Blog / 2022 / How Do You Embody Pride?

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Do you ever accidentally do a whole elaborate thing? It starts with a half-dreamt image in that hazy early morning before you start your day—a tiger’s stripes and the Pride flag’s rainbow stripes, aren’t stripes the best?

And then you think: but not everyone needs their Pride to be so fierce. So you make a counterpoint bunny.

Then there’s a fish.

And a squirrel on a tote bag.

And when you get to the duck, it becomes clear that at some point this became an actual thing you are working on. That’s how this series happened. The animals (and the eyeball) embody different kinds of Pride.

Is your queerness more ducky or more the tiger type? Is your allyship as curious as a squirrel or more fish-like, bravely swimming upstream?

Nonhuman animals have long been a way for human animals to describe identity. We do it through myths, fairytales, Disney movies, and even video games, assigning animal characters in these stories a flattened kind of personality based on cues from their species’ behaviors.

For example, stories with rabbit characters often focus on them being fast and jumpy. Whether or not individual bunnies could be described as particularly quick or nervous doesn’t matter. Compared to other species, that’s the thing that rabbits project as a whole.

I’ve been encountering tons of ducks these days. My new town in set on a canal and a river, and waterfowl abound. Their curly-tailed waddles and chatty little quacks make me giggle, and I love how the short wings of the babies make them look like tiny fluffy dinosaurs. The silly playfulness of ducks was something I wanted for my accidental series of Pride animals.

You can get t-shirts and postcards and lots of lovely things full of rainbow magic in my Redbubble shop! The duck is there along with all the other images too.

This video is made with love and microdonations from my community!