Gray Pride / Grey Pride

Submission 5,141

Part of a series on LGBTQ+ Pride Month. [View Related Entries]

About

Gray Pride or Grey Pride refers to a series of parody memes suggesting that there should be "Gray Pride Month" rather than or in addition to Gay Pride Month, meaning a month to be proud that you're old and have gray hair. Memes about gray pride month began to spread online on Facebook as early as 2013 through the boomer humor page "Gray Pride." The memes often show the "gray pride flag" (a parody of the LGBTQ rainbow flag) alongside the tagline "We're old, we're tired, get off our lawn." The memes see a boost in prevalence every June coinciding with Pride Month.

Origin

On May 5th, 2013, the Facebook^[1] page "Gray Pride," which shares "boomer humor" memes, was started, garnering over 17,000 members in 10 years. The page's profile picture and first shared meme show a gray ribbon over a lawn captioned, "GRAY PRIDE. WE'RE OLD. WE'RE TIRED. GET OFF OUR LAWN," garnering over 85,000 shares and 24,000 reactions in 10 years (shown below).

Spread

The meme gained viral spread over the following years, becoming a popular repost on Facebook. It also inspired new, often similar, memes referencing gray pride month. For example, on June 7th, 2021, the Facebook^[2] page Conservative News Today posted a version that gained over 2,800 reactions and 950 shares in two years (shown below, left). On August 1st, 2022, the Casual Christian Comedy 2 Facebook^[3] page shared a version of the meme with a gray pride rainbow, garnering over 6,500 shares and 7,900 reactions in a year (shown below, right).

On June 7th, 2023, the Facebook^[4] page Chris Brackett’s LandLife shared a version of the meme created by an unknown person sharing a gray pride flag, garnering over 32,000 shares and 60,000 reactions in six days (shown below). The meme was also shared on sites including Instagram,^[5] Twitter^[6] and TikTok^[7] over the following days.

Throughout the 2020s, the meme and its caption have become increasingly popular on merchandise on sites like Etsy^[8] and RedBubble.^[9]