Oh hi! So you're the reason my channel got a random boost! Thanks! haha Great video all around and really loved hearing your thoughts on...well, everything. I appreciate you taking the time to dive into the history and details most gloss over or pass up. You have a new subscriber in me. ^_^ And thanks for the lovely words about the other stuff I do!
Oh wow thanks for responding Daniel! And thanks for the kind words. I hope you keep making stuff for your other channel, because you're obviously very talented and I love to see it. BTW check out my recent video on nostalgia art, I think you would like it. I just have a follow-up question because I've seen a lot of conflicting reporting, and your comment here is causing me some confusion as well. So is the flag patented to you, or copyrighted, or what, exactly? Like what is the precise legal status? I honestly don't know much about how artists enforce their intellectual property rights, but it sounds like this is something you have looked into quite a bit.
I just love that you admit openly that you are gay and that as a large youtuber, that you have the possibility to change how many people look at gay/lesbian people and have a large effect on people. What I’m trying to say is that people who do not like gay/lesbian people may change their look on them and, quite frankly, I find it hard to explain the possibilities. I sincerely do hope you understand what I mean. I hope you and your love have a extraordinary good relationship. Engie Boi
@@JJMcCullough under US copyright law you can't copyright geometric shapes or things deemed "of less merit" so flags can't be copyrighted at all. I do have some form of "creator's rights" but even I don't really know what that means beyond I have some level of protection *cause I made the thing*. Really it would probably come down to my word vs someone else's in court, but also court is gross and expensive and I have no real desire to do that. So, no I do not hold copyright on my flag beyond anything more than I am recognized as the person who made it. With that said, people have been really awesome and respectful, and come to me for permission (which of course yea! please do the thing!) when they're making things involving the flag. Even larger companies have been surprisingly respectful towards me as the artist in this regard. And of course I'll watch that video! Sounds great!
I didn’t realize you held rights to that pride flag. Did you know Apex Legends used it as a badge for pride month? I’m assuming they got permission from you since they’re normally good about this kind of stuff.
@@claimingagate last time I checked Britain won two Boer Wars and colonial troops played an important role. Many Canadian regiments can trace their heritage to that war.
As a bi trans person; Putting the trans and race stripes on the LGBT flag is like putting the California Bear and Texas Star on the US flag. Are they important states in the union? Yes, but they're not the point. The point of the US flag is to be a symbol of unity that all states in the country - no matter how small - can rally behind, not a showcase of the two most popular states in the Union. The LGBT flag was no different, until the re-design. The re-design changed the pride flag from a symbol of unity into a cash grab preying on people's social insecurities to make a quick buck.
It's 2023 and my city is still refusing to have rainbow crosswalks and fly gay pride flags. Our province stopped flying the flag. You only see them on private property now. Mind you all the activists are in Toronto.
Doesn't help that it confuses the suburban moms when they try and put out anything they think is up to date. But then they'll also get it all mixed up and tell a gay person they can use whatever bathroom they want in public despite them not being trans.
exactly! I’m a bi guy and I’m fine with including trans people (and OF COURSE black lgbt people) but it feels like these days there needs to be something on the flag for everyone, when the point of the rainbow was that it was FOR everyone.
Mate, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but California and Texas are both represented on the US flag, same as every other state* (that's kinda the whole point of the 50 stars bit). Flags change over time, just as movements do (in fact the Rainbow flag that is most popular (the one shown in this video) is itself an evolution-the original flag had 8 colors); the new iterations and generations of a movement require new symbols as the cultural/societal context shifts and changes. Does the Rainbow flag stand for LGBTQ+? Yes, of course it does.(To tie this back to your example of the US flag: I think you would have a hard time convincing someone that the Betty White flag is any less patriotic to fly than than the modern US flag.) But is the flag also used by those who would exclude trans and people of color from the movement they identify with? Yes as well. The trans and POC stripes aren't exclusive to inclusion and solidarity, but they clarify such as not all who use the rainbow share such dispositions. The Progress flag is the flag of an iteration of a movement that came into existence in response to division in that movement, not the other way around. A new version of a flag does not erase the meaning of the old one: broadly speaking, the meaning of the US flag as is has acquired stars has stayed roughly the same, the same holds true for the Rainbow flag. *I say state so as not to interrupt my argument with extraneous detail but I would like to clarify/acknowledge that the Hawaiian Kingdom is under a prolonged occupation from the US (as recognized by the United Nations) and the annexation of Hawai'i by the US was done fraudulently under duress.
The funny thing to me is that even though the designer interprets the chevron of race and trans stripes as an arrow pointing toward progress, it really looks more like a wedge dividing the unity and solidarity that the original flag symbolized. It's like accidental satire.
@@peperuiz9264 You'd think it would be nothing at all, but unfortunately, homosexuality is opposed by social conservatives. No, I don't know why they exist either, or why their position is popular enough to attract voters.
@@General12th it’s not so much anymore. That’s why the more secular wing do the CPC is predominantly more in control, cuz they know that going social conservatives is most likely political suicide
All the "updated" flags feel like they were designed by a committee, made to please everyone but resulted in an aesthetically unappealing mess of colors that don't work well together at all.
My thoughts exactly. Hell, you'd think that the LGBT, who are stereotypically regarded as "fabulous" would see that hodgepodge and say "Aw hell no honey I ain't wearing THAT."
My issue with the consumerism with the pride movement is that many companies are in fact homophobic and lobby anti-lgbt politicians and such. It’s hypocritical, companies shouldn’t be undermining a community while asking us to consume their products
@@JJMcCullough when corporations side with fascists, politicians like you will be arguing whether it is right for minorities to defend themselves, since the corporations haven't done anything illegal in their persecution.
@@JJMcCullough there have been some cited examples of support of the don’t say, gay bill, at least initially from the corporation of Disney, especially in Florida. But we know how it works. Usually it’s companies go over the money goes.
@@JJMcCullough Disney takes out LGBT characters from their films in many countries around the world, so they're fine being complacent with foreign anti-LGBT policy at the very least. For examples of anti-LGBT companies there is Chic-Fil-A until 2019 (though Dan Cathy is still their COO and chairman), and more recently companies such as Universal, Lego, or Warner Bros provide JK Rowling with royalties from Wizarding World products and thus funds for her to donate to anti-LGBT lobbying groups in the UK. There's plenty of examples and evidence out there, it's just that these companies save face with their rainbow washing at the end of the day and thus have the values of whatever gets them the most money.
My favourite corporate use of the pride flag/colours was when skittles did the exact opposite. It made black and white skittles for during pride month, and then used them to raise funds for LGBTQ charities. Well played skittles, well played.
I don't think I really have a strong opinion on the pride flag or how it's been changing recently. I'm a pretty big fan of colourful artwork, so I quite like the rainbow flag! As for the new one with the trans and black colours coming in like an arrow from the left, I think the intentions are good but to be honest, I think the flag looks kinda ugly. Plus, isn't it getting a bit literal? Why add colours for specific races? I kinda always thought it was a rainbow because all sorts of people are gay, no matter how you look or where you're from. At the end of the day though, I'm not gonna complain. Use whatever flag you like most! I think my biggest issue with corporations using Pride stuff is just when they're clearly doing it for the money and not actually standing by a principle that they have. You know, like when a company puts all of their pride branding up on their social media for each language, except for in markets where they think that won't go over well, like their arabic twitter. If they genuinely were doing it for the sake of gay rights, they'd be willing to potentially lose out on money in those markets if it meant sticking up for their values. It's like if a company claimed they're absolutely 100% pro human rights, but they make their products in a sweatshop in China. The values they say that they have don't align with their business practices. No one likes a hypocrite.
J.J. McCullough I would say that’s a completely different issue. Pride is about fighting for LGBT rights, so when you celebrate Pride you are taking a stand for those rights. Which makes it hypocritical to turn around and do what Pride is actually fighting against. Christmas isn’t a holiday of activism.
People take the rainbow flag WAY to seriously. I honestly think the original flag serves it best as a spectrum of light. Adding colors to it just institutes tribalism where as the spectrum of light is a universal symbol of warmth from the light.
Funny story: here in Italy someone had the idea to put the word "PACE" (meaning peace) in white lettering over the rainbow flag, so until fairly recently (roughly the mid-2010s I'd say) the average Italian thought of the rainbow flag as a flag used by peace activists and not by gay rights activists
They are similar (definitely not identical, even without taking the white lettering into account) flags but that might be just coincidental. They seem to have different stories. But 15 years ago you could see them flowing from most balconies as a protest against the Iraqi war and then it kind of became a sort of generic left wing/activism symbol. Nowadays mostly evocative of failed left wing parties that can't reach the election treshold.
I'll note that during my high school years I had an old priest as a religion teacher and he would often complain about how the rainbow flag went from being this good peace flag to this bad LGBT flag. This is a massive simplification of what he was saying, but let's just say I'm now less ignorant compared to back then about LGBT+ rights in general and I've moved far away from his opinion
Though I am happy that we have become more accepted in the past decade, I feel that "rainbow-washing" has trivialized, for lack of better wording, the struggles people like JJ and I have gone through. The flag used to actually mean something; triumph over tragic circumstances. I was assaulted, not just with your typical bullying, but sexually as well for coming out 16 years ago, but now all of a sudden it's like I'm not "gay enough", because I don't care for pride events or having a technicolor everything thrown in my face. Now it's as if I have been ostracized by my own community, because as a gay "normie", as JJ puts it, I don't like the L Word, or watch endless hours of RuPaul's Drag Race, and it's absurd that "allies" (another even more annoying group) think that jumping on the gay pop culture bandwagon makes you deserving of an award. In summary: I'm proud of how far we have become, but I'm not proud of how we've become a novelty item to be put on display.
@@eemeli7093 "The L Word" was a popular show in the 00s that was about rich and pretty lesbians in L.A., and the first major production to be focused on queer women, it's just sadly that was really the only "mainstream" TV representation at the time.
It's never gonna be 'inclusive enough'. There are 200 countries, thousands of nationalities and tens of thousands of languages. Any one of them could be a minority. So unless someone makes a flag with like 50000 distinct symbols, might as well stick to simple and elegant designs. Like, you know, 'all colors of the rainbow'.
Exactly, if you remember the EU's flag proposals, you know well how trying to include everything visually makes things worse to actually identify each thing.
I don’t disagree, but I get it as well. Think of it as a temporary change because frankly I doubt this will be permanent, as it rarely is, trans people and people of color are struggling right now, so the flag will reflect that. The designs are fluid.
@@christianmccauley7340 Trans people and people of colour were struggling much more in the past, actually. right now is when trans people are getting the most rights than ever before with HRT and acceptance of them becoming much more common. people of colour aren't having much of a high on the struggle they've had in the last couple decades. and appart from that, I don't see at all how they fit in the flag thematically.
The reason I’m against the whole “rainbow capitalism” thing is that it becomes evident the shallowness of it when the branches of the company in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or parts of Asia dont adopt the rainbow flag. Appealing to different markets isn’t a bad thing, but it’s still irritating to see the lack of principles the supposedly progressive company has.
We here in Brazil are being very skeptical with everything and just ignore the corporations that don't do anything burger king at least made some videos explaining things and how to explain things to children!!
In eastern europe some companies put the rainbow logos purely because it is seen as a new cool marketing trend that the West is doing. I'm sure most of the SMM teams in those companies don't even know or care about the meaning of this rainbow flag. It disgusts me how shallow it looks and how probably if tomorrow Google or McDonald's put on the fucking communist or nazi flag in place of this logo, those companies would do as well, as an attempt to "fit in"
I don’t care much about flags now but I can’t say I really ever liked the progress flag much. As a black trans person I felt excluded by the flag but that’s because I felt accepted by what the original flag represented. It was kind of like saying “Hey you weren’t accepted before but NOW you are” . I don’t care when people fly the flag or if they prefer the flag because like the video said near the end, fly what you like or what feels right for you. If I had to fly any flag though it’d be the 6 striped flag.
As a trans person, I have real similar attitudes about the trans stripes on it. Like, I thought we were already supposed to be accepted in the community?? Also, IMO it's just a worse flag, as a thing. There is just too much going on
I myself (gay woman) have had a complicated relationship with the lgbt flag culture. Like you I never felt comfortable being loud out my sexuality. However when my small town turned the crosswalks rainbow for pride month, it made me smile a little.
Honestly, as a straight dude, I never thought about seeing the pride crosswalk would make me smile. It’s actually very nice that it does that, I think I like em even more now
Yea but then it become really hard to reproduce. People can’t draw their own lgbt flag if it literally has every colour in it. Simple flags are the best flags.
That's literlly why rainbow flag was brought on, because it's not about anyone it's about everyone. But then again maybe that will help every argument except design one.
The more changes to the flag, the more infighting it seems to cause. Almost like the community are clawing at each other’s throats because they want to be the primary subject talked about. I’m interested to see where this goes.
More like it was hijacked and a bunch of crazies can't make up their minds and just constantly add made up stuff at the end totally making it look like a clown show.... This totally destroys what is supposed to be when it first started. But did hear there was always some infighting within the group but I never expected it to get that bad where the constantly just add stuff to it to feel special.
I feel like when you design a flag that specifically includes certain groups you are inherently excluding anyone not literally represented on the flag. This is why the original spectrum flag worked well as it was just an abstract symbol, easy to identify with.
Yeah, and include the black and brown stripes above the rainbow it self it feel like it's putting themselves before the cause. I'm probably overthinking that but
The issue has been people who wear the original Pride flag gatekeeping the other communities. The community doesn't have the unity we'd often like it to and we can very much be our own worst enemy, especially when some parts of the community add fuel to not recognising other parts, whether that's through Bi-erasure, biological determinism, or all sorts of things. Some people who were deeply marginalised and even at risk of their life for wearing a rainbow flag in the 70s and 80s are now well-respected members of the upper echelons of society who don't have to deal with those problems any more, but still proudly represent the rainbow flag, though they don't always represent the things it was made to show.
@@Straven93 nope you are not... i was never amuse or interested in the modified designs. They clearly did not understand the original message or intent. When the modified versions became the norm i stopped showing up. Because it was no longer about inclusion and acceptance, it was about segregation and exclusion. Also the community i am from, yah don't go running around in public with your junk n toys hanging out. If children are present you travel in weather appropriate clothing. Because anything else is disrespectful and It breaks the rule of informed consent.
Keeping it simple is just better especially when your logo/flag/symbol is something you want outsiders to see and take seriously. Simple sends messages and raises curiosity.
@Insert Name Here agreed. The original flag included EVERYONE don’t understand why people feel like they gotta throw every color onto it making it look like a concept flag for some new country
@Insert Name Here the one looks like the american flag without stars if you spilled some ugly ass color design onto it. Who puts black and brown on a rainbow
My favorite thing during pride month was looking at companies rainbow logos on Twitter and then look at their Arab Twitter pages that didn't change. It's like I thought y'all were gay today but apparently only where it's socially acceptable.
I mean.. it's not surprising at all though, many companies still around today also provided for the Nazi regime back in the 1930's/40's and would gladly do so again.
@@KarlSnarks Liberals blaming stuff on the Nazi regime of the 1930's again, what is new? Maybe if you all didn't come off as so divided, they would consider supporting all of you; (AS A CHOICE AND NOT FOR MONETARY PURPOSES). Then again, many companies don't feed into the politics bullshit and want to make money without social repercussions... That was a low blow Karl and a weak one.
@@sebastienlauzon5655 all groups are divided. That’s not the issue. Companies legit use people to become more “progressive”. They do it to everyone. The original commenter was saying that.
@@owenplourde3934 Oh the companies using people to become more "progressive" is not the issue. It's the fucking pea brains who give them more money and attention for doing it.
As a bisexual man I always used the bi flag instead of the pride flag, I share your "centrist" views on most of these issues and never felt comfortable aggressively advertising my sexuaality like it was a personality trait, but the bi flag's relative obscurity outside of queer spaces meant I could put a small blue purple and pink pin on my backpack as a small identifier for other queer people in my community that I am a safe person to talk to.
I'm a bi man as well and I feel the same, the relative obscurity has a certain "inside-joke"-ness to it! The pride flag is fine, but I honestly just like the bi flag's colours so much 😂
As I bi woman living in a pretty homophobic country (Russia) I also mostly use the bi flag bc I personally feel more connected to it and bc the classical rainbow flag is like a red rag for a bull for authorities, but the bi flag is less known and therefore safer to use. I can even wear something with it around my conservative father, and he wouldn't know lol
The one problem with adding extra stripes is that by specifically going out of your way to include one group, you exclude another. The original flag is a rainbow, representing everyone within LGBTQ+ community, as a rainbow has all the colours, even if you only use six to represent a rainbow in the flag.
@Yules Yes, those people are underrepresented, but what does that have to do with the flag? Race has nothing to do with sexuality. While other flags have colors that may mean specific things (the only one I can really say off the top of my head is the bi flag), the colors in the original flag are meant to serve a collective purpose in saying that everybody, while having differences, are all equally valid as individuals. The people who exclusively use it as a gay flag are misusing it.
I’m personally a very if it ain’t broken don’t fix it, so seeing all these new pride flags is no different from seen a new car come out. Like “that’s cool but I like this one better” and it’s simply because the flag is simple, has been around for longer time and (in my opinion) has more historical meat behind it.
I agree that the original flag works fine, but the entire point of changing it was that some people felt it didn't address everything that needed to be addressed, i.e. it was in fact "broken" and needed a fix. Again, I don't necessarily agree, but you can't just say "if it ain't broken don't fix it" because that misses the point.
“I’m a Normie gay” he said, his long hair flowing, while making a documentary about niche queer flags. (But no seriously, I, a fellow gay vexillologist from just outside NYC , welcome this content 100%)
It’s very interesting how identity and perception around being flamboyant, butch, or any way of showing gayness on the outside is very different and varied among even LGBT people themselves. Like some gay men strongly dislike the flamboyant gays. And some see it as a way to not be ashamed of oneself. Some see it as an insult or closeted-ness. It’s interesting and very personal
I find it interesting that J.J.'s identity is more clearly defined by his content and the knickknacks on his shelves than by any one given symbol. It's pretty cool. But individual identities, one and all, defy every collective on the face of the earth. And damn, that's good!
Your story about not identifying with the flag reminds me a lot of my husband. He likes guys (obviously, having married me) but has never felt like part of the LGBT community and sometimes actively resists supporting queer symbols. This sometimes causes us to butt heads, considering that I'm one of those gays that grew up in a controlling, borderline abusive family and had to fight hard against everything they stood for to gain my own freedom and sense of identity, so I pretty much embrace anything queer. lol
@@kertchu yes, he says he doesn't really identify with communities in general and views himself as a queer individual separate from other queer people. I'm not really sure if that's specifically because of the particular community or just a general disconnect from the self.
The more "inclusive" the flag becomes it actually has the opposite effect. When the poc, intersex and other minorities are included the other minorities that are not in the flag feel not included. Rainbow flag was universal and I feel like it represented both poc and non poc lgbt people, it obviously included intersex people, asexual, pan and others. Rainbow with its colors represented all the diversity of the community and the specific groups didn't have to be mentioned by name to feel included. Now it looks bad and cluttered
@Star Chaser "As if the rainbow was exclusionary." Well, lots of those very groups you mentioned felt excluded by mainstream queer spaces, and overlooked by mainstream queer discourse. So if you'd like them to be content with just the rainbow flag, maybe the community needs to actually show more inclusivity. Editing of flags is not an inherent problem; it is a symptom of discontent.
I don’t understand. Why they needed to “fix” the pride flag. Trans people are already represented in LGBT and so are gay black people. So adding the colors to the flag really is putting one group on a pedestal above others. If you want to represent trans rights cool good on you. Use the trans flag. If you want to celebrate Black rights cool use the pan African colors.
Also, the flag doesn't represent all disadvantages communities around the world. It's just about American race relations. Maybe they could say tho that the black stripe is about AIDS and the brown stripe is about all ethnic minorities around the world, but idk
BTW there's 2 different type of African / Sub-saharan African ethnicity flags. These colors : 🇨🇲 which are used for Africans in Africa because of the Ethiopian falg 🇪🇹, because Ethiopia never got colonised, and this flag 🇲🇼 which is modern and is more about African diaspora in other places, especially African americans
I completely agree. Recently a new flag was unveiled as the progress flag with adding the intersex flag despite the majority of intersex people not wanting to be included.
I just personally don’t like how the brown and black stripes look, the darker colors are a total contrast to the bright flag and they look super tacked on.
Yeah and it makes no real sense because the bi flag is purple magenta and blue and I am bi and I am not any of those colours it's starting to get way too literal
Honestly, I think adding the black and brown stripes completely undermines the purpose of the pride flag. The pride flag is to represent inclusivity, why add the black and brown stripes if the original flag already represents that?
@@Hellcat826 yeah and when you only include the black and brown stripes, it's like "where are the other races?" i know its not easy to include all the races as colors, but that just shows that it's not that great of an idea in the first place especially as a non brown hispanic (yes we exist), the flag honestly makes me feel more excluded than included
15:07 "If that flag works for you, then you fly that flag; nobody's telling you you can't. But if this flag works for you, hey, it's here for you too. Like, no one's forcing you to do anything." Says the guy who keeps his flag under copyright. (Note: I agree with him that artists should be compensated for their art, but the flag is supposed to be more than just art, it's supposed to be a symbol, and keeping it under copyright is just helping to ensure it won't become one.)
You can't copyright a flag. The artist himself actually acknowledges this in comments he posted to this video. Instead, he simply asserts himself as creator and hopes that corporations ask his permission to use it - even though they are not obliged to.
his flag is literally just a triangle and the normal flag it can be made in like ten seconds the fact he copyrighted it is hilarious and kind of sad given how low effort it is
Anne Quito hit the nail on the head. I laughed out loud at how you said "leftwing activists striving to bring down society from within" in two different tones giving it two different meanings. I feel like that joke perfectly sums up discourse online right now and society at large.
They don't want activists as part of society generally, it makes them have to think, which makes them uncomfortable and lash out. Most people who don't understand the purpose behind various forms of activism would say activists often belong in jail so society can be more peaceful. They don't want change, because it means effort. It's saddening, but for many, until an issue affects them or someone they care about directly, it's impersonal and they just want it gone. So typically, activists don't get access to power because they might cause change too quickly for most people to cope with.
Ouch, sounds like you're the sort of people I'm talking about who wear the rainbow flag but still keep other people who might claim it from feeling like it represents them. When there are laws being made against trans people's bodies, against single parenting which is often a quiet way Lesbian couples have children in places where it's a struggle or illegal still. You're lucky, you're comfortable, you're well-represented and you're in a part of the world where your lifestyle isn't being scapegoated as a cause of other people's problems. There are people who need that flag who aren't as lucky and they deserve to be respected, too. There's a reason it's not just the gay community any more. The other letters deserve to have pride, too.
For the few people acting surprised, I don't think JJ ever hid his sexuality. He mentioned it several times over the history of his channel. I just don't believe he found it specifically relevant in certain topics of conversations that it would necessitate the mention of his love of schlong. He is a personable and thoughtful dude and I really enjoy watching his channel grow. Hopefully the sun doesn't melt him and his city.
I subscribed to him a month ago but when I found out that he was gay I was like "Oh sweet!" Because I'm gay too but I really don't that's a big deal TBH.
That’s because JJ is a normal person and an adult. He has his own personality and interests, and doesn’t need to base his entire life and being off of his sexuality
I met (and dated) Gilbert Baker back in 1994 when I also helped him to create a mile long rainbow flag for the Stonewall 25 celebrations. When I asked him what he thought about all the then riffs on his original design, I remember him saying he enjoyed all of them, just didn’t think it was right to trademark or copywriter them. This was before the flag designs you bring up in the video, but I think they fall into his open critique. The original (first) rainbow flag had eight colors with two being removed supposedly for difficulty in finding the fabrics. I don’t know their names, but I’ve been told that Gilbert wasn’t alone in his designing of the flag.
It's rather the fact that there's a certain need to represent certain groups that often get excluded out of pride but adding them onto the literal flag is still a mishap
A long haired, mustachioed JJ discussing the pride flag, sweating in his unbuttoned shirt. JJ this has got to be the pinnacle of your own personal brand of gayness.
The 'progress flag' feels incredibly American. In other cultures black and brown minority representation is simply not a relevant issue, whereas LGBT rights are, as far as I'm aware, relevant in pretty much every country, and so the original flag represented solidarity not just among the American/Canadian community but the WHOLE LGBT community internationally, as such it is the original flag not the newer 'progressive flag' that is more inclusive and I think that is pretty cool.
Feels kinda hypocritical. BLM gets mad when other races are brought up. But POC are first to interject on gay issues. But I as a straight white man have no dog in this fight
I don't like it. I'm a black trans man, it feels insulting. It feels like "oh here is an extra special flag because it was decided that you can't speak up for yourself" all because of my skin color. I don't want to be treated like some damned child. I want to be treated like an adult.
Yeah that's a great point, raising the progress flag in Africa and Asia would just be dumb since everyone there is already black and brown lol. That's why the rainbow flag should be retained, since it can truly be used internationally and is universal.
The rainbow is supposed to include everyone under it anyway, plus, do we REALLY want to be promoting Race with Pride? We just escaped "Race Pride" as a concept a few decades ago and going backwards to it sounds like a horrible idea.
@@pkmntrainernumbers8111 exactly. I’m always uncomfortable when singled out and can hardly imagine how the vast majority of trans people may feel, especially when this is added to the pile.
I know everyone hates the progress flag because they think it’s exclusive, but as a transgender person, I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t always count on the rainbow flag to include me. A lot of cis queer people either don’t acknowledge gender diverse folks at all, outright hate them, or heavily resent them for “holding us back” by “demanding too much” from cishet people. When I see the progress pride flag or a trans flag, it’s at least a little more likely that I’m not going to be treated like freak, or a burden. I can’t speak for other countries (I’m American) or for people of color (I’m white), but I’ve met a good amount of trans and/or PoC people who feel similarly. I don’t want to replace the rainbow flag, I quite like it, and its history. But when you say that it always automatically includes everyone, think about whether that’s always true in practice.
I kind of agree but at the same time, I view the rainbow flag as something akin to a national flag. Its main point, usually, is to offer up a unifying symbol for everyone within the nation. Some people can and often do use it as a way to exclude others but that is in defiance of its purpose and isnt remedied by making dozens more flags for every marginalized niche. Its fixed by reconstituting the original flag for its original purpose.
Spot on. I'm all for artists making money but redesigning the pride flag and expecting compensation is like volunteering at a soup kitchen and expecting compensation.
Quasar also started the flag production business as a Kickstarter and does now have a Progress Initiative which gives some of the proceeds back to queer charities. The donations are 25% of the proceeds and have so far gone to these places: SMYRC (Sept-Dec 2018): Donation amount $370! TRANS LIFELINE (Jan-Mar 2019): Donation amount $615! THE TREVOR PROJECT (Apr-Jun 2019): Donation amount $1600! THE LIVING ROOM (Jul-Sept 2019): Donation amount $825! THE LIVING ROOM (Oct-Dec 2019): Donation amount $325! THE LIVING ROOM (Jan-Mar 2020): Donation amount $140! LGBTQ Freedom Fund (Apr-Jun 2020): Donation amount $5000! LGBTQ Freedom Fund (Jul-Sept 2020): Donation amount $1800! LGBTQ Freedom Fund (Oct-Dec 2020): Donation amount $1200! For me the issue is how many of the people who the new flag is meant to include aren't in a position where they could buy one. That very capitalist quote from Quasar is not in the spirit of unity.
Devil's advocate position here, just something to think about. I think if someone makes something and wants to try to profit from it, all the power to them. I see no reason that it must be part of the public domain. You and I, as individuals, don't have to accept it, nor pay for it. They have that freedom of choice and so do we. Whether from a morally stand point or not, that it might have been morally the right or wrong thing to do, is ultimately up to the creator of the art. That's what living in a free society is all about, and we must remember that.
@@larryroyovitz7829 I don't deny that. What I'm saying is that the designer's intention seems to be that their design will become the majority accepted symbol of the LGBTQ identity both by its members and by institutions (thus their recent use by them). To me, copyrighting the symbol seems to be contradictory to that objective. If he wants to profit from it, good for him. But he shouldn't act as he had the moral high horse in this situation. As other designers have created their own flags to identify the LGBTQ movement or part of it and they haven't tried to have a monopoly on its distribution (which, in my opinion, is why they have become such iconic symbols).
@@larryroyovitz7829 from a legal perspective i think it's totally ok what he did, and he should be able to do that if he so chooses, but from a moral and community perspective, i think it's very ok for him to be viewed as a bit scummy for making a flag with the intention of it having cultural significance and meaning, and not having it be public to that community. kinda like those parents who buy there kids gifts and make them pay back the money like it's a loan. But that's probably a very flawed comparison
I always felt the gay pride flag was a rainbow because “all the colours of the rainbow” signifies unity and togetherness despite difference. Not to sound dismissive or something, but the updates make the flag look like a literal checklist of social issues. A rainbow is a powerful, universally known, diverse symbol.
I agree! Especially since the artist behind the original pride flag, Gilbert Baker, added a ninth stripe to his original pride flag, a lavender stripe symbolizing diversity. It's quite beautiful and I wish it was used more since it feels natural and was made by the man behind the symbol itself.
Hetero-male here, so forgive me if I’m overstepping. My little sister has been gay for ~10 years now, so these are topics we discuss openly within my family, and bless my parents for being so accepting from the get-go, anyways…. I really like the appearance of the “progress pride flag”, and what it represents with the chevron/arrow design. However, I find it to be *really* lame that it’s designer holds a copyright for it. It really makes me view its messaging with skepticism/cynicism, since profitability is apparently its foremost purpose. While I agree an artist should profit from their work, it’s a little different when the work in question is a symbol for a whole group of people. It’s not equivalent to an artist selling “prints” of their paintings, this is a pattern being applied to Knick-knacks and products of all sorts. To me I view it similarly, not exactly, to a church copyrighting it’s symbols. Imagine if one individual/party held exclusive rights to the cross, and they had to be paid out any time it was used. Not a perfect analog, but I think the point stands. If the creator wanted to make a symbol for people to identify with, and use to represent themselves, it should be owned by everyone. Not just the designer. Sorry to rant, my little sis and I were actually talking about this exact subject recently, so I was ready to blab! Have a great day
I think you mean your sister has been out for ~10 years. Gay people were always gay, they don’t choose it one day, or become gay when they first tell someone or first realize it themselves.
@@oceansolstice608 aren't little children mostly asexual? So wouldn't you become gay/straight the moment you start feeling sexual attraction towards a specific gender.
I am not personally part of the LGBT+ community, however my perspective on redesign is that by attempting to become more inclusive to groups such as people of colour and trans people, it has actually become exclusive. In my opinion the original rainbow pride flag worked better as a blanket symbol for anyone in the LGBT+ community without the need to explicitly show a symbol for each group
It's basically the same thing that happened to video game culture. We got a bunch of stuck-up teachers' pets pretending to want to join the fun and, once let in, starting to purge those existing demographics by accusing them of "inherent bigotry" and demanding actions to crack down on it. The reality is that these stuck-up teachers' pets are trying to "expand their living space" at the expense of others when they already have more than they know what to do with. LGBT is already being billed not as arbitrary characteristics but as a deliberate, moral choice by the current crop of activists, and those activists are not at all adverse to labelling anyone thinking otherwise, including those already part of the community, as problematic.
@@dy031101 >We got a bunch of stuck-up teachers' pets pretending to want to join the fun Nope, women were always part of the video game fandom, and they always critiqued some of the actions that both the medium and community has always done, video games were littearly a gender-neutral thing before Nintendo came along and start marketing almost exclusively to little boys Get that Gamegate-est bullshit argument out of here, I'm tired of the "women always hate gaming, until it was popular, and now they got in and used feminism to ruin everything"
@@dy031101 I do not think asking the video game industry to express less deogritory views of minorites is the same as trying to show off every type of person under the sun on a flag
It kind of reminds me of the original US flag. Originally, every time they added a new state, the flag received not only another star, but also an additional strip, until the amount of stripes became unsustainable and they decided to go back and stick with the original 13. Adding more and more strips seems likes it been a flag design problem for over 200 years now!
Eventhough I am strongly against the rainbow flag, I agree with that opinion. I has become mounstruos on how they add colors...even for black people (as if all blacks were gay) Why not Asian or Latino gays colors? Oh, yes: They profit from the BLM movement (therefore, are vultures of Mr. Floyd's death)
Agreed. Racial equality and Trans rights were already represented in the Pride Flag, and adding specific representation for these minorities within the community separates them too much from the flag. Highlighting race and gender identity within the flag both sends the message that they were not represented initially and contributes to bisexual, pan sexual, and asexual erasure (due to the fact that their respective flags are not on this new pride flag.)
Sadly the reality is that the presence of the rainbow flag doesn't guarantee things such as an absence of transphobia. It *should* be for everyone but in reality it far too often isn't.
I also think it's kind of unsettling, since the addition of people of color, trans people and just recently intersex people implies that they weren't already included, which they were.
JJ: "I'm gay myself." Me: Spit takes. I never knew he was gay. I'm happy that I never knew he was gay. I meant that I never knew based on his beliefs/personality. He literally never seemed to care that he was gay and just accepted it as a normal thing and never mentioned it and even when he does it's because he is talking about an issue he has a reason to mention it. Damn, JJ. I respect you for in this day and age to never talk about your sexuality unless really necessary. Hearing a "conservative" do something like this as an American makes me feel real weird, as this is not how politics works in America. LOL
So why can’t the regular rainbow just represent everyone? Why do they have to keep adding things? The rainbow means all the colours of the rainbow. Everyone.
Because people seem to want to emphasize the focus on a particular cause or identity and i guess the traditional pride flag isn't specific enough for some people. And since resources are limited and people want to feel special you get these crazy mashups. But i agree that it can become a little bit annoying with the overbearing virtue signalling etc...
@@yara1896 hey tard. They feel the need to be represented over everyone else because they’re “struggle” is greater than someone who is not black. It’s victim mentality plain and simple. There’s no need for it as the 🏳️🌈 includes everyone. The new colors are about skin tone
That sounds a bit...wrong. How can someone sexuality affect your own attraction towards them? I mean - imagine a hetero guy saying he doesnt find lesbians attractive. And then , phew, she wasnt lesbian after all.
I personally really like the "original" flag, adding the other stripes IMO does take away it's meaning and also gets kinda hijacked for political narratives which overall hurts what it generally stands for.
I feel kinda blind not knowing that i've been watching a intelligent charismstic and wonderful gay man these years. You are fantastisk and a voice worth hearing. My view of you have not changed (thogh my opinion of you don't matter), i love every piece of content you make. Please continue to give us these fantastic videoes!
I’m only watching him for two months but although being straight (as far as I know...), and not knowing that he’s gay, I always found him extremely pretty, attractive in the sense of “if I were a girl” and cute. Now wondering if it was because he’s gay and acted “differently” or he’s simply cute and pretty... 🤔
@@budomk9299 I also think so 😃 Listen, I’m not ashamed to say this - the guy is really really cute and likeable (and handsome). I’d love to have a pint with him. I think I even like him more now! A genuine person!
@@bupirochi idk lots of gay people like to be just visible enough for other LGBTQ+ people to notice but not visible enough for straight via people to usually notice. There's quite a few intentional tells and if stacked together, a gaydar can be reasonably accurate
Oh Roly, I discovered your channel though a comment on another video from another channel years ago, and now I find a comment from you under every second video that I watch.. I think we spend too much time on UA-cam
Love this channel so much. Thank you for being so informative, non partisan and being such a cheery personality. You're videos are a happy point in my day.
I wear a pendent of the bear flag for three reasons: I’m a big hairy gay guy. I like the color choices on it, reminds me of something a sports team would wear in the 80’s for some reason. And finally as a big hairy lumbering weirdo, some women get a creep vibe from me. A new co-worker admitted this to me and ever since then I’ve been a little more open about showing what I’m actually interested in
As one of the early organizers of the Bear movement, the whole idea was to make a space for our own little sub community of more masculine identified gay men who weren't body builders or fashion conscious who could simply be ourselves. It was also a very self identified community, you didn't have to be a type to be a "bear" it was more an attitude of no attitude. No body shaming, no high camp performance and being friendly to everyone.
@@txiczmbie1077 if this is the flag of minorities who have especially a problem because they're LGBT we'd need a Chechen flag way more than an African American one
@@txiczmbie1077 except they purposely exclude Asians all the time. Because Asian people don't fit the "victim" agenda despite being heavily discriminated against
i always viewed the rainbow as representing diversity with its many colors but also a sense of unity because a rainbow is one thing composed of many other things
A flag isn’t meant to symbolise literally every element of a wide movement. Every attempt to foise yet another signifier onto it just makes it more cluttered and frankly uglier.
As a bi person, whenever I see the rainbow flag, it helps remind me that although some people like my parents aren't accepting of the LGBTQ+ community: there are a lot of people who are, and that is pretty comforting to me.
Honestly same. I live in a very rural area so you don't see it very often. Thankfully, my parents (although not a lot of my extended family) are accepting of me being bisexual, and they seem to actually understand it rather than dismiss it like a lot of people get when they come out. But yeah if you see it where I live you usually know it's safe to talk to those people openly bc there is also an extemely religious population where I live which will tell you that 'you can be fixed' or 'there's something wrong about you' or whatever.
I felt so identified with your early experience with the pride flag. It’s nice to hear these (as you call) “normies” relationships with our symbols, since I perceive our community more polarized than before. I love your videos aesthetics btw. Keep going and good luck with the channel ❤️
I kind of like that the rainbow and other queer symbols (as well as pride month in general) are becoming increasingly synonymous to holiday months like December and October, but, unlike Christmas and October, it's more of a "holiday" in remembrance if nothing else. I feel like that sentiment gets lost sometimes, and as painful and sad as it is, it's so important to remember those who fought for our rights and those who died/discriminated against due to supremacy and hate. I know this will not always be the case, as very casual allies and big corporate entities will ignore it bc it may be an off-putting message to other casual allies, or they may prefer to live in ignorance bc it's comfortable. that being said, I always think it's sweet seeing houses and businesses decorated for pride month. their motives may not 100% be in the right place, but as someone who grew up in conservative towns all my life and family, its nice to know there is recognition. even if it's just the local Starbucks.
I think the six-line rainbow flag is good enough. It's iconic, simple and basically universal. It conveys the message of diversity and I prefer to think that what makes the flag is not each color per se but the fact that they are united.
I always thought that the flag shows the full spectrum of light, which then represents the full spectrum of people. It’s kinda like with remembrance day poppies. They started of as a simple red poppy to represent all of the soldiers and firefighters and everyone protecting the public, but recently theres a bunch of different colours that represent a certain category of person. It undermines the entire point of remembrance day which is supposed to be about honouring everyone who gave their lives for the country.
@@builderwack4459 Like, I understand the intention to put more stuff in it. The idea is to pay more attention to a particular part of the community that is often "erased". So I don't condon these new flags. But as a community representative, I think the rainbow-flag will do.
I think it's ok when companies show their support, to me it becomes a problem when said company invests in anti LGBTQ causes and politicians at the same time while simultaneously saying they're in solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
While the simplicity of the original is nice and I really like it, it’s easy for its meaning to get overwritten since essentially it’s just a rainbow (to the general public anyway, most dont pick up on certain colours being left out & specific shades so will defend the flag being repurposed). In the UK for example, the rainbow flag started to be used pretty much exclusively for the NHS. This in combination with racism & especially transphobia here led to the progress flag being pushed. I for one really like it, being trans, since you can’t ignore the pink, blue & white. Where a lot of members of the community are violently transphobic, that really matters! It makes me feel a bit more welcome in places that have this flag displayed, since I doubt transphobes like it that much, let alone that they’d display it p.s. baker actually added more colours himself later on in his life! the 8 & 9 stripe flags are really nice, i wish they were used more
I personally don’t mind ‘Rainbow Capitalism’ if it’s actually going to something good. For example I was eating dinner with my family in June and my Dad was having a beer and I noticed that it had a rainbow on it for pride month, then I looked closer and saw it said that a number of proceeds (I can’t remember exactly it was a while ago) goes to the Rainbow Road foundation. If the company clearly supports the LGBTQ+ community then I’m fine with it. It’s when they slap a rainbow on something in June just to make more money that kinda irks me.
The thing is that being gay just means that you have a sexual orientation towards the same gender, it doesn't mean that you feel represented by the way other people express their sexuality, or that you have certain political opinions, the LGBT+ community is really diverse because of that and it reflects on the opinion on the pride flag. And about the redesigned flag, I personally agree that the message is good but the execution could had been better, maybe a symbol on the middle instead or more stripes, but if it works for you is fine.
As a 24 year old "normie gay" man myself, we share a lot of views on the way culture has progressed. I don't understand all the "in your face" extremism and progeny never will. Just let me do my thing, I won't bother you if you don't bother me haha
When the term Queer was added. Did not help anyone. Some try to compare to black and N word. But I have never seen N-as a sub group of the black community and announce constantly. Part of the problem, if you disagree with the community they are just as nasty as the right. Yes, I am gay. But that is not all I am. Which is another issue. I am no he, they or any other term. I am Jack.
I've been watching your videos for at least two years now and I just want to get this off my chest: I love your content and how you express yourself. You sound like a chill person who can hold these great conversations because you have so much to talk about. I will continue to watch them.
I only just started getting pride merch this year and I gotta say, your centrist views jive with me super well. This video was a fantastic watch like all of your stuff!
I resonate with your discomfort regarding radical gay culture. However, as a 60 year old, the traditional pride flag has a very special meaning to me. It symbolizes the turning point for the gay community from its silent suffering beginning with the Stonewall riot in the 70s and surging in the 80s when the AIDS epidemic became the driver for coming out and literally fighting for our lives. It's wonderful that the younger generation has no memory of that nightmarish time, but sad that that period has been erased from our social consciousness. I was in my early 20s and lost most of my friends to that horrible disease while Congress and President Reagan chose to turn a blind eye to the death and suffering that ravaged our community. The radical and necessarily militant gay social justice sub-community created essential public awareness of how many of us were dying and how horribly we were being treated and led the way for future legislation and policy which has given us the much more comfortable and equal lives that we all enjoy today. And they shamed the government into addressing the AIDS crisis. The pride flag became our symbol of unification and self acceptance and making ourselves known during that very dark time in our history. Without the flag to rally around, it would have been easy to have been forced back into the closet for the fear that went with being gay and a potential carrier of the "gay plague." Instead for a moment in time, LGBTQ+ people from all genders and all walks of life and our supporters came together to fight for our rights to live peacefully as equal members of society and to give us the health care we desperately needed. The pride flag represents the turning point for human rights for the LGBTQ+ community. To people from our generation, changing the flag is equivalent to making my generation invisible once again. It is offensive to us. Nobody seems to have asked us what we think about toying with something that has come to have such deep meaning for us and represents such an important part of our history. The arguments about needing more and more colors and patterns in the flag to represent more subcultures aren't really compelling to us. To us it's like gilding the lily. It was designed with an abstract rainbow of colors and an intentionally simple pattern so that it transcended the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community in a time that we needed to unite. That was the point that seems now to have been now lost in our infighting and vying for power within increasingly self centered politically motivated subcultures. Arguing about the composition of the flag and putting more colors and patterns into the design sadly shows our increasing separation rather than our solidarity. We can thank the originators of the flag and the LGBTQ+ social justice leaders and radical gay community of the 70s and 80s for the freedom we have today to even discuss these issues in a public forum. Let's consider what the flag represents before we seek to replace it. There are lots more important things to focus our energy on in addressing the issues in the world today regarding maintaining our rights within the LGBTQ+ community and protecting the rights of all of humanity and the planet so that future generations can enjoy a more peaceful and healthy existence.
I hear ya and largely agree - but the redesign pales in comparison to the co-opting of it as a weapon to sow division at the hands of corporate and state elites
Thanks for giving us this little peek into a different time, and I absolutely agree that the changing of the flag is unnecessary trivializes its meaning and erases its history.
@@matth419 True, especially corporations who only support the community performatively and do not in any way contribute to its liberation (in some cases they even hurt the cause by donating to anti-lgbt politicians and things like that)
FINALLY, I CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS!!! I've been whining about the modified flags for a while. I think including those visual symbols of racial justice and trans rights probably help to start discussions about, and normalize support for, these issues, but from a design standpoint they just drive me insane. And modifying the original flag implies that the symbol doesn't support a demographic unless it actively includes the elements of that group's design--like, it brings up a question of why symbols for trans and BIPOC people are "worthy" of highlighting, but, say, ace/aro, intersex, disabled/neurodivergent, and other marginalized groups aren't? Furthermore, it lets TERFs and other exclusionary individuals claim the original pride flag for their own use. Honestly, the issue of more and more groups' visuals being added to the flag kinda mirrors the way the acronym itself has kept growing. LGBTQ+ is the form I usually write it out as, as I think it covers all the bases pretty well, but it seems more mainstream to write way more of the letters (e.g., LGBTQIA+, LGBTQIAAP2S+, etc.) and it's the exact same problem. It's unwieldy, and then you get into unproductive arguments about which identities get to come before the +. I know there have been movements to develop different/better monikers, but none of them have really taken off. I think shortening everything down and just using the + symbol might be a good route to go--you don't end up nit-picking about who's "valid" to include or spotlight. So, uh, if all non-cishet folks around the world want to get together on, like, a Zoom call, wherein I can pitch my concept, let me know lol.
It's funny, that I didn't realise you were gay, but after finding out in this video I found it humorous that you identified as conservative rather than flamboyant while sporting that fabulous hair style and moustache along with a Hawaiian shirt.
9:56 Who does this guy think he is calling himself an artist that deserves compensation? Your "art" is just some other guys art but you added a triangle on top of it.
I get the sentiment of being an artist and you somehow gotta make money but it feels shitty and douchey of him to make money out of a flag that can be a very good symbol to people who are oppressed and are in the minority :|
As someone who's going through the process of coming out, I enjoy the variety of pride flags that are available including flags for individual identities.
"Normie gay" is the best sentence I've heard for a wile very center orientated how things should be not caring too much at what anyone dose unless it's gos too far
The original is almost always the best. The TF2 original is better than stock. The original terminator is the superior terminator. The rainbow pride flag encapsulates ALL alphabet identities, regardless of race or sex. It worked and served its purpose greatly.
The only reason it's seen as exclusionary is because someone said it was. It never was, it was intended to serve as the symbol of the LGBT community as a whole.
Personally I like the new additions to the rainbow flag because while the 6 color flag is nice and might even look a little better, many people think of it as a symbol for gay men as opposed to the lgbtq+ community as a whole and I feel the new additions serve as a good reminder of the fact that the flag covers the whole spectrum.
I agree. From my perspective, the original Rainbow is a relic of the era when LGB was the most common initialism and transgender people were not often included.
I think it's a sad commentary on the human condition that even when we attempt to create symbols that make a visual statement about including all swaths of people, some groups will still feel excluded by it, while others will still seek to exclude groups from it. We can only go so far before our basic tribalistic nature kicks in again and undoes our progress.
Yea, I'm not gay; but I feel like the new flag by directly adding the black and brown, and trans stripes. It makes it feel exclusionary, despite the arguments its trying to include. When you include one you group explicitly, you exclude others.
Thats sadly how human labels work. Race, Religion, Politics, Nationality, Ethnicity, Sexuality, Gender, and much more make people more diverse yet also less relatable and less including. These labels tear people apart more then they do good. Some people just don’t get that humans are humans. Legit, everyone has 99.9% of the same dna. These labels create factions of the human race which can tend to hate each other. This is how wars are waged; races, genders, and sexualities are discriminated; and people are mistreated. Labels in reality inflate peoples egos to feel different from an average human when in reality we all are practically the same.
@JAB lemme guess, you're one of the white guys who paid the reparations fee to get into the BIPOC Pride Event in Seattle. Jeez they even named it Taking B(l)ack Pride, I don't even have to be remotely paranoid or fragile anymore to think theyre up to some bullshit
I’d say that there are a fair amount of people who feel that the pride flag is disingenuously used by all these corporations during June in the west, whereas these same corporations don’t make the same change for their companies in other parts of the world Other than that great video. Always nice to hear a new perspective!
@Justin Simons Yeah I don’t think it’s as big of an issue as many people say it is. It’s basically the same thing as Christmas decorations and selling Christmas items. Although i think it’s slightly more of an issue than that because pride month is about human rights where Christmas to 99% of people is just a fun holiday.
i feel a similar way as you did in your younger years in that i feel intimidated by the flag despite being a member of the community, namely because i just want to be viewed as a regular person and dont like the idea of a specific image or symbol being permanently attached to my identity. however, i don't hate it: i hope more people fly it, even if they're just allies. i feel a brief moment of safety when i, say, enter a bar with the flag in the window.
I have a pride flag and a trans flag on my wall. A relic from youth, probably not something I would do today. I think all the new pride flags are dumb consumerism. Diversity kind of sucks when it’s just a corporate line.
Let me revise this statement as I also like consumerism. It’s in bad taste to cover everything in a multicolored abortion on the basis of identity. It’s tacky, it looks like a unicorn threw up on you, and then took a shit. No I won’t calm down this is my hard earned money we’re talking about.
I mean, corporations are by design primarily concerned with making money. Flying the rainbow flag in the more progressive countries will result in profit, doing it in places where LGBT+ people are actively hated and persecuted will only bring about boycotts.
@@shellshockedgerman3947 Cultures are not static, nor are they sacred. If your culture is problematic, fix it. And if without harmful practices your culture can't survive, well then off it goes into the annals of history just like genital mutilation and human sacrifice.
@@shellshockedgerman3947 Problematic, or rather the bare minimum of what should not be tolerated, is discriminating against people based on their ethnic background, sexuality, or gender, and engaging in practices that have been shown to be physically or psychologically harmful unless their necessity can be justified without appealing to tradition or holy books (e.g. questioning a gang member is psychologically harmful, but justifiable). There isn't really a culture in the world that doesn't check any of these boxes, but that doesn't give anybody an excuse to keep the status quo.
People seem to forget that the flag is a representation of the community. It's not supposed to have literal images of every thing it's supposed to represent
These days, I see the original flag as a “Yay gay people!” kind of thing where it’s decorative or cultural. However, I see the progress version as an overt political statement, possibly because I’m right-leaning, but also because it’s focused more on furthering intersectionalism and racial/gender differences, rather than including everyone under one banner.
as a leftist, that’s exactly it. it’s inherently political, and mostly tied up the rights regarding the murders of black trans people- astonishingly high. but it covers all that. Addition: So it’s not inclusive for inclusivity’s sake- it’s to address a particular social issue.
Agreed, I've nothing against political symbols but I think the original Pride flag should keep its place as the dominant version for the sake of the original message
@Logan Roof News what's your definition of right-wing? Evangelical Christians? Because if so your dead wrong. The right prioritizes individualism that includes a person's right to do whatever they want as long as they don't hurt anyone's else. Drugs, Firearms and sexual orientation. From large Bureaucratic systems. Right leaning LGBT+ members do exist because they hold those same values not necessarily the zealots of religion that hate them. But believe in individualism.
@@Udontkno7 Yo honest question are you a social democrat? Because alot of people calling themselves the "real left" dislikes social democrats. Probably because how radicalized they are.
I live in a quite conservative area, and the pride flag was hung by the local government for the first time this year. Most of the times that I've seen was on the internet so I never really felt the thrill and joy it brings until I saw it on one of the most visible places in our city. I now appreciate that it uses quite ambiguous colors, kind of like "those who know, know, and those who don't, don't." I loved looking at it whenever we pass by it while my parents largely ignored it. When my parents finally asked "What's that banner for?" I had to answer "Oh, you know the LGBT or whatever that is," kind of dismissively as to not be outed lol
bro, one of my cousins family got fucking dishonored cuz their son was gay. And my family is Pakistani, that's instant social suicide and literal suicide if he goes back.
The addition of the black and brown stripes feels less "show solidarity / raise awareness" and more "make YOUR cause about ME." Don't get me wrong; I'm not opposed to the sentiment, but it gives me the same feeling of "I understand you're going through some issues, but do you have any idea how **I** feel?!?"
But it is specifically about the issues of PoC inside the LGBTQ+ community which according to the advocators of addended flags have been ignored behind a mostly white gay maybe lesbian discourse, same with the addendum of the trans flag. Personally I don't feel like this is a problem and more of a temporary solution and most importantly a way to bring up conversation about these topics bring awareness. I don't think the original rainbow will ever go away, it doesnt lose its meaning.
JJ is not only one of my top 10 favorite gay Canadian political pundits/UA-camrs from Vancouver, he’s also one of my top 10 favorite gay Canadian political pundits/UA-camrs from British Columbia
Whoah, i never knew that you're gay even though you probably told about in some of your videos. Being bisexual myself in russia it's always relieving to see someone whose content you like being gay or bisexual.
Oh hi! So you're the reason my channel got a random boost! Thanks! haha Great video all around and really loved hearing your thoughts on...well, everything. I appreciate you taking the time to dive into the history and details most gloss over or pass up. You have a new subscriber in me. ^_^ And thanks for the lovely words about the other stuff I do!
Oh wow thanks for responding Daniel! And thanks for the kind words. I hope you keep making stuff for your other channel, because you're obviously very talented and I love to see it. BTW check out my recent video on nostalgia art, I think you would like it.
I just have a follow-up question because I've seen a lot of conflicting reporting, and your comment here is causing me some confusion as well. So is the flag patented to you, or copyrighted, or what, exactly? Like what is the precise legal status? I honestly don't know much about how artists enforce their intellectual property rights, but it sounds like this is something you have looked into quite a bit.
I just love that you admit openly that you are gay and that as a large youtuber, that you have the possibility to change how many people look at gay/lesbian people and have a large effect on people. What I’m trying to say is that people who do not like gay/lesbian people may change their look on them and, quite frankly, I find it hard to explain the possibilities. I sincerely do hope you understand what I mean. I hope you and your love have a extraordinary good relationship.
Engie Boi
Bro that aint capitalism more or less crony capitalism
Big corp or any company that has shares on the marketplace its not free enterprise
@@JJMcCullough under US copyright law you can't copyright geometric shapes or things deemed "of less merit" so flags can't be copyrighted at all. I do have some form of "creator's rights" but even I don't really know what that means beyond I have some level of protection *cause I made the thing*. Really it would probably come down to my word vs someone else's in court, but also court is gross and expensive and I have no real desire to do that.
So, no I do not hold copyright on my flag beyond anything more than I am recognized as the person who made it. With that said, people have been really awesome and respectful, and come to me for permission (which of course yea! please do the thing!) when they're making things involving the flag. Even larger companies have been surprisingly respectful towards me as the artist in this regard.
And of course I'll watch that video! Sounds great!
I didn’t realize you held rights to that pride flag. Did you know Apex Legends used it as a badge for pride month? I’m assuming they got permission from you since they’re normally good about this kind of stuff.
JJ: "I'm gay myself."
The freddy Mercury mustache makes sense now.
I can see it now
Agreed and now I can't unsee it
He kinda looks more like Yanni in my opinion
@@caretaker2222 who's this laurel you're talking about?
It’s the not sitting properly in the chair that I immediately identified with
The latest flag look strikingly similar to the South African flag 🇿🇦, also called "The Rainbow Nation" .
@Insert Name Herethe South African Red Ensign was the only decent South African flag
@@colbyross8365 but it sure wouldn't make us feel pride in being south african, colonialism and that stuff
@@colbyross8365 No it wasn't... It had even less representation than the Apartheid flag.
@@claimingagate last time I checked Britain won two Boer Wars and colonial troops played an important role. Many Canadian regiments can trace their heritage to that war.
@@pixel6698 it represented the British Empire, the greatest force for good that ever existed, what a beautiful thing.
JJ slowly transforming into a rock band member in the 70s
thats exactly what I thought. like some psychedelic rock star.
Freddie mercury
He looks like he played bass at woodstock 69
He looks like Freddie Murcury if he both had his hair from the Bohemian Rhapsody video and his famous mustache.
Kind looks like post-All Things Must Pass, but pre-self Titled, George Harrison
As a bi trans person;
Putting the trans and race stripes on the LGBT flag is like putting the California Bear and Texas Star on the US flag. Are they important states in the union? Yes, but they're not the point. The point of the US flag is to be a symbol of unity that all states in the country - no matter how small - can rally behind, not a showcase of the two most popular states in the Union. The LGBT flag was no different, until the re-design. The re-design changed the pride flag from a symbol of unity into a cash grab preying on people's social insecurities to make a quick buck.
It's 2023 and my city is still refusing to have rainbow crosswalks and fly gay pride flags. Our province stopped flying the flag. You only see them on private property now. Mind you all the activists are in Toronto.
Doesn't help that it confuses the suburban moms when they try and put out anything they think is up to date. But then they'll also get it all mixed up and tell a gay person they can use whatever bathroom they want in public despite them not being trans.
exactly!
I’m a bi guy and I’m fine with including trans people (and OF COURSE black lgbt people) but it feels like these days there needs to be something on the flag for everyone, when the point of the rainbow was that it was FOR everyone.
Mate, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but California and Texas are both represented on the US flag, same as every other state* (that's kinda the whole point of the 50 stars bit). Flags change over time, just as movements do (in fact the Rainbow flag that is most popular (the one shown in this video) is itself an evolution-the original flag had 8 colors); the new iterations and generations of a movement require new symbols as the cultural/societal context shifts and changes. Does the Rainbow flag stand for LGBTQ+? Yes, of course it does.(To tie this back to your example of the US flag: I think you would have a hard time convincing someone that the Betty White flag is any less patriotic to fly than than the modern US flag.) But is the flag also used by those who would exclude trans and people of color from the movement they identify with? Yes as well. The trans and POC stripes aren't exclusive to inclusion and solidarity, but they clarify such as not all who use the rainbow share such dispositions. The Progress flag is the flag of an iteration of a movement that came into existence in response to division in that movement, not the other way around. A new version of a flag does not erase the meaning of the old one: broadly speaking, the meaning of the US flag as is has acquired stars has stayed roughly the same, the same holds true for the Rainbow flag.
*I say state so as not to interrupt my argument with extraneous detail but I would like to clarify/acknowledge that the Hawaiian Kingdom is under a prolonged occupation from the US (as recognized by the United Nations) and the annexation of Hawai'i by the US was done fraudulently under duress.
The funny thing to me is that even though the designer interprets the chevron of race and trans stripes as an arrow pointing toward progress, it really looks more like a wedge dividing the unity and solidarity that the original flag symbolized. It's like accidental satire.
"progressively sweatier"
lol JJ, I'm shocked, you did something progressively!
conservatively sweatier
He’s gay
@@azore1184 wtf what does that have to do with anything
@@peperuiz9264 You'd think it would be nothing at all, but unfortunately, homosexuality is opposed by social conservatives. No, I don't know why they exist either, or why their position is popular enough to attract voters.
@@General12th it’s not so much anymore. That’s why the more secular wing do the CPC is predominantly more in control, cuz they know that going social conservatives is most likely political suicide
I dont know what 1970s psychedelic rock tribute band JJ is about to join, but I want to be the first to buy their album when it drops! ❤😎👌
King Geaver and the Canadian Lizard Beaver
@@Facerip HAHAHAHHAHA
Agreed
He looks like a bee gee
All the "updated" flags feel like they were designed by a committee, made to please everyone but resulted in an aesthetically unappealing mess of colors that don't work well together at all.
My thoughts exactly. Hell, you'd think that the LGBT, who are stereotypically regarded as "fabulous" would see that hodgepodge and say "Aw hell no honey I ain't wearing THAT."
They're like "Oc don't steal"
I personally really like the arrow flag. seems the most "flag like". The rest look like an unorganized collection of book marks.
Like the community
I believe it shouldn't just be that 6 colour rainbow I hate having rainbows being a gay thing just make something unique
My issue with the consumerism with the pride movement is that many companies are in fact homophobic and lobby anti-lgbt politicians and such. It’s hypocritical, companies shouldn’t be undermining a community while asking us to consume their products
I don't think there is much evidence for this at all. It's just a thing people say as if it's obviously the case, but never cite any actual examples.
@@JJMcCullough when corporations side with fascists, politicians like you will be arguing whether it is right for minorities to defend themselves, since the corporations haven't done anything illegal in their persecution.
@@JJMcCullough there have been some cited examples of support of the don’t say, gay bill, at least initially from the corporation of Disney, especially in Florida. But we know how it works. Usually it’s companies go over the money goes.
@@adrianghandtchi1562 Disney has been extremely pro LGBT, that's why Governor DeSantis hates them.
@@JJMcCullough Disney takes out LGBT characters from their films in many countries around the world, so they're fine being complacent with foreign anti-LGBT policy at the very least. For examples of anti-LGBT companies there is Chic-Fil-A until 2019 (though Dan Cathy is still their COO and chairman), and more recently companies such as Universal, Lego, or Warner Bros provide JK Rowling with royalties from Wizarding World products and thus funds for her to donate to anti-LGBT lobbying groups in the UK. There's plenty of examples and evidence out there, it's just that these companies save face with their rainbow washing at the end of the day and thus have the values of whatever gets them the most money.
Everyone always ask "what's the pride flag?" But Never "How's the Pride flag?"
@Hello there sure, but when is the pride flag?
@@maxwellsings Well, where is the pride flag? Have we lost it?
@@seeejay it got stolen by WalMart or some shit
@@seeejay i think i found it but im not sure, which is the pride flag?
@@seeejay Whose is the pride flag?
My favourite corporate use of the pride flag/colours was when skittles did the exact opposite. It made black and white skittles for during pride month, and then used them to raise funds for LGBTQ charities. Well played skittles, well played.
Apparently they were "donating the rainbow to LGBTQ+ charities", which is super wholesome!
Creative!
wernt tabolds saying it was racist because of white Skittles? lol...
Skittles, the straight version
They also said “for the only colors that matter”
Fucking hilarious
JJ: "I'm gay myself"
Me: *looks at mustache*
Me: Mother of God. It all makes sense!
Unpopular Opinion: I think he looked better without the mustache.
@@coquimapping8680 definitely
@@coquimapping8680 So did J.J., but then he grew it back. 😂
@@coquimapping8680 I think beard is the way to go
I'm a mouth wide open rn 😮. I never even though about it
I had to sit there for a sec when he said, "I'm gay myself."
He said it so casually but I literally never knew, good for you JJ!
I think he's a cool guy but why is that good? I mean that man's is just chillin being himself, nothing special about that, lol
@@prussiaball1871 I just said good for you as a courtesy less as a literal statement
@@mikeh9 oh ok, thanks for explaining it
@@prussiaball1871 It's important in terms of representation.
@@prussiaball1871 cuz some ppl dont have enough courage to say they are and the way he said it
I don't think I really have a strong opinion on the pride flag or how it's been changing recently. I'm a pretty big fan of colourful artwork, so I quite like the rainbow flag! As for the new one with the trans and black colours coming in like an arrow from the left, I think the intentions are good but to be honest, I think the flag looks kinda ugly. Plus, isn't it getting a bit literal? Why add colours for specific races? I kinda always thought it was a rainbow because all sorts of people are gay, no matter how you look or where you're from. At the end of the day though, I'm not gonna complain. Use whatever flag you like most!
I think my biggest issue with corporations using Pride stuff is just when they're clearly doing it for the money and not actually standing by a principle that they have. You know, like when a company puts all of their pride branding up on their social media for each language, except for in markets where they think that won't go over well, like their arabic twitter. If they genuinely were doing it for the sake of gay rights, they'd be willing to potentially lose out on money in those markets if it meant sticking up for their values.
It's like if a company claimed they're absolutely 100% pro human rights, but they make their products in a sweatshop in China. The values they say that they have don't align with their business practices. No one likes a hypocrite.
MDB didn’t expect to see you here. Small world this UA-cam is
Do you think a company that puts up Christmas decorations should be obligated to give money or defend the Christian community?
J.J. McCullough I would say that’s a completely different issue. Pride is about fighting for LGBT rights, so when you celebrate Pride you are taking a stand for those rights. Which makes it hypocritical to turn around and do what Pride is actually fighting against. Christmas isn’t a holiday of activism.
Wow i dint expect you here!
@@nikitakuznetsov3449 Once more I'd argue Christmas isn't even a holiday for Christians.
People take the rainbow flag WAY to seriously. I honestly think the original flag serves it best as a spectrum of light. Adding colors to it just institutes tribalism where as the spectrum of light is a universal symbol of warmth from the light.
No bro didn't you know having brown or black skin is a new sexuality
@@Gameprojordan yoooo my sexuality is black person now????
@@sigmaballsnetwork epic
It's always been a very tribal flag. Something specifically for non-straights, something to separate the sexualities.
@@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts yeah thats point of flags...
but now its separating the non-straight people
Funny story: here in Italy someone had the idea to put the word "PACE" (meaning peace) in white lettering over the rainbow flag, so until fairly recently (roughly the mid-2010s I'd say) the average Italian thought of the rainbow flag as a flag used by peace activists and not by gay rights activists
Which is appropriate, given the rainbow has been a symbol of peace and hope long, long, long before the gay rights movement.
@@johnathin0061892 It's also applicable because most LGBTQ+ activists are fighting to live a peaceful life
They are similar (definitely not identical, even without taking the white lettering into account) flags but that might be just coincidental. They seem to have different stories. But 15 years ago you could see them flowing from most balconies as a protest against the Iraqi war and then it kind of became a sort of generic left wing/activism symbol. Nowadays mostly evocative of failed left wing parties that can't reach the election treshold.
Either he is very smart or an epic troll. A genius either way
I'll note that during my high school years I had an old priest as a religion teacher and he would often complain about how the rainbow flag went from being this good peace flag to this bad LGBT flag. This is a massive simplification of what he was saying, but let's just say I'm now less ignorant compared to back then about LGBT+ rights in general and I've moved far away from his opinion
Though I am happy that we have become more accepted in the past decade, I feel that "rainbow-washing" has trivialized, for lack of better wording, the struggles people like JJ and I have gone through. The flag used to actually mean something; triumph over tragic circumstances. I was assaulted, not just with your typical bullying, but sexually as well for coming out 16 years ago, but now all of a sudden it's like I'm not "gay enough", because I don't care for pride events or having a technicolor everything thrown in my face. Now it's as if I have been ostracized by my own community, because as a gay "normie", as JJ puts it, I don't like the L Word, or watch endless hours of RuPaul's Drag Race, and it's absurd that "allies" (another even more annoying group) think that jumping on the gay pop culture bandwagon makes you deserving of an award. In summary: I'm proud of how far we have become, but I'm not proud of how we've become a novelty item to be put on display.
What L word
@@eemeli7093 "The L Word" was a popular show in the 00s that was about rich and pretty lesbians in L.A., and the first major production to be focused on queer women, it's just sadly that was really the only "mainstream" TV representation at the time.
@@hblackburn5580 neat
As a gay person I feel 100% the same way
Same
It's never gonna be 'inclusive enough'. There are 200 countries, thousands of nationalities and tens of thousands of languages. Any one of them could be a minority. So unless someone makes a flag with like 50000 distinct symbols, might as well stick to simple and elegant designs. Like, you know, 'all colors of the rainbow'.
With modern printing we could make a flag that is just the whole color HSL spectrum.
Exactly, if you remember the EU's flag proposals, you know well how trying to include everything visually makes things worse to actually identify each thing.
200+ and 200- countries.
I don’t disagree, but I get it as well. Think of it as a temporary change because frankly I doubt this will be permanent, as it rarely is, trans people and people of color are struggling right now, so the flag will reflect that. The designs are fluid.
@@christianmccauley7340 Trans people and people of colour were struggling much more in the past, actually.
right now is when trans people are getting the most rights than ever before with HRT and acceptance of them becoming much more common.
people of colour aren't having much of a high on the struggle they've had in the last couple decades. and appart from that, I don't see at all how they fit in the flag thematically.
JJ is looking so much like a GTA: Vice City character in this video
What da Canadian doin'?
Ey Tommy
I felt the 80s vibe too
No. Just no.
The next game will be set in Toronto and called "GTA in The Six"
The reason I’m against the whole “rainbow capitalism” thing is that it becomes evident the shallowness of it when the branches of the company in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or parts of Asia dont adopt the rainbow flag. Appealing to different markets isn’t a bad thing, but it’s still irritating to see the lack of principles the supposedly progressive company has.
We here in Brazil are being very skeptical with everything and just ignore the corporations that don't do anything
burger king at least made some videos explaining things
and how to explain things to children!!
What’s more lgbtq+ than being shallow 😏💅
@@noahninetyone hey, I'm deep. At least that what the guys told me...
In eastern europe some companies put the rainbow logos purely because it is seen as a new cool marketing trend that the West is doing. I'm sure most of the SMM teams in those companies don't even know or care about the meaning of this rainbow flag. It disgusts me how shallow it looks and how probably if tomorrow Google or McDonald's put on the fucking communist or nazi flag in place of this logo, those companies would do as well, as an attempt to "fit in"
The rainbow flag is a symbol of fight and activism. Seeing it being pinkwashed by soulless companies sucks big time.
I don’t care much about flags now but I can’t say I really ever liked the progress flag much. As a black trans person I felt excluded by the flag but that’s because I felt accepted by what the original flag represented. It was kind of like saying “Hey you weren’t accepted before but NOW you are” . I don’t care when people fly the flag or if they prefer the flag because like the video said near the end, fly what you like or what feels right for you. If I had to fly any flag though it’d be the 6 striped flag.
As a trans person, I have real similar attitudes about the trans stripes on it. Like, I thought we were already supposed to be accepted in the community?? Also, IMO it's just a worse flag, as a thing. There is just too much going on
I dislike how people can only identify with people based on their sexuality, skin color, gender, etc.
It seems very divisive.
I myself (gay woman) have had a complicated relationship with the lgbt flag culture. Like you I never felt comfortable being loud out my sexuality. However when my small town turned the crosswalks rainbow for pride month, it made me smile a little.
Honestly, as a straight dude, I never thought about seeing the pride crosswalk would make me smile. It’s actually very nice that it does that, I think I like em even more now
Same
It not only feels supportive but looks hella cute too
Gay woman, also known as lesbian.
@@DrAnxiety17 Dude, shut your mouth. You dont know what youre talking about.
I absolutely love this line: “My own heroically centrist position is that maybe people should chill out a little bit.” Thank you, J.J. Stay cool.
I would like to chill out in more ways than one frankly
I wish everyone had this mindset
@@JJMcCullough Great video JJ. Stay cool!
@@JJMcCullough The really needs some chill right now, so thanks for actually providing said chill
Hear me out:
A color wheel.
That way literally every color is represented in one flag.
Yea but then it become really hard to reproduce. People can’t draw their own lgbt flag if it literally has every colour in it. Simple flags are the best flags.
A very important aspect of any symbol is the ability to reproduce is easily and this wouldnt acheive that
@@rachelcookie321 but it shouldn't be like a simple pattern it should still be different enough
"No, no... he's got a point."
That's literlly why rainbow flag was brought on, because it's not about anyone it's about everyone. But then again maybe that will help every argument except design one.
The more changes to the flag, the more infighting it seems to cause. Almost like the community are clawing at each other’s throats because they want to be the primary subject talked about. I’m interested to see where this goes.
More like it was hijacked and a bunch of crazies can't make up their minds and just constantly add made up stuff at the end totally making it look like a clown show.... This totally destroys what is supposed to be when it first started. But did hear there was always some infighting within the group but I never expected it to get that bad where the constantly just add stuff to it to feel special.
you haven’t seen MOGAI, have you
I feel like when you design a flag that specifically includes certain groups you are inherently excluding anyone not literally represented on the flag. This is why the original spectrum flag worked well as it was just an abstract symbol, easy to identify with.
exactly
i don't need special treatment on the flag for being transgender. just leave me alone.
Yeah, and include the black and brown stripes above the rainbow it self it feel like it's putting themselves before the cause. I'm probably overthinking that but
The issue has been people who wear the original Pride flag gatekeeping the other communities. The community doesn't have the unity we'd often like it to and we can very much be our own worst enemy, especially when some parts of the community add fuel to not recognising other parts, whether that's through Bi-erasure, biological determinism, or all sorts of things. Some people who were deeply marginalised and even at risk of their life for wearing a rainbow flag in the 70s and 80s are now well-respected members of the upper echelons of society who don't have to deal with those problems any more, but still proudly represent the rainbow flag, though they don't always represent the things it was made to show.
@@Straven93 I don't think you are overthinking it at all. That is exactly what they are consciously or subconsciously doing.
@@Straven93 nope you are not... i was never amuse or interested in the modified designs. They clearly did not understand the original message or intent.
When the modified versions became the norm i stopped showing up. Because it was no longer about inclusion and acceptance, it was about segregation and exclusion.
Also the community i am from, yah don't go running around in public with your junk n toys hanging out. If children are present you travel in weather appropriate clothing. Because anything else is disrespectful and It breaks the rule of informed consent.
The rainbow is inclusive. It is vague, and that's a good thing. I'm trans and half Asian, but I'd much rather keep the simple six colour flag
Keeping it simple is just better especially when your logo/flag/symbol is something you want outsiders to see and take seriously. Simple sends messages and raises curiosity.
@Insert Name Here agreed. The original flag included EVERYONE don’t understand why people feel like they gotta throw every color onto it making it look like a concept flag for some new country
Thats what i liked.. now they keep over specifying gotta include and include.. the point was that it already DID..
@Insert Name Here the one looks like the american flag without stars if you spilled some ugly ass color design onto it. Who puts black and brown on a rainbow
I on the other hand quite like the progressive pride flag
My favorite thing during pride month was looking at companies rainbow logos on Twitter and then look at their Arab Twitter pages that didn't change. It's like I thought y'all were gay today but apparently only where it's socially acceptable.
I mean.. it's not surprising at all though, many companies still around today also provided for the Nazi regime back in the 1930's/40's and would gladly do so again.
@@KarlSnarks Mercedes
@@KarlSnarks Liberals blaming stuff on the Nazi regime of the 1930's again, what is new? Maybe if you all didn't come off as so divided, they would consider supporting all of you; (AS A CHOICE AND NOT FOR MONETARY PURPOSES). Then again, many companies don't feed into the politics bullshit and want to make money without social repercussions... That was a low blow Karl and a weak one.
@@sebastienlauzon5655 all groups are divided. That’s not the issue. Companies legit use people to become more “progressive”. They do it to everyone. The original commenter was saying that.
@@owenplourde3934 Oh the companies using people to become more "progressive" is not the issue. It's the fucking pea brains who give them more money and attention for doing it.
As a bisexual man I always used the bi flag instead of the pride flag, I share your "centrist" views on most of these issues and never felt comfortable aggressively advertising my sexuaality like it was a personality trait, but the bi flag's relative obscurity outside of queer spaces meant I could put a small blue purple and pink pin on my backpack as a small identifier for other queer people in my community that I am a safe person to talk to.
I'm a bi man as well and I feel the same, the relative obscurity has a certain "inside-joke"-ness to it! The pride flag is fine, but I honestly just like the bi flag's colours so much 😂
I feel the same way about the ace flag and as a bonus it matches my personal aesthetic so it stands out even less
As I bi woman living in a pretty homophobic country (Russia) I also mostly use the bi flag bc I personally feel more connected to it and bc the classical rainbow flag is like a red rag for a bull for authorities, but the bi flag is less known and therefore safer to use. I can even wear something with it around my conservative father, and he wouldn't know lol
The one problem with adding extra stripes is that by specifically going out of your way to include one group, you exclude another.
The original flag is a rainbow, representing everyone within LGBTQ+ community, as a rainbow has all the colours, even if you only use six to represent a rainbow in the flag.
@Yules The flag represents everybody, by adding skin tone you make others feel alienated
also people are using the 6 colour rainbow flag as one for gay men and not for the whole community
@Yules Yes, those people are underrepresented, but what does that have to do with the flag? Race has nothing to do with sexuality. While other flags have colors that may mean specific things (the only one I can really say off the top of my head is the bi flag), the colors in the original flag are meant to serve a collective purpose in saying that everybody, while having differences, are all equally valid as individuals. The people who exclusively use it as a gay flag are misusing it.
Agreed.
I think we should add one extra stripe to the original to represent everyone else
I’m personally a very if it ain’t broken don’t fix it, so seeing all these new pride flags is no different from seen a new car come out. Like “that’s cool but I like this one better” and it’s simply because the flag is simple, has been around for longer time and (in my opinion) has more historical meat behind it.
I like the rainbow flag because it's simple. I get why stuff is added, but as a flag design it looks ugly.
But if the "fix" is better than the original you in many cases should fix it, even if the original still works
I don’t care about consumerism, just please understand that corporations wouldn’t do this if they didn’t think it helped their bottom line.
@@andrewmartin2321 100% true
I agree that the original flag works fine, but the entire point of changing it was that some people felt it didn't address everything that needed to be addressed, i.e. it was in fact "broken" and needed a fix. Again, I don't necessarily agree, but you can't just say "if it ain't broken don't fix it" because that misses the point.
“I’m a Normie gay” he said, his long hair flowing, while making a documentary about niche queer flags.
(But no seriously, I, a fellow gay vexillologist from just outside NYC , welcome this content 100%)
It’s very interesting how identity and perception around being flamboyant, butch, or any way of showing gayness on the outside is very different and varied among even LGBT people themselves.
Like some gay men strongly dislike the flamboyant gays. And some see it as a way to not be ashamed of oneself. Some see it as an insult or closeted-ness. It’s interesting and very personal
long hair is pretty normal, I saw an old guy with long hair in a ponytail complaining about Biden when I was stopped in Seligman, Arizona yesterday.
Come visit the pnw/bc and you’ll discover his look is as common as cowboy boots in Texas.
I find it interesting that J.J.'s identity is more clearly defined by his content and the knickknacks on his shelves than by any one given symbol. It's pretty cool. But individual identities, one and all, defy every collective on the face of the earth. And damn, that's good!
@@CrooningRevival365 I wish I could, it sounds lovely! 🤩
Your story about not identifying with the flag reminds me a lot of my husband. He likes guys (obviously, having married me) but has never felt like part of the LGBT community and sometimes actively resists supporting queer symbols. This sometimes causes us to butt heads, considering that I'm one of those gays that grew up in a controlling, borderline abusive family and had to fight hard against everything they stood for to gain my own freedom and sense of identity, so I pretty much embrace anything queer. lol
That’s a nice story. Nowadays, lots of people with such different views find it hard to even sit in the same room together.
Has he ever said why he doesn’t identify with the queer community?
@@kertchu yes, he says he doesn't really identify with communities in general and views himself as a queer individual separate from other queer people. I'm not really sure if that's specifically because of the particular community or just a general disconnect from the self.
The more "inclusive" the flag becomes it actually has the opposite effect. When the poc, intersex and other minorities are included the other minorities that are not in the flag feel not included. Rainbow flag was universal and I feel like it represented both poc and non poc lgbt people, it obviously included intersex people, asexual, pan and others. Rainbow with its colors represented all the diversity of the community and the specific groups didn't have to be mentioned by name to feel included. Now it looks bad and cluttered
@Star Chaser "As if the rainbow was exclusionary." Well, lots of those very groups you mentioned felt excluded by mainstream queer spaces, and overlooked by mainstream queer discourse. So if you'd like them to be content with just the rainbow flag, maybe the community needs to actually show more inclusivity. Editing of flags is not an inherent problem; it is a symptom of discontent.
Yeah that's pretty good
That's debatable. I've had gay people tell me the rainbow was theirs and not mine as a trans person.
I don’t understand. Why they needed to “fix” the pride flag. Trans people are already represented in LGBT and so are gay black people. So adding the colors to the flag really is putting one group on a pedestal above others. If you want to represent trans rights cool good on you. Use the trans flag. If you want to celebrate Black rights cool use the pan African colors.
It also excludes them from the original one.
Also, the flag doesn't represent all disadvantages communities around the world. It's just about American race relations. Maybe they could say tho that the black stripe is about AIDS and the brown stripe is about all ethnic minorities around the world, but idk
BTW there's 2 different type of African / Sub-saharan African ethnicity flags. These colors : 🇨🇲 which are used for Africans in Africa because of the Ethiopian falg 🇪🇹, because Ethiopia never got colonised, and this flag 🇲🇼 which is modern and is more about African diaspora in other places, especially African americans
I completely agree. Recently a new flag was unveiled as the progress flag with adding the intersex flag despite the majority of intersex people not wanting to be included.
the point is that those communities are less accepted, even within the LGBTQ+ community
I just personally don’t like how the brown and black stripes look, the darker colors are a total contrast to the bright flag and they look super tacked on.
Yeah and it makes no real sense because the bi flag is purple magenta and blue and I am bi and I am not any of those colours it's starting to get way too literal
Honestly, I think adding the black and brown stripes completely undermines the purpose of the pride flag. The pride flag is to represent inclusivity, why add the black and brown stripes if the original flag already represents that?
I personally don’t like that racism is still so prevalent, and anything that brings attention to a problem is a good thing in my book.
@@justinwatson1510 Except it's not that prevalent. When there are tons of fake hate crimes there isn't enough supply for demand.
@@Hellcat826 yeah and when you only include the black and brown stripes, it's like "where are the other races?"
i know its not easy to include all the races as colors, but that just shows that it's not that great of an idea in the first place
especially as a non brown hispanic (yes we exist), the flag honestly makes me feel more excluded than included
15:07 "If that flag works for you, then you fly that flag; nobody's telling you you can't. But if this flag works for you, hey, it's here for you too. Like, no one's forcing you to do anything."
Says the guy who keeps his flag under copyright.
(Note: I agree with him that artists should be compensated for their art, but the flag is supposed to be more than just art, it's supposed to be a symbol, and keeping it under copyright is just helping to ensure it won't become one.)
His flag is hideous, thank god for copyright.
Actually, it's a creative commons copyright and his intention was to keep it out of corporate hands.
You can't copyright a flag. The artist himself actually acknowledges this in comments he posted to this video. Instead, he simply asserts himself as creator and hopes that corporations ask his permission to use it - even though they are not obliged to.
@@jaqenhghar6244 Yes, his flag makes me want to tear out my eyes..
his flag is literally just a triangle and the normal flag it can be made in like ten seconds the fact he copyrighted it is hilarious and kind of sad given how low effort it is
I will never stop appreciating the Yoshi's Island sound effects.
I've never put that together until reading this wow.
The true lgbt representation
Amazing game with an even more amazing GBA remake.
I'm partial to the Mario Paint ones.
Anne Quito hit the nail on the head. I laughed out loud at how you said "leftwing activists striving to bring down society from within" in two different tones giving it two different meanings. I feel like that joke perfectly sums up discourse online right now and society at large.
Leftwing activists being within society in order to bring it down is a pretty good joke.
...Where do they imagine we are we supposed to go?
They don't want activists as part of society generally, it makes them have to think, which makes them uncomfortable and lash out. Most people who don't understand the purpose behind various forms of activism would say activists often belong in jail so society can be more peaceful. They don't want change, because it means effort. It's saddening, but for many, until an issue affects them or someone they care about directly, it's impersonal and they just want it gone. So typically, activists don't get access to power because they might cause change too quickly for most people to cope with.
@@NicolaiParsons would have made sense if the kind of mainstream activism now had any meaningful purpose like the past.
But yeah, no.
Ouch, sounds like you're the sort of people I'm talking about who wear the rainbow flag but still keep other people who might claim it from feeling like it represents them.
When there are laws being made against trans people's bodies, against single parenting which is often a quiet way Lesbian couples have children in places where it's a struggle or illegal still.
You're lucky, you're comfortable, you're well-represented and you're in a part of the world where your lifestyle isn't being scapegoated as a cause of other people's problems. There are people who need that flag who aren't as lucky and they deserve to be respected, too.
There's a reason it's not just the gay community any more. The other letters deserve to have pride, too.
For the few people acting surprised, I don't think JJ ever hid his sexuality. He mentioned it several times over the history of his channel. I just don't believe he found it specifically relevant in certain topics of conversations that it would necessitate the mention of his love of schlong. He is a personable and thoughtful dude and I really enjoy watching his channel grow. Hopefully the sun doesn't melt him and his city.
I subscribed to him a month ago but when I found out that he was gay I was like "Oh sweet!" Because I'm gay too but I really don't that's a big deal TBH.
people were…surprised?
That’s because JJ is a normal person and an adult. He has his own personality and interests, and doesn’t need to base his entire life and being off of his sexuality
Bro literally hosted another channel with a gay friend before this. It's called gayxgay lol How did people not know😂
Tbh I don't know that JJ is gay.
I met (and dated) Gilbert Baker back in 1994 when I also helped him to create a mile long rainbow flag for the Stonewall 25 celebrations. When I asked him what he thought about all the then riffs on his original design, I remember him saying he enjoyed all of them, just didn’t think it was right to trademark or copywriter them. This was before the flag designs you bring up in the video, but I think they fall into his open critique. The original (first) rainbow flag had eight colors with two being removed supposedly for difficulty in finding the fabrics. I don’t know their names, but I’ve been told that Gilbert wasn’t alone in his designing of the flag.
Oh interesting! Thanks for sharing.
A rainbow. The representation of the entire visible spectrum of light. Is seen as too "narrow and not inclusive"
Think about that for a minute.
That feel when progressives aren't progressive enough for progressives.
An apt metaphor for the mdoern state of our society.
Ridiculous! The EXCLUSION of the rest of the "invisible" light spectrum clearly insinuates that only a narrow spectrum of LBTTTQQAPRIRPOERADSLFKJSZXVM
It's rather the fact that there's a certain need to represent certain groups that often get excluded out of pride but adding them onto the literal flag is still a mishap
@@maniacpwnageking you're not funny
A long haired, mustachioed JJ discussing the pride flag, sweating in his unbuttoned shirt.
JJ this has got to be the pinnacle of your own personal brand of gayness.
The 'progress flag' feels incredibly American. In other cultures black and brown minority representation is simply not a relevant issue, whereas LGBT rights are, as far as I'm aware, relevant in pretty much every country, and so the original flag represented solidarity not just among the American/Canadian community but the WHOLE LGBT community internationally, as such it is the original flag not the newer 'progressive flag' that is more inclusive and I think that is pretty cool.
Feels kinda hypocritical. BLM gets mad when other races are brought up. But POC are first to interject on gay issues. But I as a straight white man have no dog in this fight
I don't like it. I'm a black trans man, it feels insulting. It feels like "oh here is an extra special flag because it was decided that you can't speak up for yourself" all because of my skin color. I don't want to be treated like some damned child. I want to be treated like an adult.
Yeah that's a great point, raising the progress flag in Africa and Asia would just be dumb since everyone there is already black and brown lol. That's why the rainbow flag should be retained, since it can truly be used internationally and is universal.
The rainbow is supposed to include everyone under it anyway, plus, do we REALLY want to be promoting Race with Pride? We just escaped "Race Pride" as a concept a few decades ago and going backwards to it sounds like a horrible idea.
@@pkmntrainernumbers8111 exactly. I’m always uncomfortable when singled out and can hardly imagine how the vast majority of trans people may feel, especially when this is added to the pile.
I know everyone hates the progress flag because they think it’s exclusive, but as a transgender person, I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t always count on the rainbow flag to include me. A lot of cis queer people either don’t acknowledge gender diverse folks at all, outright hate them, or heavily resent them for “holding us back” by “demanding too much” from cishet people. When I see the progress pride flag or a trans flag, it’s at least a little more likely that I’m not going to be treated like freak, or a burden.
I can’t speak for other countries (I’m American) or for people of color (I’m white), but I’ve met a good amount of trans and/or PoC people who feel similarly.
I don’t want to replace the rainbow flag, I quite like it, and its history. But when you say that it always automatically includes everyone, think about whether that’s always true in practice.
i 100% agree
I kind of agree but at the same time, I view the rainbow flag as something akin to a national flag. Its main point, usually, is to offer up a unifying symbol for everyone within the nation.
Some people can and often do use it as a way to exclude others but that is in defiance of its purpose and isnt remedied by making dozens more flags for every marginalized niche. Its fixed by reconstituting the original flag for its original purpose.
If you're making a symbol in the hopes that it becomes an important part of a group's identity, you should make it part of the public domain.
Spot on. I'm all for artists making money but redesigning the pride flag and expecting compensation is like volunteering at a soup kitchen and expecting compensation.
Quasar also started the flag production business as a Kickstarter and does now have a Progress Initiative which gives some of the proceeds back to queer charities.
The donations are 25% of the proceeds and have so far gone to these places:
SMYRC (Sept-Dec 2018): Donation amount $370!
TRANS LIFELINE (Jan-Mar 2019): Donation amount $615!
THE TREVOR PROJECT (Apr-Jun 2019): Donation amount $1600!
THE LIVING ROOM (Jul-Sept 2019): Donation amount $825!
THE LIVING ROOM (Oct-Dec 2019): Donation amount $325!
THE LIVING ROOM (Jan-Mar 2020): Donation amount $140!
LGBTQ Freedom Fund (Apr-Jun 2020): Donation amount $5000!
LGBTQ Freedom Fund (Jul-Sept 2020): Donation amount $1800!
LGBTQ Freedom Fund (Oct-Dec 2020): Donation amount $1200!
For me the issue is how many of the people who the new flag is meant to include aren't in a position where they could buy one. That very capitalist quote from Quasar is not in the spirit of unity.
Devil's advocate position here, just something to think about. I think if someone makes something and wants to try to profit from it, all the power to them. I see no reason that it must be part of the public domain. You and I, as individuals, don't have to accept it, nor pay for it. They have that freedom of choice and so do we. Whether from a morally stand point or not, that it might have been morally the right or wrong thing to do, is ultimately up to the creator of the art. That's what living in a free society is all about, and we must remember that.
@@larryroyovitz7829 I don't deny that. What I'm saying is that the designer's intention seems to be that their design will become the majority accepted symbol of the LGBTQ identity both by its members and by institutions (thus their recent use by them). To me, copyrighting the symbol seems to be contradictory to that objective.
If he wants to profit from it, good for him. But he shouldn't act as he had the moral high horse in this situation. As other designers have created their own flags to identify the LGBTQ movement or part of it and they haven't tried to have a monopoly on its distribution (which, in my opinion, is why they have become such iconic symbols).
@@larryroyovitz7829 from a legal perspective i think it's totally ok what he did, and he should be able to do that if he so chooses, but from a moral and community perspective, i think it's very ok for him to be viewed as a bit scummy for making a flag with the intention of it having cultural significance and meaning, and not having it be public to that community. kinda like those parents who buy there kids gifts and make them pay back the money like it's a loan. But that's probably a very flawed comparison
I always felt the gay pride flag was a rainbow because “all the colours of the rainbow” signifies unity and togetherness despite difference.
Not to sound dismissive or something, but the updates make the flag look like a literal checklist of social issues.
A rainbow is a powerful, universally known, diverse symbol.
Rainbows also used to symbol hope.
It’s actually not a rainbow because a rainbow has indigo, the seventh colour of the rainbow.
I agree, too much crap on it now
Wait until you're called a racist or transphobe though if you still only use the original flag...
I agree! Especially since the artist behind the original pride flag, Gilbert Baker, added a ninth stripe to his original pride flag, a lavender stripe symbolizing diversity. It's quite beautiful and I wish it was used more since it feels natural and was made by the man behind the symbol itself.
Hetero-male here, so forgive me if I’m overstepping. My little sister has been gay for ~10 years now, so these are topics we discuss openly within my family, and bless my parents for being so accepting from the get-go, anyways….
I really like the appearance of the “progress pride flag”, and what it represents with the chevron/arrow design. However, I find it to be *really* lame that it’s designer holds a copyright for it. It really makes me view its messaging with skepticism/cynicism, since profitability is apparently its foremost purpose. While I agree an artist should profit from their work, it’s a little different when the work in question is a symbol for a whole group of people. It’s not equivalent to an artist selling “prints” of their paintings, this is a pattern being applied to Knick-knacks and products of all sorts. To me I view it similarly, not exactly, to a church copyrighting it’s symbols. Imagine if one individual/party held exclusive rights to the cross, and they had to be paid out any time it was used. Not a perfect analog, but I think the point stands.
If the creator wanted to make a symbol for people to identify with, and use to represent themselves, it should be owned by everyone. Not just the designer. Sorry to rant, my little sis and I were actually talking about this exact subject recently, so I was ready to blab! Have a great day
I think you mean your sister has been out for ~10 years. Gay people were always gay, they don’t choose it one day, or become gay when they first tell someone or first realize it themselves.
@@oceansolstice608 lol yes. That’s how it works.
exactly!
The creator of the flag kinda clears it up in the comments above about his ownership of the flag.
@@oceansolstice608 aren't little children mostly asexual? So wouldn't you become gay/straight the moment you start feeling sexual attraction towards a specific gender.
I am not personally part of the LGBT+ community, however my perspective on redesign is that by attempting to become more inclusive to groups such as people of colour and trans people, it has actually become exclusive. In my opinion the original rainbow pride flag worked better as a blanket symbol for anyone in the LGBT+ community without the need to explicitly show a symbol for each group
yup! I agree with this. I am part of the community, and I really don't like the new updates to the flag. It has definitely become too exclusive
Exactly this
It's basically the same thing that happened to video game culture. We got a bunch of stuck-up teachers' pets pretending to want to join the fun and, once let in, starting to purge those existing demographics by accusing them of "inherent bigotry" and demanding actions to crack down on it. The reality is that these stuck-up teachers' pets are trying to "expand their living space" at the expense of others when they already have more than they know what to do with. LGBT is already being billed not as arbitrary characteristics but as a deliberate, moral choice by the current crop of activists, and those activists are not at all adverse to labelling anyone thinking otherwise, including those already part of the community, as problematic.
@@dy031101 >We got a bunch of stuck-up teachers' pets pretending to want to join the fun
Nope, women were always part of the video game fandom, and they always critiqued some of the actions that both the medium and community has always done, video games were littearly a gender-neutral thing before Nintendo came along and start marketing almost exclusively to little boys
Get that Gamegate-est bullshit argument out of here, I'm tired of the "women always hate gaming, until it was popular, and now they got in and used feminism to ruin everything"
@@dy031101 I do not think asking the video game industry to express less deogritory views of minorites is the same as trying to show off every type of person under the sun on a flag
It kind of reminds me of the original US flag. Originally, every time they added a new state, the flag received not only another star, but also an additional strip, until the amount of stripes became unsustainable and they decided to go back and stick with the original 13. Adding more and more strips seems likes it been a flag design problem for over 200 years now!
This reminds me of that ugly (rejected) EU flag lmao
@@heddajohannessen8350 I wasn’t familiar with this EU flag and just looked it up… wow just wow that’s bad haha
@@msherd130 Same here. That flag was a vexillological crime!
The original flag was meant to he inclusive to everyone, hence the rainbow...adding more symbols on it for "Representation" is redundant and harmful
Clearly demonstrates that most probably don't know the actual meaning of the individual colors as Gilbert Baker intended.
Eventhough I am strongly against the rainbow flag, I agree with that opinion. I has become mounstruos on how they add colors...even for black people (as if all blacks were gay) Why not Asian or Latino gays colors? Oh, yes: They profit from the BLM movement (therefore, are vultures of Mr. Floyd's death)
Agreed. Racial equality and Trans rights were already represented in the Pride Flag, and adding specific representation for these minorities within the community separates them too much from the flag. Highlighting race and gender identity within the flag both sends the message that they were not represented initially and contributes to bisexual, pan sexual, and asexual erasure (due to the fact that their respective flags are not on this new pride flag.)
Sadly the reality is that the presence of the rainbow flag doesn't guarantee things such as an absence of transphobia. It *should* be for everyone but in reality it far too often isn't.
I also think it's kind of unsettling, since the addition of people of color, trans people and just recently intersex people implies that they weren't already included, which they were.
JJ: "I'm gay myself."
Me: Spit takes.
I never knew he was gay. I'm happy that I never knew he was gay. I meant that I never knew based on his beliefs/personality. He literally never seemed to care that he was gay and just accepted it as a normal thing and never mentioned it and even when he does it's because he is talking about an issue he has a reason to mention it. Damn, JJ. I respect you for in this day and age to never talk about your sexuality unless really necessary. Hearing a "conservative" do something like this as an American makes me feel real weird, as this is not how politics works in America. LOL
49°C???? :O I hope you're doing alright JJ
Temperatures have returned to normal, fortunately, but the “heat dome” last weekend was truly hellish (and deadly) across the PNW.
My jaw dropped when I saw 121°F. That’s some Arizona in the summer type heat.
It’s like 25 degrees Celsius here in New York
Damn I thought it was bad in Massachusetts but that’s another level of hot
Its fine they move theometers during pandemic to get the climate scare going.
So why can’t the regular rainbow just represent everyone? Why do they have to keep adding things? The rainbow means all the colours of the rainbow. Everyone.
Because people seem to want to emphasize the focus on a particular cause or identity and i guess the traditional pride flag isn't specific enough for some people. And since resources are limited and people want to feel special you get these crazy mashups. But i agree that it can become a little bit annoying with the overbearing virtue signalling etc...
@@mutestingray can you please elaborate on this idea?
Victim mentality
@@MeanLaQueefa victim mentality has to do with colours!?
@@yara1896 hey tard. They feel the need to be represented over everyone else because they’re “struggle” is greater than someone who is not black. It’s victim mentality plain and simple. There’s no need for it as the 🏳️🌈 includes everyone. The new colors are about skin tone
Me: I'm not attracted to straight guys
JJ: *exists*
Me: *sweating profusely*
JJ: "I'm gay myself"
Me: PHEW
JJ did apologize for progressively getting sweatier through the video so maybe it's mutual?
@@Hemostat
"Mutual sweating" sounds like a very competitive action
@@saulgoodmanKAZAKH yes, no romance involved
That sounds a bit...wrong. How can someone sexuality affect your own attraction towards them? I mean - imagine a hetero guy saying he doesnt find lesbians attractive. And then , phew, she wasnt lesbian after all.
@@alexforce9 it's a joke, calm down, straight people aren't being oppressed.
I personally really like the "original" flag, adding the other stripes IMO does take away it's meaning and also gets kinda hijacked for political narratives which overall hurts what it generally stands for.
Yes! Ah I was definitely looking for anyone else who thought that too
Also, design wise, i think it's hideous and overembelished.
The original works, on the other hand.
I feel kinda blind not knowing that i've been watching a intelligent charismstic and wonderful gay man these years. You are fantastisk and a voice worth hearing. My view of you have not changed (thogh my opinion of you don't matter), i love every piece of content you make. Please continue to give us these fantastic videoes!
I’m only watching him for two months but although being straight (as far as I know...), and not knowing that he’s gay, I always found him extremely pretty, attractive in the sense of “if I were a girl” and cute.
Now wondering if it was because he’s gay and acted “differently” or he’s simply cute and pretty... 🤔
@@Ron.S. it's probably the latter 😂
@@budomk9299 I also think so 😃
Listen, I’m not ashamed to say this - the guy is really really cute and likeable (and handsome). I’d love to have a pint with him. I think I even like him more now! A genuine person!
@@m.michael9998 that thing doesn't exist, like if they're one, tell where, I want to buy one, aaaaaah
@@bupirochi idk lots of gay people like to be just visible enough for other LGBTQ+ people to notice but not visible enough for straight via people to usually notice. There's quite a few intentional tells and if stacked together, a gaydar can be reasonably accurate
The real pride flag was the friends we made along the way
I’m waiting for Beacebrocess to show up in the comments
@@tomney4460 soon my friend, soon
Alpharad deluxe gang
That's the most true statement for that meme I've ever seen🥰
@@dissonanceparadiddle yes
Finding your channel was the best thing that happened to me today ❤️❤️ lots of videos to catch up on!
Oh Roly, I discovered your channel though a comment on another video from another channel years ago, and now I find a comment from you under every second video that I watch.. I think we spend too much time on UA-cam
I love both of your channels so this interaction is so cool
@@_blank-_ cry about it
Roly! (I know, original and creative comment on my part /s. I’m just happy to see a familiar creator)
roly is everywhere!!
Love this channel so much. Thank you for being so informative, non partisan and being such a cheery personality. You're videos are a happy point in my day.
I wear a pendent of the bear flag for three reasons: I’m a big hairy gay guy. I like the color choices on it, reminds me of something a sports team would wear in the 80’s for some reason. And finally as a big hairy lumbering weirdo, some women get a creep vibe from me. A new co-worker admitted this to me and ever since then I’ve been a little more open about showing what I’m actually interested in
As one of the early organizers of the Bear movement, the whole idea was to make a space for our own little sub community of more masculine identified gay men who weren't body builders or fashion conscious who could simply be ourselves. It was also a very self identified community, you didn't have to be a type to be a "bear" it was more an attitude of no attitude. No body shaming, no high camp performance and being friendly to everyone.
The rainbow is enough, it's recognizable and all
It's literally all colours
White is the color of all colors.
@@tinto278 White flag is for the french.
@@tinto278France would sue
@@tinto278 But that's the former French flag
@@tinto278 So french
The flag with the black and brown stripe makes it look like a flag for anyone who's oppressed instead of a flag of gay+ pride
right, like might as well at asian coulors and Muslim colora since they're struggling too
@@txiczmbie1077 Asian color already in there. It’s between the orange and the green!
@@UTTPOfficerBennie 💀
@@txiczmbie1077 if this is the flag of minorities who have especially a problem because they're LGBT we'd need a Chechen flag way more than an African American one
@@txiczmbie1077 except they purposely exclude Asians all the time. Because Asian people don't fit the "victim" agenda despite being heavily discriminated against
i always viewed the rainbow as representing diversity with its many colors but also a sense of unity because a rainbow is one thing composed of many other things
A flag isn’t meant to symbolise literally every element of a wide movement. Every attempt to foise yet another signifier onto it just makes it more cluttered and frankly uglier.
Key word there is "uglier"...because lets face it, it's not the best looking flag out there. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
It is very strange to me just how many people view superficial representation such as a color on a flag as legitimate inclusion.
@@themothman3726 State of modern western countries.
And the purpose of the rainbow to begin with is to be all-inclusive; "every color of the rainbow" et cetera
Adding colors is just unnecessary
As a bi person, whenever I see the rainbow flag, it helps remind me that although some people like my parents aren't accepting of the LGBTQ+ community: there are a lot of people who are, and that is pretty comforting to me.
Honestly same. I live in a very rural area so you don't see it very often. Thankfully, my parents (although not a lot of my extended family) are accepting of me being bisexual, and they seem to actually understand it rather than dismiss it like a lot of people get when they come out. But yeah if you see it where I live you usually know it's safe to talk to those people openly bc there is also an extemely religious population where I live which will tell you that 'you can be fixed' or 'there's something wrong about you' or whatever.
I felt so identified with your early experience with the pride flag. It’s nice to hear these (as you call) “normies” relationships with our symbols, since I perceive our community more polarized than before. I love your videos aesthetics btw. Keep going and good luck with the channel ❤️
I kind of like that the rainbow and other queer symbols (as well as pride month in general) are becoming increasingly synonymous to holiday months like December and October, but, unlike Christmas and October, it's more of a "holiday" in remembrance if nothing else. I feel like that sentiment gets lost sometimes, and as painful and sad as it is, it's so important to remember those who fought for our rights and those who died/discriminated against due to supremacy and hate. I know this will not always be the case, as very casual allies and big corporate entities will ignore it bc it may be an off-putting message to other casual allies, or they may prefer to live in ignorance bc it's comfortable. that being said, I always think it's sweet seeing houses and businesses decorated for pride month. their motives may not 100% be in the right place, but as someone who grew up in conservative towns all my life and family, its nice to know there is recognition. even if it's just the local Starbucks.
I like how JJ doesn’t pull a Dave Rubin and brand himself as the “gay conservative”. As a sort of click bait reverse identity politics. Respect
it my not be his brand, but he is defiently doing the same thing
@@manuelstrain8448 How he doesn't brand his Vids as. "Gay conservative this or that" I don't see the connection.
@@manuelstrain8448 there's conservative gay, then there's "i'd suck trump's dick" conservative gay. JJ ain't the latter.
lol you can't even be gay and conservative. he is just delusional.
@@spellman007 damn bro didn't know you read the conservative rulebook
I think the six-line rainbow flag is good enough. It's iconic, simple and basically universal. It conveys the message of diversity and I prefer to think that what makes the flag is not each color per se but the fact that they are united.
I agree with you
Exactly, it already includes everyone so why even overcomplicate it by including other flags to begin with
One flag for all
I always thought that the flag shows the full spectrum of light, which then represents the full spectrum of people. It’s kinda like with remembrance day poppies. They started of as a simple red poppy to represent all of the soldiers and firefighters and everyone protecting the public, but recently theres a bunch of different colours that represent a certain category of person. It undermines the entire point of remembrance day which is supposed to be about honouring everyone who gave their lives for the country.
@@builderwack4459 Like, I understand the intention to put more stuff in it. The idea is to pay more attention to a particular part of the community that is often "erased". So I don't condon these new flags. But as a community representative, I think the rainbow-flag will do.
I think it's ok when companies show their support, to me it becomes a problem when said company invests in anti LGBTQ causes and politicians at the same time while simultaneously saying they're in solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
While the simplicity of the original is nice and I really like it, it’s easy for its meaning to get overwritten since essentially it’s just a rainbow (to the general public anyway, most dont pick up on certain colours being left out & specific shades so will defend the flag being repurposed). In the UK for example, the rainbow flag started to be used pretty much exclusively for the NHS. This in combination with racism & especially transphobia here led to the progress flag being pushed.
I for one really like it, being trans, since you can’t ignore the pink, blue & white. Where a lot of members of the community are violently transphobic, that really matters! It makes me feel a bit more welcome in places that have this flag displayed, since I doubt transphobes like it that much, let alone that they’d display it
p.s. baker actually added more colours himself later on in his life! the 8 & 9 stripe flags are really nice, i wish they were used more
I personally don’t mind ‘Rainbow Capitalism’ if it’s actually going to something good. For example I was eating dinner with my family in June and my Dad was having a beer and I noticed that it had a rainbow on it for pride month, then I looked closer and saw it said that a number of proceeds (I can’t remember exactly it was a while ago) goes to the Rainbow Road foundation. If the company clearly supports the LGBTQ+ community then I’m fine with it. It’s when they slap a rainbow on something in June just to make more money that kinda irks me.
The thing is that being gay just means that you have a sexual orientation towards the same gender, it doesn't mean that you feel represented by the way other people express their sexuality, or that you have certain political opinions, the LGBT+ community is really diverse because of that and it reflects on the opinion on the pride flag.
And about the redesigned flag, I personally agree that the message is good but the execution could had been better, maybe a symbol on the middle instead or more stripes, but if it works for you is fine.
Same goes with Race, Religion, Nationality, income status, etc.
As a 24 year old "normie gay" man myself, we share a lot of views on the way culture has progressed. I don't understand all the "in your face" extremism and progeny never will. Just let me do my thing, I won't bother you if you don't bother me haha
Extremism? Explain
@@emilyw1001 see: "we're coming for your children" lgbt choir
@@emilyw1001 probably the mob who beat up two elderly guys for not putting up the pride flag
When the term Queer was added. Did not help anyone. Some try to compare to black and N word. But I have never seen N-as a sub group of the black community and announce constantly. Part of the problem, if you disagree with the community they are just as nasty as the right. Yes, I am gay. But that is not all I am. Which is another issue. I am no he, they or any other term. I am Jack.
@@siyacer Aka something that 50% do
"I'm gay myself."
Gee, would have never known.
I've been watching your videos for at least two years now and I just want to get this off my chest: I love your content and how you express yourself. You sound like a chill person who can hold these great conversations because you have so much to talk about. I will continue to watch them.
I only just started getting pride merch this year and I gotta say, your centrist views jive with me super well. This video was a fantastic watch like all of your stuff!
After years if left and right wing extremism, a centrist view seems almost revolutionary and its very welcomed.
I resonate with your discomfort regarding radical gay culture. However, as a 60 year old, the traditional pride flag has a very special meaning to me. It symbolizes the turning point for the gay community from its silent suffering beginning with the Stonewall riot in the 70s and surging in the 80s when the AIDS epidemic became the driver for coming out and literally fighting for our lives. It's wonderful that the younger generation has no memory of that nightmarish time, but sad that that period has been erased from our social consciousness. I was in my early 20s and lost most of my friends to that horrible disease while Congress and President Reagan chose to turn a blind eye to the death and suffering that ravaged our community.
The radical and necessarily militant gay social justice sub-community created essential public awareness of how many of us were dying and how horribly we were being treated and led the way for future legislation and policy which has given us the much more comfortable and equal lives that we all enjoy today. And they shamed the government into addressing the AIDS crisis. The pride flag became our symbol of unification and self acceptance and making ourselves known during that very dark time in our history. Without the flag to rally around, it would have been easy to have been forced back into the closet for the fear that went with being gay and a potential carrier of the "gay plague." Instead for a moment in time, LGBTQ+ people from all genders and all walks of life and our supporters came together to fight for our rights to live peacefully as equal members of society and to give us the health care we desperately needed. The pride flag represents the turning point for human rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
To people from our generation, changing the flag is equivalent to making my generation invisible once again. It is offensive to us. Nobody seems to have asked us what we think about toying with something that has come to have such deep meaning for us and represents such an important part of our history. The arguments about needing more and more colors and patterns in the flag to represent more subcultures aren't really compelling to us. To us it's like gilding the lily. It was designed with an abstract rainbow of colors and an intentionally simple pattern so that it transcended the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community in a time that we needed to unite. That was the point that seems now to have been now lost in our infighting and vying for power within increasingly self centered politically motivated subcultures.
Arguing about the composition of the flag and putting more colors and patterns into the design sadly shows our increasing separation rather than our solidarity. We can thank the originators of the flag and the LGBTQ+ social justice leaders and radical gay community of the 70s and 80s for the freedom we have today to even discuss these issues in a public forum. Let's consider what the flag represents before we seek to replace it. There are lots more important things to focus our energy on in addressing the issues in the world today regarding maintaining our rights within the LGBTQ+ community and protecting the rights of all of humanity and the planet so that future generations can enjoy a more peaceful and healthy existence.
I hear ya and largely agree - but the redesign pales in comparison to the co-opting of it as a weapon to sow division at the hands of corporate and state elites
Here! here! I also missed the memo about the term Queer....
Thanks for giving us this little peek into a different time, and I absolutely agree that the changing of the flag is unnecessary trivializes its meaning and erases its history.
@@matth419 True, especially corporations who only support the community performatively and do not in any way contribute to its liberation (in some cases they even hurt the cause by donating to anti-lgbt politicians and things like that)
@@KarlSnarks 💞
FINALLY, I CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS!!! I've been whining about the modified flags for a while. I think including those visual symbols of racial justice and trans rights probably help to start discussions about, and normalize support for, these issues, but from a design standpoint they just drive me insane. And modifying the original flag implies that the symbol doesn't support a demographic unless it actively includes the elements of that group's design--like, it brings up a question of why symbols for trans and BIPOC people are "worthy" of highlighting, but, say, ace/aro, intersex, disabled/neurodivergent, and other marginalized groups aren't? Furthermore, it lets TERFs and other exclusionary individuals claim the original pride flag for their own use.
Honestly, the issue of more and more groups' visuals being added to the flag kinda mirrors the way the acronym itself has kept growing. LGBTQ+ is the form I usually write it out as, as I think it covers all the bases pretty well, but it seems more mainstream to write way more of the letters (e.g., LGBTQIA+, LGBTQIAAP2S+, etc.) and it's the exact same problem. It's unwieldy, and then you get into unproductive arguments about which identities get to come before the +. I know there have been movements to develop different/better monikers, but none of them have really taken off.
I think shortening everything down and just using the + symbol might be a good route to go--you don't end up nit-picking about who's "valid" to include or spotlight. So, uh, if all non-cishet folks around the world want to get together on, like, a Zoom call, wherein I can pitch my concept, let me know lol.
The six stripes signifying life, healing… etc is honestly so wholesome
It's funny, that I didn't realise you were gay, but after finding out in this video I found it humorous that you identified as conservative rather than flamboyant while sporting that fabulous hair style and moustache along with a Hawaiian shirt.
Canadian Conservatives are American liberals and American Conservatives are the ppc party in Canada
ah yes the Jim Morrison look...
@@ashtong85 and American liberals are part of the CCP
9:56 Who does this guy think he is calling himself an artist that deserves compensation? Your "art" is just some other guys art but you added a triangle on top of it.
Yea and Andy Warhol just painted cans of soups that already existed
I get the sentiment of being an artist and you somehow gotta make money but it feels shitty and douchey of him to make money out of a flag that can be a very good symbol to people who are oppressed and are in the minority :|
As someone who's going through the process of coming out, I enjoy the variety of pride flags that are available including flags for individual identities.
"Normie gay" is the best sentence I've heard for a wile very center orientated how things should be not caring too much at what anyone dose unless it's gos too far
Why do we have to have brown colours in the first place , I’m POC btw
I like the rainbow 🌈 I think it’s a much better flag to display diversity
right on! ❤️
Every time they update the Pride Flag it makes my teeth hurt. So much clashing.
Yeah. The Pride flag works coz most of the colors don't really represent any particular group.
The original is almost always the best. The TF2 original is better than stock. The original terminator is the superior terminator. The rainbow pride flag encapsulates ALL alphabet identities, regardless of race or sex. It worked and served its purpose greatly.
The only reason it's seen as exclusionary is because someone said it was. It never was, it was intended to serve as the symbol of the LGBT community as a whole.
Personally I like the new additions to the rainbow flag because while the 6 color flag is nice and might even look a little better, many people think of it as a symbol for gay men as opposed to the lgbtq+ community as a whole and I feel the new additions serve as a good reminder of the fact that the flag covers the whole spectrum.
I agree. From my perspective, the original Rainbow is a relic of the era when LGB was the most common initialism and transgender people were not often included.
I think it's a sad commentary on the human condition that even when we attempt to create symbols that make a visual statement about including all swaths of people, some groups will still feel excluded by it, while others will still seek to exclude groups from it. We can only go so far before our basic tribalistic nature kicks in again and undoes our progress.
Yea, I'm not gay; but I feel like the new flag by directly adding the black and brown, and trans stripes. It makes it feel exclusionary, despite the arguments its trying to include. When you include one you group explicitly, you exclude others.
Thats sadly how human labels work. Race, Religion, Politics, Nationality, Ethnicity, Sexuality, Gender, and much more make people more diverse yet also less relatable and less including. These labels tear people apart more then they do good. Some people just don’t get that humans are humans. Legit, everyone has 99.9% of the same dna. These labels create factions of the human race which can tend to hate each other. This is how wars are waged; races, genders, and sexualities are discriminated; and people are mistreated. Labels in reality inflate peoples egos to feel different from an average human when in reality we all are practically the same.
It’s getting to the point where they are essentially removing the rainbow from the rainbow flag.
It's slowly just turning into the libertarian left flag
I mean that whole thing on the left of the progress version looks like an invasion.
@@thebigdawgj based
Just make it white
@JAB lemme guess, you're one of the white guys who paid the reparations fee to get into the BIPOC Pride Event in Seattle. Jeez they even named it Taking B(l)ack Pride, I don't even have to be remotely paranoid or fragile anymore to think theyre up to some bullshit
I’d say that there are a fair amount of people who feel that the pride flag is disingenuously used by all these corporations during June in the west, whereas these same corporations don’t make the same change for their companies in other parts of the world
Other than that great video. Always nice to hear a new perspective!
Accurate, as soon as they feel they can make a buck off the the social issue of the month they do.
@Justin Simons Yeah I don’t think it’s as big of an issue as many people say it is. It’s basically the same thing as Christmas decorations and selling Christmas items. Although i think it’s slightly more of an issue than that because pride month is about human rights where Christmas to 99% of people is just a fun holiday.
i feel a similar way as you did in your younger years in that i feel intimidated by the flag despite being a member of the community, namely because i just want to be viewed as a regular person and dont like the idea of a specific image or symbol being permanently attached to my identity. however, i don't hate it: i hope more people fly it, even if they're just allies. i feel a brief moment of safety when i, say, enter a bar with the flag in the window.
The flag was stolen from the church think about it
I have a pride flag and a trans flag on my wall. A relic from youth, probably not something I would do today. I think all the new pride flags are dumb consumerism. Diversity kind of sucks when it’s just a corporate line.
Let me revise this statement as I also like consumerism. It’s in bad taste to cover everything in a multicolored abortion on the basis of identity. It’s tacky, it looks like a unicorn threw up on you, and then took a shit. No I won’t calm down this is my hard earned money we’re talking about.
@@macibranch6901 Your hard-earned money that no one is forcing you to spend.
Corporations: “fly it proud so long as we don’t do it in China or Saudi Arabia”
I mean, corporations are by design primarily concerned with making money.
Flying the rainbow flag in the more progressive countries will result in profit, doing it in places where LGBT+ people are actively hated and persecuted will only bring about boycotts.
Enforcing your culture unto other cultures is never a good thing.
@@shellshockedgerman3947
Cultures are not static, nor are they sacred. If your culture is problematic, fix it. And if without harmful practices your culture can't survive, well then off it goes into the annals of history just like genital mutilation and human sacrifice.
@@vaylard9474 Define whats problematic, because what is problematic in yours is not in mine.
@@shellshockedgerman3947
Problematic, or rather the bare minimum of what should not be tolerated, is discriminating against people based on their ethnic background, sexuality, or gender, and engaging in practices that have been shown to be physically or psychologically harmful unless their necessity can be justified without appealing to tradition or holy books (e.g. questioning a gang member is psychologically harmful, but justifiable).
There isn't really a culture in the world that doesn't check any of these boxes, but that doesn't give anybody an excuse to keep the status quo.
Great video, always wanted to hear ur thoughts on the 🏳️🌈 discourse
Yes finally we got it
“The G A Y discourse”
the flag is showing how the community is really several communities
❌🏳️🌈 is a better flag
@@rlm2933 “I don’t like when people call me homophobic or racist”
The person saying that:
People seem to forget that the flag is a representation of the community. It's not supposed to have literal images of every thing it's supposed to represent
These days, I see the original flag as a “Yay gay people!” kind of thing where it’s decorative or cultural. However, I see the progress version as an overt political statement, possibly because I’m right-leaning, but also because it’s focused more on furthering intersectionalism and racial/gender differences, rather than including everyone under one banner.
as a leftist, that’s exactly it. it’s inherently political, and mostly tied up the rights regarding the murders of black trans people- astonishingly high. but it covers all that.
Addition: So it’s not inclusive for inclusivity’s sake- it’s to address a particular social issue.
Agreed, I've nothing against political symbols but I think the original Pride flag should keep its place as the dominant version for the sake of the original message
@Logan Roof News wrong...
@Logan Roof News what's your definition of right-wing? Evangelical Christians? Because if so your dead wrong. The right prioritizes individualism that includes a person's right to do whatever they want as long as they don't hurt anyone's else. Drugs, Firearms and sexual orientation. From large Bureaucratic systems. Right leaning LGBT+ members do exist because they hold those same values not necessarily the zealots of religion that hate them. But believe in individualism.
@@Udontkno7 Yo honest question are you a social democrat? Because alot of people calling themselves the "real left" dislikes social democrats. Probably because how radicalized they are.
I live in a quite conservative area, and the pride flag was hung by the local government for the first time this year. Most of the times that I've seen was on the internet so I never really felt the thrill and joy it brings until I saw it on one of the most visible places in our city. I now appreciate that it uses quite ambiguous colors, kind of like "those who know, know, and those who don't, don't." I loved looking at it whenever we pass by it while my parents largely ignored it. When my parents finally asked "What's that banner for?" I had to answer "Oh, you know the LGBT or whatever that is," kind of dismissively as to not be outed lol
bro, one of my cousins family got fucking dishonored cuz their son was gay. And my family is Pakistani, that's instant social suicide and literal suicide if he goes back.
I live in a conservative area too,not many pride flags fly here sadly.
The addition of the black and brown stripes feels less "show solidarity / raise awareness" and more "make YOUR cause about ME." Don't get me wrong; I'm not opposed to the sentiment, but it gives me the same feeling of "I understand you're going through some issues, but do you have any idea how **I** feel?!?"
But it is specifically about the issues of PoC inside the LGBTQ+ community which according to the advocators of addended flags have been ignored behind a mostly white gay maybe lesbian discourse, same with the addendum of the trans flag. Personally I don't feel like this is a problem and more of a temporary solution and most importantly a way to bring up conversation about these topics bring awareness. I don't think the original rainbow will ever go away, it doesnt lose its meaning.
It also gives a weird vibe to non-black PoC. Like are Asians and Native Americans not included?
@@pnku Race isnt real and we need to stop pretending it is
JJ is not only one of my top 10 favorite gay Canadian political pundits/UA-camrs from Vancouver, he’s also one of my top 10 favorite gay Canadian political pundits/UA-camrs from British Columbia
Whoah, i never knew that you're gay even though you probably told about in some of your videos. Being bisexual myself in russia it's always relieving to see someone whose content you like being gay or bisexual.