Pinterest inspires Pinners and Creators to show their true colours

Pride Month has just kicked off, and people are turning to Pinterest to celebrate their identities and find their voice within the LGBTQ+ community. Pinterest has always been a positive place where people can explore their dreams, discover ideas to express their true colours, and to be themselves.

Every year, people increasingly come to Pinterest to show their Pride and LGBTQ+ flags are a recognisable way to celebrate and show the world who they are. Searches on “bisexual pride flag” (up 5x), “genderfluid flag” (up 4.5x), “lesbian flag” (up 4x) or “asexual flag” (up 3x)* continue to grow in popularity year over year.

Also, searches reveal that Pinterest is the place where people find inspiration for coming out, a moment that can be difficult for many but also represents a milestone worth celebrating. Searches for “coming out cake” have grown by 2.5x times, “coming out party” in +67% and “coming out photoshoot” grew 44%*, showing that Pinners are searching for creative ways to make this moment personal and unique.

Gen Z has been known to challenge societal norms around gender. Particularly during the pandemic, Gen Z increasingly turned to Pinterest to explore their identity and connect with themselves. But exploring identity isn’t limited to new fashion styles and manifesting your life goals-- Gen Z is expressing their pride in various sexual orientations through art and flags and finding encouragement to be who they are through quotes and comics. Searches for identities that are particularly skyrocketing amongst Gen Z are omnisexual (8.5x), attracted to all genders and sexual orientations, and abrosexual (3x)**, having different levels of sexual or romantic attractions through life.

We’ve also noticed that Gen Z Pinners are increasingly searching for inspiration for diverse sexual identities, such as “pansexual pride” (up 4x), “pansexual” (+85%) or “asexual humor” (up 2.5x)**.

This interest for discovering and exploring different sexual identities is not owned solely by Gen Z. We’ve seen an increase in searches among all audiences on Pinterest, including “sapiosexual quotes” (up 4x), “polysexual” (+42%) or “sapiosexual quotes” (up 4x)*.

Pinterest’s mission is to provide everyone with the inspiration to create a life they love. And we know it’s easier to feel inspired when you feel properly represented. We’ve invested in features like skin tone ranges to give Pinners a way to filter beauty search results by similar skin tone ranges, which we expanded to thirteen more countries earlier this year. And today, we’re announcing that Pinners will be able to self-select their pronoun(s) and add it to their profile in the coming weeks. Pinner and business accounts can select from various sets of pronouns in their settings. Their selected pronouns will show up on their profile, next to their username, which allows Pinners to self-identify and express who they are and helps build an even more inclusive experience on Pinterest.

Throughout the month, Pinterest will celebrate Pride with a new campaign, “Show Your True Colours,” aimed at driving inspiration, celebration and action among Pinners and Creators. The campaign includes a digital film featuring six LGBTQ+ Pinners and cultural icons to inspire the queer community and allies in areas of their lives.

We’ll also feature content from creators from the LGBTQ+ community and allies in the Today tab. Pinners can get inspired to express themselves with ideas from Creators across fashion, beauty and art, plus inspiration on how to show pride in the community, by advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, supporting loved ones, and progressing the conversation either publicly, or personally, among friends and family.

Over the next few weeks, when Pinners search terms related to “Pride” on Pinterest, suggested searches will appear in all the colours of the rainbow. This experience is available for all users in the US, Canada, France, DACH, Spain, Italy, Japan and Latin America). Also, people searching for Pride ideas on Pinterest will see a festive background below the search bar with additional search recommendations.

“It's so important that we celebrate the LGBTQ+ community on Pinterest as it's a platform that flourishes on empowering, helping and supporting through its Pinners. For us, Pinterest allows us to connect and find members of our community with ease; which is as important now as it has ever been. It's a platform that really embraces openness and sharing which we love.” - Yaya Onalaja-Aliuand and Lloyd Griffiths, Creators of Hand luggage only

On June 23, Pinterest will host a global virtual event designed to drive inspiration and conversation around being a LBGTQ+ Creator and business. All creators on Pinterest can join educational and inspirational sessions to spark creativity and learn more about what it means to be a LGBTQ+ Creator and business. Creators such as the actress, model and activist Dominique Jackson, the American fashion designer Christian Siriano, presenter and TV host Zooey Gleeves, and activist and model Olly Eley will be participating.

Pinterest is also giving back to the Queer community by donating to Immigration Equality, a leading LGBTQ+ immigration rights organization, to Mermaids, in the UK, which helps gender diverse-diverse kids, young people and their families and to BLAQ, an organization committed to empowering the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQ+ community through innovation, inclusion, understanding and advocacy. Additionally, Pinterest will match employees donations 2:1 to organizations that provide advocacy for LGBTQ+ issues.

Methodology

*Trends are calculated by comparing normalized searches during the four week period of 4/12/21-5/9/21 to the same time frame the prior year; global; all audiences.

**Trends are calculated by comparing normalized searches during the four week period of 4/12/21-5/9/21 to the same time frame the prior year; global; ages 18-24.