After decades of fan speculation and producer hints, beloved “Scooby-Doo” character Velma Dinkley was portrayed as a lesbian in the franchise’s latest movie: “Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo.” Among those celebrating after the animated film’s debut Tuesday was Google, which has been showering the glasses-wearing sleuth with a sea of lesbian and progressive Pride flags on its search engine since at least Wednesday evening.
The way it works is like this: If you go to Google’s search engine and type in “Velma” or “Velma Dinkley,” your screen will be sprinkled with the flags, which are just two of the many celebratory Pride flags in existence.
“We saw a long-anticipated moment for a character people love and had a good feeling it’d be an identity-affirming surprise for fans around the world," said Google senior interactive designer Anthony Irwin, who worked on the project alongside Google software engineer Emma Freeman. “We didn’t expect it to be so well received, resonating across so many different cultures and age groups, but people need things to be happy about, and when we can help everyone celebrate together, that’s pretty great.”
Velma fans reacted on Twitter to both the character’s sapphic revelation and Google’s response, catapulting the hashtag #lesbians to the No. 3 spot on the social media platform’s United States trends list.
One Twitter user wrote, “Everyone should Google ‘Velma Dinkley’ right now. Just that, just her name, I swear, the payoff is huge.”
Another Twitter user shared, “MY FELLOW LESBIANS QUICK YALL GOOGLE VELMA.”
According to a breakdown of 17 LGBTQ Pride flags by Today.com, the lesbian Pride flag has had multiple iterations over the decades, with the first created in 1999. The current pink, white and orange flag was created in 2018 by Emily Gwen. Each shade of those colors has a different meaning, including femininity, serenity and peace.
In the new Scooby-Doo film, which was released online Tuesday and will debut on Cartoon Network on Oct. 14, Velma crushes on another female character, a costume designer named Coco Diablo. An infatuated Velma flirts with Coco throughout the movie. One scene, in particular, shows Velma’s first interaction with Coco where her glasses fog up, her cheeks redden and she says “Jinkies”— her classic tag line.
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