The movement has three main premises: that people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity, that diversity is a gift, and that sexual orientation and gender identity are inherent and cannot be intentionally altered. The movement in all its glory, is to bring attention to the broader community that the LGBT taxpayers are a positive force in the world and wish to have the same rights as are afforded other taxpayers. Some might still refer to it as an equality march.
As millions march to gain their sense of self affirmation in the community, the aura of Pride should be elevated as the last 40 years since Stonewall have shown tremendous movement forward. From the days of secret knocks on gay club entrance doors to the todays omnipresent technology, yes the forty years have been a struggle, and a proud accomplishment.
What will the next forty years accomplish? Will the presence of technology expose this and other groups to the mainstream population to the point of equality? It is an interesting question, one that is already playing out on the internet.
Over the last 10 years, countless websites in the LGBT community have popped up. Most are the run of the mill dating or “match making” services, followed by adult entertainment sites, however they lack Information that can be great for a movement, data and statistics are the key indicator of its success. These subscriber based services are all the rage and endless new sites containing information for the community appear daily.
We can now see most all of the pride events around the globe on several sites, research health issues from the privacy of our homes and of course, contemplate Saturday nights date du jour. But where is the raw data that helps the movement? Will there ever be a Gay Census? What will the day look like when a Gay Census would actually be answered accurately? That day doesn’t look much different that what we are seeing today. As millions of new websites come about over the next decade or two, we are bound to actually discover data that will become part of the mainstream thought process. The consensus being that once all questions are answered prejudice will diminish with knowledge, the LGBT movement like others in the past, will no longer be a movement, yet it will be a celebration.
We could estimate, with the help of various websites, what the membership rate is and combine all those numbers to estimate the total influence of the LGBT community, but those number would likely be skewed as the ever present “screen name” keeps true identities elusive. There is a website known as GoBetterTogether.com that may just inadvertently help with the age old numbers game. Within this site is something called Memory’s, it is a sort of crowd sourced segmented social network that allows thousands or millions of participants of an event to capture pictures, videos and conversations within a specific Memory. They even are talking about an App that would allow for on the fly video and picture submission from your phone. One doesn’t need to imagine much what a Memory derived from millions of individuals could actually accomplish, from entertainment to education, a clever way to record history.
When asked about the purpose of the Memorys function, Founder, Jimmy Legg remarks, “This project has been in the works for five years and I created Memorys to offer a free service that allows Pride goers the ability capture the event from their perspective, and combined with hundreds of thousands of individual points of view at each event, a fun and festive record is created. This would be the most thorough insight into pride events globally.” Legg states, “ The ever increasing exposure to the events, will, over time, bring a much better understanding to the movement as well as the most comprehensive factual record of each years events for the world to enjoy”
With the current volume of online pages, the future seems bright for the LGBT plight. Resources abound for reference material and Pride events around the world grow each year. With the addition of GoBetterTogether.com’s Memory feature, these memories from the masses, in turn, educate the curious as to what the movement embodies and what events are truly about. Not to mention just some great video of the celeb performances.
Everyone is camera capable these days with our phones, and Apple just announced the Iphone 4 that allows users to edit video on their mobile device, so be sure to bring your phones this year to a pride event near you, and join the movement to bring equality and understanding to the world. Don’t forget you are a part of history and history evolving every minute of every day. Be a part of the evolution of the Pride Movement to Pride Celebration and help collectively capture the history of Pride going forward for future generations to enjoy!
