Bethesda Pride Month Logos

Overview

Bethesda Pride Month Logos refers to the controversy surrounding Bethesda's change to its logos to feature the rainbow flag on Twitter that celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride Month for all accounts except Russia, Turkey and the Middle East. After altering its logos on social media, users online reacted with backlash about the lack of a design change for the Middle East account through online discussion and memes, suggesting that the company only cared for the movement due to money and where it was safe to support.

Background

In early June 2020, coinciding with the start of Pride Month in the U.S., Bethesda replaced its company logo with a rainbow flag variant for each of its different Twitter accounts but excluded the LGBTQ+ version for the accounts in Russia,^[1] Turkey^[2] and the Middle East^[3] (seen below).

Developments

Online Reactions

On June 3rd and 4th, 2020, users online took notice of the lack of rainbow logos on certain Bethesda accounts, drawing the ire of many, particularly on Twitter. One such example was tweeted by Twitter^[4] user GamesNosh, who uploaded an image of each logo. The tweet received over 78,000 likes, 16,000 retweets and 530 replies. Twitter^[5] user TeaOwl3 replied to the tweet with a meme (shown below), receiving over 2,600 likes and 250 retweets.

On June 3rd, 2020, Twitter^[6] user SophNar0747 also commented on tweet and said, “Woke marketing in a nutshell. They'll only ever take stances when it's safe to do so. Same reason Activision/Blizzard suspended Blitzchung for getting political & supporting Hong Kong (Blizzard has China ties) but they'll now get political themselves & support BLM. It's all fake,” which was liked over 1,800 times and retweeted 420 times. Twitter^[7] user OrdinaryGamers added to the discussion with the caption, “Bethesda Middle East still be a bit behind ya know,” receiving over 10,000 likes and 765 retweets.

Redditor^[8] MAGA_WALLE posted a meme to the r/PoliticalCompassMemes subreddit on June 3rd, 2020, under the title, “Thank you, BRAND. Very cool!” The meme (seen below) received over 37,700 upvotes and 900 comments.

On June 3rd, 2020, Redditor^[9] User_26 then posted another meme referencing the logos to the r/dankmemes sub (shown below), receiving nearly 36,000 upvotes and 600 comments.

Redditor^[10] The Suicide Sheep uploaded their take on the meme to the r/okbuddyretard sub under the title, “I just don't understand.” The image (seen below) received over 25,000 upvotes and 263 comments.

On June 4th, 2020, Russian news site RT^[11] published an article on the controversy titled, “‘FAKE WOKENESS’: Video game firm Bethesda switches profile images to LGBT pride flag… but NOT on Middle East account.”

Redditor^[12] NovaAge posted another example (shown below) using the Why Are You Gay meme to the r/memes sub on June 4th, 2020, where it received over 48,000 upvotes and 905 comments before being deleted.

Search Interest

External References