Social-media users turn Grimace from McDonald's into a 'queer icon' during Pride Month

Some social-media users have turned Grimace — Ronald McDonald's furry, purple friend — into a "queer icon," likely because his "birthday" falls during Pride Month.

The fast-food company has just launched a new marketing campaign inviting fans to celebrate Grimace's birthday. Beginning on June 12, participating stores will offer the Grimace Birthday Meal, a combo meal which includes the choice of a Big Mac or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, fries, and a shake colored purple for the occasion.

The company hopes that the birthday celebration will help introduce Grimace and his friends to younger generations who may not be as familiar with the McDonald's characters as well as give older generations a chance to revisit part of their youth. "Grimace is the perfect lovable icon to have McDonald’s meet our fans at the intersection of nostalgia and culture," said Tariq Hassan, chief marketing and customer experience officer at McDonald’s USA.

To promote the campaign, McDonald's has turned over its social-media accounts to the birthday boy. And while recent posts from those accounts just show Grimace having fun with friends and cracking jokes, others on social media have taken the occasion of his birthday to turn Grimace into what outlets such as Insider and Polygon have called a "queer icon." Such users have featured Grimace in cartoon images waving a Pride flag. In one, he plants a kiss on the cheek of Hamburglar, another male character.

One TikTok video even appears to show a grown man having an image of Grimace wearing a bikini, fishnet stockings, and women's heels tattooed on his thigh. The caption of the video reads, "happy birthday to our queen, grimace from mcdonalds."

While some of the images and videos floating around the internet may be made by trolls with few followers, the image with the kiss has garnered nearly 5,000 likes in under three days, and the tattoo video has already attracted a whopping 18,000 likes. For context, a tweet, ostensibly from Grimace, that was posted on the official McDonald's account on Wednesday has just 1,500. Other posts from the account regularly have tens of thousands of likes.

Although the images are not directly affiliated with the company, they still feature one of its beloved characters — characters that have been marketed to children for 50 years. In fact, when Grimace was first introduced in the 1970s, he was a villainous character who frightened children so much that the company soon reintroduced him in a softer, friendlier version that we still have today.

The press release about the promotion for Grimace's birthday makes no mention of LGBTQ issues or Pride Month, but the company website still has a page called "Share the Pride," which is dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. The website offers similar pages for Hispanic students, Asian-Pacific Americans, and the "Black & Positively Golden."

A press release dated May 30 also claimed that "McDonald’s PRIDE Network is a Force for Good Year-Round." In the statement, the company notes that it has provided its employees "a $100,000 lifetime limit toward gender reassignment surgery; prescription coverage for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention and a variety of gender reassignment medications." None of the McDonald's characters is mentioned in the statement.

While some on social media have co-opted Grimace as a member or ally of the LGBTQ community, others are still struggling to understand just who — or what — Grimace is. One McDonald's manager suggested in 2021 that he is "an enormous taste bud," but corporate officials did not confirm that classification.

For those interested in more information about Grimace, the press release about his birthday did provide a helpful bio: "Grimace is from Grimace Island and comes from a huge family (including his Grandma Winky, aunts Millie and Tillie and his Uncle O'Grimacey!) Our timeless bestie has become a fan-favorite known for his signature fuzzy purple look, friendly and playful personality, love for shakes, and of course – ambiguous nature. What exactly is Grimace? Perhaps we’ll never know..."

Grimace's actual birthday and how old he will be are both unclear. McDonald's did not respond to a request for comment about the social media portrayals of him.

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