‘Pride Demon’ launched as a jab from a Delaware conservative. Now it’s a queer meme and T-shirt available for purchase.
What started as anti-LGBTQ+ commentary from a conservative activist morphed into a reclaimed meme and, now, a T-shirt benefiting the queer community.
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If you’re wondering about the “Pride Demon” memes all over your social feed, there’s some backstory to catch up on.
What started as anti-LGBTQ+ commentary from a conservative activist has morphed into a twice-reclaimed meme and, now, a shirt benefiting the queer community.
It started when Delaware conservative activist and QAnon supporter Lauren Witzke posted an image last week on Twitter that repeats the smooshed-together words “PRIDEMONTH” in a column “until letters fade to highlight “DEMON’ in rainbow colors.
Witzke, former Senate candidate who lost to Chris Coons (D., Del.) in 2020, went on to liken the LGBTQ+ community to “demons” and appealed to her followers to unite against Pride Month, which started Thursday.
Almost instantly, the graphic — which was not designed by Witzke, but instead by a trans artist named Veya — went viral. Witzke’s tweet has been quote-tweeted more than 18,000 times, mostly by queer people making fun of it.
People who identify as LGBTQ+ joked about proudly “putting the ‘demon’ in Pride Month.” Tweaked versions parodying the graphic were re-shared across social media. In one version, the word PRIDE was repeated until turning into GARFIELD.
On Twitter, Veya — who uses fae/faer pronouns — confirmed Sunday that fae made the original graphic and originally posted it in April. Faer post went viral with followers loving the idea of a far-right conservative stealing a queer person’s art to make an anti-LGBTQ+ argument.
“This is ours now.” “Always has been.” Veya joked in a tweet about the graphic being “reclaimed.”
Veya has since released the graphic for purchase on T-shirts — with text in rainbow as well as other Pride variations such as pansexual, trans, and intersex flag color schemes — for less than $20.
Witzke’s tweet came on the heels of a recent surge in anti-LGBTQ+ criticism across the country, including conservative led boycotts against companies including Target and Bud Light for working with queer creators.