Hello! I'm not too sure if this fits here, but I'll put this post here and have it moved if need be.

Today, Scratch introduced their “Wellness Month” project. I completely support the idea of it - promoting self care is always awesome and a good reminder to many. However, the problem comes when you consider the timing of it's launch. Wellness month will run it's course in June - pride month.

To me, Wellness Month occurring during pride month is drawing eyes away from pride, discouraging the creation of pride month projects, and encouraging the creature of a new project every 3-4 days, the entire month. Perhaps it was the intention, but to me, just having this run during pride month feels like it's undermining pride and trying to bury it and pay it no attention. However, avoiding the topic encourages others to do the same, especially when it's a group as important as ST.

I can understand why they did this: to avoid backlash from homophobic parents or parents who don't want their children learning of pride yet. However, they didn't have to pick a side. It's my belief that they could've just not had anything during the month of June, and effectively stayed neutral. Yet, by having Wellness Month occur now, they're picking a more ‘avoid pride’ sort of side.

My suggestion is simply to move Wellness Month to August, the national wellness month (in future years or this year, if this becomes a tradition) and at the very least leave June free. They don't even have to host anything pride related - just make sure that pride isn't covered by something else. I hope that in future years June is free and allows pride month to have the spotlight.

If you want to see a few other thoughts, even though I basically rewrote the whole rant for this post, you can see my rant here.

Fully agree. Pride Month shouldn't be overshadowed by some other event placed by the ST with the sole purpose of burying it. What happened to being inclusive?

I just knew that someone would have said something like this when I saw the announcement..

The_Game_ wrote:

Fully agree. Pride Month shouldn't be overshadowed by some other event placed by the ST with the sole purpose of burying it. What happened to being inclusive?

I'm pretty sure Welcome Inn is supposed to be that (or whatever)..
Also, I don't know how to state my opinions on this honestly.

medians wrote:

I just knew that someone would have said something like this when I saw the announcement..

The_Game_ wrote:

Fully agree. Pride Month shouldn't be overshadowed by some other event placed by the ST with the sole purpose of burying it. What happened to being inclusive?

I'm pretty sure Welcome Inn is supposed to be that (or whatever)..
Also, I don't know how to state my opinions on this honestly.

Pretty significant downgrade, and it's not just for pride either.

The_Game_ wrote:

medians wrote:

I just knew that someone would have said something like this when I saw the announcement..

The_Game_ wrote:

Fully agree. Pride Month shouldn't be overshadowed by some other event placed by the ST with the sole purpose of burying it. What happened to being inclusive?

I'm pretty sure Welcome Inn is supposed to be that (or whatever)..
Also, I don't know how to state my opinions on this honestly.

Pretty significant downgrade, and it's not just for pride either.

That's why I think it works though. I'm confused about how to explain what I'm thinking..

Hi there! Thanks for bringing up this topic. Pride Month is incredibly important and as always, we encourage everyone to celebrate it on Scratch! Promoting wellness and self care does not mean you shouldn't celebrate your identity - everyone should feel empowered to create projects which celebrate their own unique identities. Be sure to check out these links to suggest projects and studios that can be featured on the homepage.

Scratch on!