Pride is the greatest of the highly symbolic months. A perfect time to attend a festival, get a second-degree burn, and maybe alcohol poisoning. But what would Pride be without the endless churning discourse machine of the modern Internet?
This is the time to take what in theory should be a communal celebration of identity and solidarity, and turn it into a micro-debate so niche that at the end of the day, the only winner is you. Here’s how to get that sweet clout in 7 easy steps.
1. Wrack your brain for something you can start shit about early!
First and foremost: it is NEVER too early to start thinking of ways to divide and irritate your so-called community. We suggest beginning to workshop ideas in January to make sure you have plenty of time to smooth out the finer points of your imaginary dialogue.
2. Start sowing the seeds of very strong opinions on Instagram
Once May starts, Pride will begin to creep into the public eye in Target ads and Instagram stories. Make it known that you have very strong convictions about whatever you’ve decided to stir up this year starting around May 15th or so to get a leg up on your competition.
3. Make it clear that those who disagree with you are either homophobes or don’t know their queer history.
Once the story replies and DMs start flooding in, be sure to repost screenshots of private conversations with long-winded and snarky replies. The two safest bets for shutting down any chance of a productive exchange are to either accuse your detractors of internalized homophobia or make it clear that they literally don’t know their own queer history. How embarrassing for them.
4. Mention children a lot for some reason.
Regardless of your in-fighting topic of choice, we’ve found that a surefire way to get your followers either angry or alienated as quickly as possible is to mention children a lot from any standpoint, even though almost no one involved has them and they’re pretty much irrelevant to your opponents.
5. Once parades and festivals start, don’t mention anything remotely positive about any of them.
We will not stand for pictures of Billy Porter with happy attendees or those nice ladies with the Free Mom Hugs signs when there are dozens of people deciding to be angry about [TEMPLATE: INSERT DISCOURSE HERE]!
6. Demand that your audience thank you monetarily for doing “the work.”
Listen, you’re the one speaking out against whatever it is you’re speaking out against here. Drop your Venmo handle every time you post as a subtle reminder that your audience literally owes you.
7. Repeat yearly until seasoned veterans stop attending Pride events altogether.
That’s what we wanted, right? Right?