MAP flag

Map flags are symbols, usually abstract, which represent minor attractions and mapness. They are most often created in the style of other pride flags. When talking about a map flag, people most commonly refer to Stenna’s seven stripe flag.

Appearance
The flag appeared on Tumblr, June 13, 2018. It was posted on a blog dont-mistake-our-geography. The original text of the post went as follows :

"ANTIS DO NOT INTERACT. The NOMAP community doesn't really have a pride flag, so in honor of pride month I designed a NOMAP pride flag. The top two stripes are blue to represent NOMAPs attracted to young boys. The bottom two stripes are pink to represent NOMAPS attracted to young girls. The inner stripes are yellow to represent childhood and general attraction to minors, regardless of their gender. The middle stripe is white to represent our innocence and unwillingness to offend. Please feel free to use this flag and make icons out of it etc! Hope you enjoy"

The flag initially went unnoticed by the map community, but antis found this post and harassed the owner of the blog to deactivation within the following couple of days. Their username was picked up by an anti, which eventually led some sources, such as Snopes to claim that the flag was a hoax. Tumblr maps noticed this flag when Stenna was already deactivating, and picked it up largely out of a feeling of protest and desire to support a fellow community member. In a short while a large amount of edits and flag variations appeared.

Stenna themself, who was a nonbinary questioning map, did not disappear after deactivating their account. For a month or two after that they co moderated a blog cryptidsagainstantis. That blog was eventually suspended by Tumblr, and Stenna hasn’t openly appeared in the community since.

Influence
As the most popular flag, Stenna’s flag spawned a lot of variations. They included thematic flags, such as ocean map flag, usually based off aesthetics or fandoms, or identity overlap flags, such as asexual map flag, typically featuring various queer identities.

Other map flags
Like any movement, maps periodically felt the need for a flag, and several versions have always coexisted.

2009 Newgon flag
This flag has emerged during a contest on an online forum Newgon. In a Newgon Wiki article edit dating 2021 there was an attempt to claim this flag as a “predecessor” of the Stenna’s flag, calling it the “initial concept” and referring to the 2018 flag as a “contrast version”. Visual differences between the two flags, as well as lack of communication between largely pro contact Newgon and largely anti contact map Tumblr make this attempt look rather questionable.

Japanese P-Pride flag
Proposed by a blogger okimochi-philia in 2016 this flag is connected to the Japanese map-adjacent movement LGBTPZN and color-picked from logos of a manga Ichigo Mashimaro.

Map and ally chevrons by Lecter
Created in december 2017, these symbols were meant to be used by maps and map allies. The map chevron fell out of use almost immediately, while the ally symbol had a short spike of popularity several months later.

Glimmer and Kankri’s shield flags
These flags were created soon after Stenna’s, in the second half of 2018, in response to a demand for an alternative. The initial concept belonged to Glimmer, while Kankri is responsible for the lime-colored redesign.

Kinderfolk flag
This flag was designed by Steve Diamond on the 19th of May, 2019. It was connected to the Kind/Kinder identity, a pun on the German word for “child” and the English adjective “kind”. It was meant to make a more “inclusive” alternative to Stenna’s flag, primarily used by Anti-Contact maps.

Acnomap flags
These flags were proposed in August 2020 specifically for the anti contact and non offending part of the map community. They received some criticism for what seemed like erasure of LGBT maps.

People still continue creating new flags for the map community, but it is unlikely that any of them will gain wide popularity.

Faux flags
A troll project Heartprogress that launched on 4Chan in 2016 used a flag with a double omega. This is not a real map flag and it is not connected to any map activism.