So I was reading this article and I tested it out by going to Google and typing “gay” in the search box and hit search.
Sure enough the gay pride rainbow appears, but seems to only appear if you are searching for “pride-related” searches (see article). (For only the month of june)
I thought this was an odd thing for Google. Usually their doodles are more apparent. Is Google still in the closet? Why would they hide a doodle? I would think that if you are putting a doodle up then put it up, if not then why bother?
It probably has more to do with the fact that gay pride lasts for a whole month, which is a very long time to have a normal visible-to-all doodle on their page.
I think their solution is very neat, and am a bit confused by the detractors.
…but I’m thinking ( maybe I’ve become too cynical in my dotage), it’s because the iconic, boundary pushing, omniscient, omnipotent and ubiquitous, Google, isn’t in the business of doodles…it’s very much in the business of profit making.
Probably, since prehistory, man has (when not literally), metaphorically been trying to, ‘square the circle’. I suspect Google are trying to do something similar, keeping a foot, unobtrusively, in both camps, as it were.
Gay Rights, is a very contentious issue. We inhabit a planet, upon which, Gay Rights activists, are lauded for their courage, and put to death or imprisoned for their practices and beliefs.
On a global scale (Google is a global company), we’re talking whole nations being either, pro, tolerant, semi-tolerant, or anti Gay Rights.
Even in a place like America, enfranchisement and subsequent dis-enfranchisement, at the behest of, or covert pressure from, multifarious vested interest groups (some quite powerful and influential), must make the formulation of good public relations marketing strategies, akin to crossing a minefield blindfolded.
Vic
