As US corporations paint their logos in rainbow colors for Pride Month, all they think about is profit – just like every other month
Conservatives are fond of sayings “get woke, go broke,” but that’s not necessarily the case these days. Social credit is earned by corporations through virtue signaling. Pride Month falls each June and has seen capital put its best progressive virtues forward.
Pride Month is a month that multinational corporations, such as Coca-Cola or Microsoft, have the opportunity to post rainbow colors on their social media pages like a group of bulimic unicorns.
Everyone’s noticed, of course – it’s become something of a running gag and a joke among internet users. Elon Musk splashed a memeA whirlwind of rainbow-colored logos was posted on Twitter with the caption “Here it comes!”
Other people have noted the irony of such a move. While corporations remain eager to tell the world how much they support progressive causes, they’re less likely to do so in the Middle East, where these very same companies chose to remain on the downlow and resisted putting up any such displays. This is courage.
It’s just business as usual on the Middle East pages of the very same companies that sponsor drag-queen events for children in the United States and Europe. There’s an inconspicuous absence of rainbow flags and virtue signaling. In places that such virtue signals would make the greatest impact, Woke Capital is missing. Extrajudicial killings of gays don’t matter all that much to corporations if it hurts their bottom line.
What courage is it to be proud of a cause supported by every West establishment? With the backing of the mainstream media, Big Tech, and even the US government, it’s not exactly transgressive to parrot what everyone else is saying.
Titania McGrath’s satirical Twitter account, created by Andrew Doyle. It sums up the situation best when: wrote in 2021, “It takes real courage for major corporations to display the Pride rainbow colours in our homophobic and heteronormative culture. And yet how wonderful to see that the Arab states are so progressive that the corporations don’t even have to bother.”
It wasn’t about bravery. It’s always been about fattening quarterly earnings – and woke-themed marketing and branding helps these corporations maintain their place in a society that rewards wokeness. It’s too good an opportunity to let go to waste, and unlike Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving, it lasts a whole month.
But that’s only scratching the surface. The depth of Woke capital is much more.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the author of Woke Inc., suggests in his book that being woke is a function of ESG (environment, social, governance) metrics and enjoys a variety of benefits that would otherwise be unavailable to corporations that don’t make wokeness a priority.
Ramaswamy wrote:
“Goldman Sachs preaching about diversity so it can be at the front of the line for the next government bailout. It’s AstraZeneca waxing eloquent about climate change so it can secure multibillion-dollar government contracts for vaccine production. It’s State Street building feminist statues to detract attention from wage discrimination lawsuits from female employees, all the while marketing its exchange-traded fund with the ticker ‘SHE’. It’s Chamath Palihapitiya founding a social impact investment fund and criticizing Silicon Valley, even though he and his wealth are products of Silicon Valley, all to cover up for his prior tenure as an executive at Facebook who dreamed out loud about a private corporate military. Those companies and people use their market power to prop up woke causes as a way to accumulate greater political capital – only to later come back and cash in that political capital for more dollars.”
It is a system that rewards the best: The Woke Capital backs any liberal agenda they support in exchange for kickbacks. It’s a tale as old as time; it’s crony capitalism dressed up in a pink wig and a rainbow-colored T-shirt.
That’s what makes Elon Musk’s tweet about Pride Month even more courageous. Musk said the quiet part out loud, mocking the immodest display of virtue that every major corporation peacocks – year in, year out.
In his responses, many people pointed out how companies abandoned their support of Ukraine as soon as June started. It was like Andy tossing Woody in the trash. “I don’t want to play with you anymore.” To woke capital, Ukraine was last season’s flavor. They’ve replaced the Ukraine flag with a rainbow and trans pride flag.
Give it another month and they’ll be on a whole other topic.
Statements, opinions and views expressed in this column do not reflect those of RT.
Share this story via social media
[ad_2]
