It seemed too good to be true, and eventually, it was. A wavy block of colour in a sea of yellow – the small Pride flag reaction that almost looked like it was flowing in the wind, blowing in and out of our lives.
To celebrate Pride Month in the US in 2017, Facebook gave us the option to enable the Pride rainbow flag as one of their reactions, alongside Love, Sad and the old-fashioned thumbs-up. All you had to do was “like” the LGBTQ@Facebook page – which is actually a big ask these days. And people embraced the ability to suddenly react with a big, gay rainbow of approval and solidarity.
But just as Facebook giveth, Facebook also taketh away, and the Pride Reaction disappeared from our lives not long after, never to be seen again.
Pew pew!
There has been some speculation that the pride button might return this year for the US’ Pride Month in June. But now it appears that the much anticipated return of the rainbow react has been thwarted by the Facebook Corporation.
Facebook announced, in a recent post, new ways to “express yourself and show your pride on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram ?” – complete with that inadequate little regular rainbow emoji to further hammer the nail in the coffin. To their credit they will be making these “effects” available throughout the year, and they include photo frames and filters, which is all well and good.
But the glaring omission is the pride reaction. And it has not gone unnoticed, with most of the top-voted comments on the post demanding that the company bring back the rainbow button.
They responded to one with this comment statement:
LGBTQ@Facebook Hi Gracia. Happy Pride! We are no longer doing custom reactions for major holidays or moments in culture. We know that people are supporting one another worldwide and year-round, which is why we’re making effects and products like profile frames available throughout the year.
Another reason for Facebook opting to steer clear of filters when tragedy occurs, could be out of fear of political bias.
Literally cannot
Not surprisingly, this has only increased the deluge of comments which are literally just pleading for the Pride react to return. People want to react “gay” to everything. People don’t want to have to go to great lengths to show their pride and support. They want it to be as easy as it is for all the other reactions.
But since it looks like it might be a long fight ahead, in the interim is there a way we can stage a hostile takeover of an existing emoji? What if we all just “wowed” everything for Pride Month?
Look how sparkly this Wow is!
I’m not suggesting a hostage situation (though I’m not ruling it out either), I just think we need to speak in a language that Facebook understands: data.
If there is a massive increase in Wow reactions for June, it could help our case for 2019.
Look, Sam, we’re doing our best.
Not to mention it helps us get around the issue of who gets to use the Pride React button in the first place.
Can we rise to the challenge? Can we ‘Wow’ our way to permanent ~Pride reacts only~? The choice is ours*.
*mostly Facebook’s.