Pride Month Ends on a High Despite Backlash Over Parades, Events

Though Pride Month 2023 has seen the LGBTQ+ community come in for criticism from some conservatives, it can be seen as a success if social media numbers are anything to go by.

Running throughout June, Pride Month has faced an "unprecedented" backlash in 2023 according to a leading advocacy group GLAAD. The month began with Human Rights Campaign (HRC) declaring a "state of emergency" for the LGBTQ+ community over a record number of bills introduced across state legislatures in the United States viewed as hostile to the community.

While things have often seemed bleak for those celebrating Pride Month, with businesses facing boycotts over their ties to the LGBTQ+ community, event organizers have found success in social media support.

Looking at the social media metrics for the official @Pride accounts, there's been a significant rise in followers, suggesting support for the cause is rising despite the perceived backlash.

The Instagram account for @Pride saw the most success with 17,160 people hitting the 'Follow' button, an increase of 1.45 percent across the month, according to social media stats aggregator Social Blade. However, the increase in Instagram followers appears to be much smaller than last year's rise during the same month. Social Blade figures show that on May 27, 2022, the account had 1,191,016 followers, rising to 1,262,613 by June 28, 2022—an increase of around 6 percent.

TikTok was a more successful platform for @Pride in 2023, with a major rise in followers both in the last 30 days, and year over year. The follower count rose by 65,400 to a total of 250,700 across June 2023.

On a platform where it's just as easy to lose followers as it is to gain them, @Pride's Twitter follower count rose by just 1,206 (around 0.4 percent). However, according to Social Blade, this represents a significant drop in new followers compared to June 2022 when the account saw a monthly gain of 82,118, suggesting Pride Month 2022 was more successful in terms of gathering support.

Pride month has been seen as a controversial topic for some, with brands like Bud Light and soccer club FC Barcelona widely criticized for celebrating it. Bud Light, after being boycotted by some for its collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, proceeded with its annual sponsorship of Toronto Pride in Canada.

Meanwhile Spanish soccer team FC Barcelona was slammed by followers for featuring the trans and Pride flags at its stadium on the same day as Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday.

With so much backlash, major brands like The North Face, Lego and Miller Lite didn't post about Pride at the start of June 2023, despite doing so at the beginning of June 2022.

Target looked all set to promote Pride Month this year, stocking Pride clothing in its stores and selling "tuck-friendly" women's swimwear, but it appeared to backpedal on this once calls for boycotts against the business started.