Equality Painting Social Media Red

With the Prop 8 and DOMA hearings taking place this week, you may have noticed many social media platforms changing with a sea of red. Users are changing their profile pictures to the Human Rights Campaign sign, only this time shown as a red box with pink equality lines. 

The image is replacing profile pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and elsewhere. The usual symbol of yellow lines on a blue background was changed to this red and pink format to symbolize the color of love.

HRC release the image on Monday, before the hearings, and by today there were and estimated tens of millions of shares.

Some wondered if the message that HRC tries to convey with their symbol was being muddled by the fact that many memes and spoofs of the image were being made, mostly in a positive way though. Images of the symbol with the frowny Internet star Grumpy Cat and "True Blood" fangs began to appear, as well as many other.

"There's a lot of serious conversation going on and there's an awful lot of important concepts that the Supreme Court justices are discussing," said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C.  "What this logo going viral means is individuals have reduced it to a very straightforward concept."

So it appears that the widespread usage and sharing of the image, in almost any form is a welcomed occurrence. Thanks to social media sharing, things like this are possible.