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Rainbows in Twitter Are for Russians


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Lots of Twitter users have been seen adding rainbows to their avatars. This is how they show their support of Russia’s LGBT community during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

 

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Along with individual users, such giants as the Guardian, Google, and Channel 4 have also decided to add rainbow colors in support of Russia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities for the Winter Olympics. While the websites change their mastheads and landing pages, Twitter users “rainbowify” their avatars to demonstrate how they are opposed to Russia’s anti-gay propaganda legislation.

One of the first supporters, Rupert Myers, a barrister and Guardian columnist, initially put a rainbow on his Twitter for the Sochi Games and it quickly spread among users all over the world. The most interesting part is that he originally created the rainbow avatar as a joke, saying that “rainbowification” of social media can be seen as a form of slacktivism – minimal effort from people to assuage their guilt, without doing anything more significant to help.

Although Rupert Myers was very sarcastic about the whole thing at the very beginning, something happened that he couldn’t expect. The first of his tweets got an overwhelming response – apparently, people didn’t realize that he was actually criticizing the practice. Instead, they all wanted to be a part of something. It was their enthusiasm that really changed how Myers felt about it.

The columnist admitted he had become overwhelmed by the way that lots of users clearly wanted to send message, even the smallest one, and then he had started making them rainbow avatars too when they asked him. Rupert Myers says he is straight but very disappointed with what the Russian Federation has done.

Everyone now can add support to Russia’s LGBT community by simply adding a twibbon or an overlay for a Twitter avatar. Today there are many apps that can help do this: Gay Rainbow or LGBT Rights, for example. Myers says that he personally has gone from being quite cynical about these gestures to realizing that people really want to send a message. Now “rainbowification” can be seen as a cheerful and simple way to reach out to people and show support. So if you see rainbows all over Twitter – don’t worry. This is not Spring coming too early. It’s Winter Olympics are still on.

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