by Brenna Henderson ‘21

On top of a pandemic and national racism, Americans also have to deal with Pridefall. As many know, June is Pride Month when Americans celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. This year, the celebrations, parades, and festivals were canceled due to COVID-19. The LGBTQ+ community was persistent, moving the celebrations online with many new pages and posts about pride. However, as the LGBTQ+ community persists, so does the homophobic community. Anti-LGBTQ+ people created Pridefall, which is an “operation” aimed to stop any pride celebration. 

The group has attacked any openly LGBTQ+ people or accounts and has made it unsafe for anyone to celebrate or come out. The “operation” has led to many accounts going private or logging off for the whole month of June. Not allowing people to celebrate who they are and where they come from is not only homophobic but selfish. The LGBTQ+ community, like any other community, should be able to celebrate without anyone attacking them. If a person does not follow any LGBTQ+ people or accounts, they wouldn’t see any celebration, so why does it bother them? The good news is that many LGBTQ+ community members have made anti-Pridefall accounts that warn people about different Pridefall accounts and agendas, blocks such accounts, and prevents hateful comments. 

Many rumors surround what the anti-LGBTQ+ group is doing, such as one that said they were doxxing and kidnapping people, but the group’s actions are limited to attacking people online. An unnamed source from inside the operation warned people to look out for new or empty accounts with AI-generated faces as profile pictures and to block, report, and share suspicious pages posting Pridefall content. The source, quoted from PinkNews, said to especially “ … watch out for suspicious links in your messages. Watch out for common IP grabbing services such as ‘Grabify’ and don’t click anything you’re not sure of.” If you are going to celebrate pride openly this year, make sure to watch out for Pridefall and stay safe.