AR Snapshots: Celebrate Pride Month with These Snapchat Augmented Reality Lenses

Celebrate Pride Month with These Snapchat Augmented Reality Lenses

June is Pride Month, an annual celebration of LGBTQ+ communities in commemoration of the Stonewall uprising of 1969.

With Lens Studio, developers and creators have the capacity to create augmented reality experiences that celebrate a wide variety of interests, including LGBTQ+ rights.

Here are some Snapchat Lenses to help celebrate your identity or your support of the LGBTQ+ community...

Dress Up in These Virtual Pride Costumes

Our first pair of Lenses give you the opportunity to put on virtual festive accessories to show your support for the LGBTQ+ community.

The Summer of Pride Lens places a virtual rainbow-colored hat, sunglasses, and lipstick on your face along with a virtual rainbow ice cream cone anchored in the foreground. Tap the screen to remove virtual elements.

Images via Snap

The Pride Month Lens features a flower crown that blooms atop your head, with rainbow hearts projected onto your cheeks.

(1) Summer of Pride, (2) Pride Month. Images via Snap (1, 2)

Fly Your Pride Flag

The rainbow flag has become synonymous with LGBTQ+ Pride, and many of the Lenses dedicated to the movement prominently feature the colors of the flag.

For instance, the Pride Lens replaces your background with a scrolling rainbow, with the word "PRIDE" filled with diagonally-scrolling stripes on the foreground as a heart drawing animation plays out behind it.

Images by Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Similarly, the Gay Pride Lens also provides a virtual rainbow background with the addition of virtual makeup that compliments the background.

Finally, the Gay Pride Flags Lens overlays the flag as virtual facepaint. Tap the screen, and the virtual facepaint shifts to colors representing other sexual orientations, such as lesbian, transexual, pansexual, and more.

(1) Pride, (2) Gay Pride, (3) Gay Pride Flags. Images via Snap (1, 2, 3)

Pay Tribute to Stonewall

For the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Google built an AR app to help tell the story.

Lens Studio creators have made their own tributes to this historic event as well. The Stonewall 1969 Lens gives you and a friend virtual wigs, glasses, and necklaces appropriate for the period, with "Stonewall 1969" anchored at the top of the frame and virtual confetti falling in the background.

Images by Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Meanwhile, the Stonewall 2 Lens inserts a virtual background with a photo from the Stonewall marches, ideal for Snap Camera and Zoom video calls.

Images via Snap (1, 2)

Explore Pride History Across the US

The history of the Pride movement extends far beyond Stonewall. Created in partnership with The Advocate, the Champions of Pride Lens series features five Lenses that highlight influential people who have been instrumental in the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights.

Images by Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Each Lens includes virtual galleries featuring activists and their stories curated based on regions of the US — North Atlantic, South, Midwest, Mountain, and Pacific.

Images by Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

In addition, each Lens was built by a different Lens Studio creator, and, as a result, has its own unique look and interactive personality. In most cases, you can tap on hot spots to reveal more information behind each story. Some of the Lenses, namely South and Mountain, have AR experiences for the front-facing camera as well.

(1) North Atlantic, (2) South, (3) Midwest, (4) Mountain. Images via Snap (1, 2, 3, 4), Pacific

Stage Your Own Virtual Pride Parade

The LGBTQ+ movement was moved forward by the protest marches of the Stonewall uprising in 1969, and parades have become a staple of Pride month. With the Digital Pride series, you can stage a virtual Pride parade in your own backyard.

Images by Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Each Lens is titled DigitalPride Float, which makes it a little confusing from an editorial standpoint. Luckily, each float, built by a different Lens Studio creator, has a distinctive theme, including drag queen, rainbow cartoon, Pride woman, parrots, and gingerbread man.

Images by Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

You can place a 3D parade float in your physical environment via your rear-facing camera. There's also a selfie AR effect corresponding to each theme so you can be a part of the celebration yourself.

Images via Snap (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Just updated your iPhone to iOS 18? You'll find a ton of hot new features for some of your most-used Apple apps. Dive in and see for yourself:

Cover image by Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

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