Skittles Is Going Colorless For Pride Month

Coronavirus has robbed us of Pride Month, so corporations will have less opportunities to get product-placement deals to try and get that pink dollar. Or will they? Because Skittles is a friend of the gays, and to show solidarity with the LGBTQ community who won’t get to march in rainbow colors while mid-morning drunk, Skittles is going colorless. How are those things related? Because the only rainbow that matter is ours. …Listen, some marketing person came up with it; tell them they’re clever or those thousands of dollars put into this campaign are useless!

This Pride Month is looking as bleak as these new Skittles. With the hashtag #OneRainbow, the candy, whose slogan has been “taste the rainbow”,  has also killed the rainbow. CNN says that all month-long, new gray/white Skittles packages will be sold in CVS and select Walmarts. All the flavors of the candies are the same. So they’re celebrating Pride Month by making their candy boring and saving themselves money by not using dye? On behalf of the gays: Thank you. They’ve also done this in other countries in the past like Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

But this is about charity too and they plan to donate $1 from every bag sold to GLAAD up to $100,000.

During PRIDE only #OneRainbow matters. That’s why we have given up our rainbow to show support for the LGBTQ+ community! For every SKITTLES Pride Pack sold we are donating $1 to @glaad.🌈 pic.twitter.com/mecpWaVhzA

— SKITTLES (@Skittles) May 20, 2020

President and CEO of GLAAD, Sarah Kate Ellis, said in a release:

“This Pride month, Skittles is removing its rainbow, but replacing it with much-needed conversations about the LGBTQ+ community and a visible stand of solidarity.”

Where are the conversations? I’m not sure if a homophobe is going to look at this bag of Skittles, which looks like it got the life sucked out of it by a vampire, and think, “I’m gonna re-think hating those queers.” But they are pretty proud of this taste the whiteness move. Hank Izzo, the VP of marketing at Skittles’ owner, Mars Wrigley US, said in a statement:

“While Pride month certainly looks different this year, Skittles is passionate about showing its support for the LGBTQ+ community. We believe that giving up our rainbow means so much more than just removing the colors from our Skittles packs and we’re excited to do our part in making a difference for the LGBTQ+ community through our partnership with GLAAD, not only in June, but all year long.”

So Pride is officially cancelled–there isn’t even a rainbow in Skittles anymore. These look like White Pride Skittles to me. They should properly celebrate the gays like Entertainment Weekly did when they collected both dead and fully-alive gay icons for their cover. Next time, Mars Wrigley, celebrate Stonewall by packaging your Skittles in a brick.

Pic: Twitter