There has been a recent movement of states with bad flags trying to improve their image. Illinois might be next and I'm quite excited about it as it's long overdue!

There's actually a few nice ones. Check out New Mexico, one of my personal favourites.

It's no California Bear, but it's up there

He's a Colorado hater though.

Look, let's be honest. Any change is "woke." There is this imaginary world that existed 80 years ago that they want to get back to, that was all sunshine and surplus, and they think that any change, particularly progressive change, is bad and "woke."

Edit: so I realized what instance I was in and that this isn't the appropriate place for that rant. So I will just say that I really appreciate the changes that are being made to flags, because it seems like the people coming up with the flags in the first place didn't really get it.

You think that's bad, check out some of the municipal flags in Japan, especially the ones designed in the early 2000s. The ones based on old clan symbols are fine, but those other ones look like some corpo bro from the 90s commissioned designs by saying "I want it to have more radical swoosh vibes!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipal_flags_of_T%C5%8Dhoku_region

Weird, it doesn’t feel corporate at all to me. A flat, simple design doesn’t immediately mean something’s corporate.

Contemporary corporate is extremely fitting to the Mormon majority.

I'm positive that's an igloo and this is the state flag of Alaska.

Since you haven't received a serious answer yet...

Utah is self reffered to as the Beehive State because Brigham Young originally wanted to name it "Deseret" from the Book of Mormon. "Deseret" in LDS teachings means "Honeybee". This was meant to show that the Mormon settlers were hardworking, industrious, and self reliant.

This obviously didn't fly for a ton of reasons and they didn't have much of a choice after the Union Army basically chased them halfway across the country and then took a foothold right alongside them in the territory to make sure they didn't establish a Theocratic state.

https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html?m=1

When settlers first got to Utah they imported bees and brought them in to help develop and cultivate. Since then, Utah has been known as the beehive state.

You're looking at the Minnesota flag through the eyes of someone with lots of good choices who didn't get what they want. I think there's no doubt that the current new flag is an upgrade from the old one.

Imo the new Minnesota flag is great. It's not as good as the original submission (and that sentiment might contribute to people not liking it as much), but it's still a good flag. The colors are nice, the design is distinct & readable, and you can even combine other flags with it (an obvious example being a pride flag) by replacing that light blue field.