I looked into this once, but all I can remember is that supposedly there was an IKEA ad that featured the shark and trans colored bedding or something.
Looking into it more, it seems to be more of the opposite effect: Blahaj seems to have started as a meme on Tumblr (like so many memes do) that was picked up by the trans community in particular several years later, eventually to the point where it became associated with the community. This was further reinforced and acknowledged to some degree by IKEA featuring the shark in some of their LGBTQ themed promotional material - including one in support of the Swiss government legalizing gay marriage in 2021.
One early example from before Blahaj became a trans icon, from the year it was released, 2014:
It makes a lot of sense for a Tumblr meme to be adopted by the LGBTQ community, as the population there runs very… not straight in my experience. I went back after a number of years and found that my feed was almost exclusively filled with bisexual trans furries.
I looked into this once, but all I can remember is that supposedly there was an IKEA ad that featured the shark and trans colored bedding or something.
Looking into it more, it seems to be more of the opposite effect: Blahaj seems to have started as a meme on Tumblr (like so many memes do) that was picked up by the trans community in particular several years later, eventually to the point where it became associated with the community. This was further reinforced and acknowledged to some degree by IKEA featuring the shark in some of their LGBTQ themed promotional material - including one in support of the Swiss government legalizing gay marriage in 2021.
One early example from before Blahaj became a trans icon, from the year it was released, 2014:
It makes a lot of sense for a Tumblr meme to be adopted by the LGBTQ community, as the population there runs very… not straight in my experience. I went back after a number of years and found that my feed was almost exclusively filled with bisexual trans furries.