Pride: False Memory Syndrome

"I think my first Pride was when I was 18, in Jubilee Gardens. I went with the tutors from my youth theatre group, who were all benders, of course – this was the mid-1980s, after all. I wore a pink triangle to let everyone know I was queer. It felt real and vulnerable and exciting, and I felt genuinely connected to it.
"Back then, the people who used to volunteer at Pride got a tab of acid as payment for their services. It was really symptomatic of the innocence and the communal ethos that lay at its roots – and back then we were all really into community activism. But then, in the early 1990s, the Gay Pride head honcho left and it became a free-for-all for all these capitalist huxsters.
"I remember going in 1995 and there were all these people dressed in Lycra, looking like a right state, blowing whistles and being really annoying. My mate Charlie said to me, 'If there was a march in the opposite direction called Gay Shame, you know what? I'd be on that one.' It really struck a chord. So we ran Gay Shame every year on the same day as Pride until 2009. We would mimic and take the mickey out of the mainstream gay scene. It was just a gag, but really it was just the same as Pride, in that it was a celebration."

Simon Casson, Duckie in The Independent.
Yes, people were paid with acid - that actually happened, didn't it?
Only a fool wouldn't believe that.
And the march was led by unicorns on stilts, too.
But ugh lycra - how common and vulgar!
Someone should start a gay club night that doesn't appeal to these dreadful working class oiks - oh, hang on, you have.
And if you're so opposed to capitalism, how much do you make out of Duckie each week?
I hear you get a cut of the bar takings, too. 
Oh, and didn't you starting Gay Shame coincide with you turning straight?
Just a thought.