If you didn’t know June was Pride Month for the LGBTQ+, you must have been away from all technology and failed to leave your house. Advertisements from companies selling rainbow clothing and selling multi-colored snacks such as Oreos are posted on billboards stationed in highways, pop up on social media pages, run on TV screens and radio stations, and are printed on magazines and newspapers. Internationally, parades and rallies went off in June to celebrate LGBTQ+ history and support its members.
Now, it’s July and all the hype is dying down. But for LGBTQ+ members, the time of pride is over and the time of wrath has begun. Tweets and responses on social media sprouted at the end of June and the beginning of July commented on how quick companies are to show how proud the are of the community in June, but so quick to ignore the community and stop promoting LGBTQ+ advertisements the minute it is July.
Interestingly enough, articles on making Wrath Month about LGBTQ+ activism, bringing in the background of the LGBTQ+ community and the present bias members face and in encouraging those to participate in Wrath Month are not only showing the diverse opinions of those in the community but also how trending this concept is. Wrath Month began as a joke, or a non-sense idea on the Internet that actually expanded into something that people feel passionate enough to tweet about, write articles about and encourage to be used as an actual month.
What caused this is simple: LGBTQ+ members are sick and tired of being mistreated by big corporations who claim to have our backs (and our rights) and leave us to hang out to dry after a month. We are done playing nice. Wrath Month is a way for us to voice our frustration with productive activism and try to take this opportunity to educate about how we want more support than a pair of rainbow sneakers on sale for a month. It is more than how it began, it is now a way for us to effectively communicate that we want to be heard and be responded to for longer than a month and we want to actually be validated and supported rather than be manipulated for commercial gain.
The most important part of Wrath Month is the influence it gives. It influences those in the LGBTQ+ community to speak up via social media’s hashtag #WrathMonth on their emotions and how they’d like to resolve the continued issues against their community. It influences those who are not a part of the LGBTQ+ community who go on social media to be educated online and are more aware of this movement. Lastly, it informs big corporations, news sources, and powerful individuals of the large population of disgruntled people who feel alone because of lack of involvement and ushers in some future influence in campaigns.
In June, we say happy pride to commemorate a great month and in July we should say happy wrath to continue the good times.
