“Back when bars and museums were closed and there was nothing you could really do, socially speaking, the parks really opened up this sort of social space in which people could hang out at the same time that cannabis was decriminalized, so we wanted to kind of honor the park as this public, affordable, and accessible space,” said FLAMER co-founder Matías Alvial.
While FLAMER’s annual 4/20 picnic was focused squarely on LGBTQ+ creativity, spirituality, and joy, there was also an element of anti-corporate reclamation to the event, Harms said.
“In New York, the cannabis industry is so queer, but it’s still part of this corporate, washed experience associated with ‘Big Cannabis,’ and FLAMER is really about us being able to create our own thing.” Harms points to his experience relaunching Buzzfeed’s LGBTQ+ vertical as evidence of the cishet world “profiting off of queer identity.”
“I made them millions of dollars off of Pride, and they refused to reinvest any of that into the community or even hire a queer editor,” Harms said, adding: “When corporations are so quick to commoditize our identity and then disappear when times get hard, it’s just extraction, right? I hope FLAMER is just one example of us starting to build more efforts that can serve as mutual aid to build even greater solidarity across our movement.”
Indeed, extraction and commodification were the antithesis of the vibe in Prospect Park last Sunday, with attendees running free in fabulous self-styled fits that declared to the world their pride in their identity, their community and, of course, their recreational drug of choice.
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