Name: Pink Money & Pinkwashing: Did you know even Starbucks has committed Pinkwashing?
Uploaded: 2021-06-27T14:35:58.000Z
Duration: 9 min 54 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

2017 I went to Boston Pride, that was the first  time I went to a Pride in the United States.  

And I identified two major differences between  Pride in Taiwan and Pride in the United States.  

First off, I noticed way more seniors were  participating in Boston Pride compared to  

Taipei Pride, which is a beautiful thing  because that means the LGBTQ community is  

less stigmatized in the US even among the older  population. The second thing I noticed is that,  

I saw way more big companies used pride  as an opportunity to promote their brand.  

But why, and is that good or bad? Let's find  out with People Also Ask.

Hi, I am Shao Chieh Lo, Welcome to what people also ask, where  I search something seemingly obvious and  

share with you some of its PAA, aka People Also  Ask, which is a feature telling you what other  

people are searching on Google that related to  your query. Today's keyword is Pink Money and  

Pinkwashing. So let's talk about today's first  PAA How much money does LGBTQ community generate?  

which extracted its answer from a Wikipedia entry  titled "Pink money" and I believe this entry can  

explain a lot about what I saw in Boston Pride.  According to this entry, Pink money describes  

the purchasing power of the LGBTQ community, In  2019, LGBTQ adults globally held a combined buying  

power of approximately $3.7 trillion. It's been  considered more often than not a market exclusive  

for the US, UK, and some places in Europe, but its  extension covers a large amount of Latin America  

and part of Asia. That, I believe, is why I  noticed a disparity in the pride participation  

level of large corporations in Western and Asian  countries. While we know that many Asian countries  

are catching up on LGBTQ rights, many Asian  businesses may still view participating in pride  

as too risky. But why it is called pink money? It  has something to do with history. And it appears  

that the British use this term first. According  to an article titled "Pursuing the pink pound:  

How big is the UK's LGBTQ market?" published by  crunch.co.uk which appears to be a website of an  

accounting software company. According to  this article, the phrase 'pink pound' first  

appeared in the Guardian newspaper in 1984.  During World War 2 gay people were made to  

wear a pink triangle to make their sexuality  obvious. But after the war ended, the color pink  

was reclaimed as a symbol of the LGBTQ rights  movement. This article also mentioned a concept  

called "Pinkwashing". So let's talk about the next  two PAAs: Who coined the term pinkwashing? and Is  

pinkwashing bad? These two questions were answered  by a Wikipedia entry titled "Pinkwashing (LGBT)"  

,and the aforementioned article titled "Pursuing  the pink pound: How big is the UK's LGBTQ market?"  

and another article titled "Pink Dollar Marketing  and Queer Representation in Advertising"  

published by mediasmarts.ca which is a Canadian  not-for-profit organization for digital and media  

literacy. According to these three articles,The  term Pinkwashing was coined by Sarah Schulman  

in her article for The New York Times titled  "Israel and Pinkwashing" published in 2011. and  

Pinkwashing is when a company makes a concerted  public relations effort to appear gay-friendly in  

order to gain access to the pink money, but  they don't actually genuinely support LGBTQ  

rights and some will even willingly act against  queer interests when it's convenient for them. For  

example, When R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company sought  to break into the queer market in San Francisco,  

their proposed gay-themed marketing campaign  was tellingly referred to in-house as “Project  SCUM”.

Well, what can you expect from a Tobacco  Company, they literally kill people every day.  

But there are tones of companies that have done  this, that even include companies generally  

considered LGBTQ-friendly like Starbucks, can  you believe that? So the next none-PAA is,  

Did Starbucks commit pinkwashing? This Non-PAA  is answered by PinkDot Taiwan's official Facebook  

page, which is an annual LGBTQ event that started  in 2009 started in Singapore and extended to other  

Asian countries. and Student Union For marriage  Equality's official Facebook page which is an  

LGBTQ right student organization in Taiwan.  So here's what happened: In early June 2016.  

Starbucks Taiwan launched the six-color rainbow  cup, but the promotional copy did not express  

any explicit support for LGBTQ rights, only  includes implicit words like "six-color rainbow  

spectrum" in their copy. At this point, it's kind  of still just in the grey area of pinkwashing,  

and it appears most of the people in Taiwan were  giving it a pass. A lot of people thought that for  

a company operated in an Asian country implicit  support was already progressing. The PinkDot  

Taiwan's official Facebook even encourage People  to "encourage Starbuck Taiwan to do more, instead  

of accusing their semi-pinkwashing behavior" But  then on June 16, 2016, Student Union For marriage  

Equality's official page release a post, said that  they called Starbucks' customer service asking  

if their six-color rainbow cup is in support of  LGBTQ right, and here's what the customer service  

agent reply "Starbucks respects multiculturalism,  but the rainbow design is based on the concept  

of colorful summer" and they denied any  connection between their six-color rainbow cup  

and LGBTQ issues. To rule out the possibility  that the reply was not due to an ill-trained  

customer service agent, PinkDot Taiwan's editor  called Starbuck's customer service again,  

and this time they posted the whole conversation  with the agent as followed: Starbuck first said:  

“Starbucks always supports and respects  multiculturalism, but the rainbow design of this  

cup is based on the concept of colorful summer,  not related to LGBTQ." The Pinkdot keeps on asking  

"Then why did you choose the "six-color rainbow"  instead of the more common "seven-color rainbow"?"  

Then the customer service agent fell into  silence. Since the customer service did not reply,  

Pinkdot went on and said "Six-color rainbow" is  a cultural symbol often used to support LGBTQ.  

We have not seen it used on other occasions,  and you were completely unaware of it before you  

used it?" The customer service fell into silence  again. Since the customer service did not reply,  

Pinkdot went on "So you used a six-color rainbow,  but you said that you don't support LGBTQ?" The  

customer service repeated the canned reply  “Starbucks always supports and respects  

multiculturalism, but the rainbow design of this  cup is based on the concept of colorful summer,  

not related to LGBTQ." Pinkdot replied "So  Taiwan Starbucks does not support LGBTQ?  

Even the Starbucks head office of the United  States has publicly expressed its support, that  

does not including you?" The customer service fell  into silence again. Since the customer service did  

not reply, Pinkdot went on " Don't you think it's  exploiting LGBTQ community to use a symbol that  

supports LGBTQ to make money, but refuse to speak  up for us? The customer service then replied:  

I will pass your opinion to the supervisor, or  if you want to call the head office directly the  

number is 02-87867799. In the end, the pinkdot  editor asked the customer service to ask their  

supervisor to call back as soon as possible, but  the call to the head office did not receive any  

reply. And when they check Starbucks' post again,  they have even rewritten the original copy that  

implied their support of LGBTQ to make sure they  did not even implicitly support LGBTQ rights.  

Wow, so it is like the "first-degree pinkwashing"  from Starbucks! A company always proclaims to be  

LGBTQ-friendly. Well I understand the  Starbuck Head office in the US might not  

directly involve in this pinkwashing scheme, but  I won't say they totally don't have responsibility  

since when you expand your brand  overseas, it's your responsibility  

to make sure your brand value proposition  is consistent. At the end of the video,  

I want to mention that the term pinkwashing is  also used to describes a company's campaigning for  

breast cancer awareness while they contribute  to the production of chemical carcinogens.  

I mean, seriously for companies who don't actually support LGBT rights and breast cancer awareness

just don't make money  you don't deserve okay.

So, if you are a company  that doesn't actually support LGBTQ rights or  

breast cancer awareness, here's what you can  do: Shut your fxxx up! Because Pinkwashing  

usually angers the LGBTQ community or people  who have loved ones having breast cancer more  

than if they never said anything in the first  place. It's important for retailers and brands to  

only get involved in politics if it's something  they truly believe in. The public don't take  

kindly to businesses who use politics solely  for their brand's growth. Okay, let's recap.  

Today we learned that Pink money is referring  to the purchasing power of the LGBTQ community,  

a little bit of history about pink money, the  concept of pinkwashing, Startbucks Taiwan's lamest  

pinkwashing move in 2016, and the best practice  for companies that don't actually support LGBTQ rights

or breast cancer awareness, which is to shut  up. If you made it to the end of the video,  

chances are that you enjoy learning what  people also ask on Google. But let's face it,  

reading PAA yourself will be a pain. So here's the  deal, I will do the reading for you and upload a  

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Pink Money & Pinkwashing: Did you know even Starbucks has committed Pinkwashing?

obvious

term

concept

pursue