Colorbar

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Synonyms: XXX is love, rainbow bar
See also: header, icons, fanlisting
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Colorbars are a type of fanart that was popular on LiveJournal in the 00s, having spread to other sites such as Dreamwidth, InsaneJournal and more recently on Tumblr. Several pictures sharing a theme are lined up (often, but not always, shaded different colours), and a caption is placed underneath.

They are a unique way to adorn your profiles and demonstrate your love for a character or pairing, even as a means of asserting yourself as part of a particular fandom. Over time, colorbars are no longer exclusively used in bios or signatures, to also gain prominence as the header of your pages, dividers of your publications or fanworks, becoming a symbol to be celebrated by many fans.

Exclusive profiles for the serial, commissioned or themed creation of these colorbars have been made over the years. Your revival can be considered part of the current generation's nostalgia, with the fannish content of the past.

The earliest colorbar was in support of same-sex marriage, and simply consisted of a rainbow of six coloured squares, with the text "marriage is love". It spread as a meme.[1][2] The original post was Show Your Support by shared_boxers on 12 February 2004;[3] it received 10,777 replies before livejournal shut off comments.

For example, a colorbar of Naruto's Team 7 might say "Team 7 is ninja love." Colorbars have been made to express love for fandoms, characters, and pairings, as well as a wide variety of non-fannish subjects.

References

  1. ^ The Language of Fandom (accessed 16 July 2013)
  2. ^ Encyclopedia Dramatica: Colorbar (accessed 16 July 2013)
  3. ^ colorbar-crazy profile (accessed 16 July 2013)