Earlier today, I discovered the news of a new Apple ad that also celebrates the gay rodeo.
While I shared stories about the gay rodeo before and how it’s a community of LGBTQ people celebrating the rustic heritage of the cowboy life, I was happy to share more information on the subject. But unfortunately, that video has now disappeared.
The week after GLSEN was “pleased to announce that it will honor Apple CEO Tim Cook at the 2019 GLSEN Respect Awards – Los Angeles. Cook will receive the Champion Award for his ongoing commitment to fighting for LGBTQ rights and creating safe spaces for members of the LGBTQ community,” Apple released the latest “Shot by iPhone video.”
In the video, shot by Luke Gilford, Apple spotlights the gay rodeo circuits where LGBTQ people create and participate in rodeo activities like bull riding. Then Breana Knight, a Denver-based bull rider and musician played the starring role in the ad.
The “Shot on iPhone” series is primarily based on celebrating the diversity of life and several different communities around the world. And, it’s also an ad for their iPhones’ recording tech. To spotlight that, the only shooting equipment for the video was an iPhone XS and a CS Max (paired with a DJI Osmo Mobile 2 gimbal and Moment lenses).
As you’d expect, the theme of the video was probably to celebrate and exploit pride month as all companies do around this time in the year. But, then Apple did something mysterious. It deleted the video. Yes, it appears that the original video was erased from the company’s official YouTube channel after its release (and after a few news sources like Patently Apple, Apple Insider, and iPhone Italia reported on it).
But why? Apple made no announcement about the video or about the video’s deletion. In fact, the video was deleted within 24 hours of its uploading. The only trace of it ever existing is the fact that a few news sources reported on it and that a few unofficial sites & YouTube channels uploaded it to their pages. So without any word from Apple on the matter, there’s only speculation as to why the video was deleted.
Perhaps the video’s deletion was a mistake. Perhaps there was a mistake in the video. Perhaps there was a logistical or legal problem such as getting rights to show a person’s face or whatever else. Honestly, I don’t know why the video was deleted. I just know that the video was deleted and Apple’s being very quiet about it.
Maybe the video will be uploaded later. Maybe later even means later today. But until that happens, the video has been uploaded elsewhere. If you want to watch the video, you can watch it through this link here or you could watch it below (Thanks to an Apple fan account that uploaded the ad. Note that these sources may get deleted too).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZuhXS5-3T0
