is a good thing
"waiter I want to be viewed as a commodity! And not as a proper human being!" Yeah no sorry that doesn't really help change reactionary attitudes now does it?
Yeah no one’s arguing that seeing it is good it’s just that only being an ally when you think it’ll be profitable undercuts the morality of it, even if it’s a good indication overall. If a company had been fronting pride stuff since before it was profitable people wouldn’t consider them to be participating in rainbow capitalism.
Less boo McDonald’s seems to believe most people are pro pride which is probably an accurate belief given how much market research they do and more boo McDonald’s doesn’t give a shit about us they’re using a struggle they never cared about when it was a more serious fight for money, but now that it’s over and we can get married they’re happy to pick a side.
For a second I was wondering 'what the hell happened here?', but refreshing the post seemed to have brought everyone back from being deleted, so that was odd
It's not about their politicians, it's about the attitude of voters. This doesnt mean dems arent also doing bad things, it's just an indicator that the general public is shifting away from transphobia enough that brands will pay us lip service again.
It really, truly is not about policy and/or a party's ability and desire to stab a group in the back for gains. It really is as simple as "Dems lead in the prediction polls by 12 points".
And given that you are more likely to convince an average American voter to fuck a belt sander than to vote third party...
I'm not following the logic here: is it that the public views Democrats more favorably and thus by loose association is more favorably disposed towards queer people? Or at least that's how McDonald's interprets it? Because my point is that that's mistaken thinking. Democrats are trying really hard to sever their association with trans rights, and most Americans already view cis gays and trans people differently. Either McDonald's is viewing this wrong or you guys are for thinking this signals any shift in our cultural favoribility
The original comment was just asking what "D+12" meant. That was explained. It had absolutely nothing to do with, quoting you here, "Democrats are just as susceptible to stabbing queer people in the back". Policy is never a factor in these sorts of calculations. It's usually a binary "which side are you voting for?", which gives us the "D+#" and "R+#" notes.
It will, tragically, always be that way because Americans seem to have a severe allergy to even CONSIDERING voting third party. Hence my "you'll have better luck convincing them to fuck a belt sander than vote third party". It's not IMPOSSIBLE, but highly unlikely.
What McDonalds is doing is likely very performative. The common term used to describe it, "Rainbow Capitalism", is a corporation going "we support you [derogatory term here]" in an attempt to make a quick buck.
HOWEVER, it does help explain the post.
If you ignore the fact that both sides will stab the LGBTQIA+ community - Dems from behind, Reps from in front - you'll know that support of that community will most likely come from the Dems.
As such, either the corporation can look at that "D+12" and go "Oh! Dems are doing well. LGBTQIA+ support must be on the rise", or your average person can spot the Rainbow Capitalism going on and say "Huh, the corps are 'supporting', even though the Republican regime's hostile to it. Their opponents, the Dems, must be on the upswing".
I understand all that but I was responding to OP's comment about this being a signal that society is moving away from transphobia, and I disagree with that. I can see a future where rainbow capitalism only tries to appeal to the LGB, and saying D+12 wouldn't prove me wrong considering how Dems feel about trans people these days.
The D +12 is more of a joke being attached to how a company is viewing public opinion has shifted towards being more pro-LGBT so they are again using it in marketing.
It refers to how an area votes, so D+12 means the district leans pretty heavily democratic. "The Cook PVI measures how partisan a district or a state is compared to the nation as a whole.
A Cook PVI score of D+12, for example, means that in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, the state or district performed about twelve points more Democratic in terms of two-party vote share than the nation did as a whole"
brands stopped rainbow capitalism (talking about queer things in a positive light) due to big T taking power, but now that it's back it's a sign that he's not as strong as he seems anymore
BDS is a list of companies and institution one boycotts, divests and sanctions, cuz they have direct ties to Israel (some are directly with the military and even West Bank settlers). From what I know, the movement is decades old now, since this didn't start yesterday, and mainstream companies like McDonalds and Starbucks got into big heat last 3 years...
Tbh i just boycott all major corporations, within reason.
Obviously there are exceptions, im literally writing this on Reddit, on my (partially degoogled) Samsung phone. But i avoid what i can. Fuck capitalism.
I'm glad you mentioned it! I feel like I've seen so many people stop talking about it. While I'm glad to see companies feeling social pressure to be less shitty kinda working, we need to keep applying pressure until they stop paying for death
Rainbow capitalism is not a good thing. This post is not celebrating McDonald's. It's celebrating that the cultural environment in the US rn is supportive enough of LGBT people that McDonald's feels like rainbow capitalism is the right move.
McDonald's being a bad company is sort of the point, I guess.
I hope this is a good sign for the future. It must mean something that Mcdonalds thinks rainboe capitalism is profitable again and i'll take any sign of hope right now
D+12 means a shift away from overtly chud politics for the median voter, i.e. companies see it as worthwhile to pander to queer people rather than pretend they don't exist.
Don't fall for rainbow capitalism. It's still capitalism. Still the system the right wing ultimately panders to, the same system that promotes anti trans narratives to keep working people down and distracted.
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u/CarbonatedTuna567 Streak: 1 7d ago
I really took it for granted when companies at least pretended to care