Rainbow Bondage Bear

Fan Theory
Fan Theory:	Rainbow Bondage Bears
Synonyms:	Teddy Mercury, Sugar Baby Bear, The Rainbow Bondage Bears, the bears, the bondage bears, RBB and SBB, RBB, SBB, The Harry Bears, Louis and Harry's little friends, the Larry bears
Origin:	When the bears started appearing onstage dressed up at concerts
Fandom(s):	One Direction
Dates:	(August 2014 - August 2016)
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Rainbow Bondage Bear and Sugar Baby Bear (2015)

Rainbow Bondage Bear aka RBB is a rainbow-colored teddy bear dressed in bondage gear that was prominently displayed at many One Direction concerts in 2014 and 2015.

The bear originated when a fan threw it on stage at a 1D concert in May 2014; someone (or multiple people) on tour kept the bear, added duct-tape bondage gear, and set it next to various pieces of stage equipment at future concerts where it was visible to fans. In 2015, a second, smaller bear was added to the display; fans call this bear Sugar Baby Bear aka SBB. RBB and SBB's costumes became increasingly elaborate, as props and furniture were added, frequently referencing queer culture.

RBB was a source of considerable fascination and glee for parts of One Direction fandom. Many fans photographed the bears, and spotting them at concerts became a long-running game.

While most fans initially believed the bears were set up by crewmembers as an in-joke with the fans, some came to believe that Harry and Louis themselves were responsible for the bears and used them to send messages to the fans about being in a secret relationship. The bears became a major source of "evidence" for the larries of 1D fandom.

Other fans believed that the bears had a connection to Ziam. Meanwhile, a large number of fans who did not believe that either Larry or Ziam were real believed that the 1D crew was actively trolling Larry fans. A number of fans expressed discomfort with the continued shenanigans, which they likened to queerbaiting.

RBB and friends have also inspired fanart and feature in some -- mainly Larry -- fanfics.

Bear Timeline

This section briefly enumerates Rainbow Bondage Bear activities.

2014

• April: Where We Are Tour (WWA) begins.
• May 30: A fan throws a rainbow bear in a headband at the stage in Manchester. It misses.
• June 6: The bear appears onstage in London, covered in
  

  RBB in tape bondage gear
  gaffer tape made to look like full bondage gear. The fans start calling it Rainbow Bondage Bear (RBB) because it is a rainbow bear in bondage gear.
• The bear is spotted at several more shows, attached to the stage scaffolding, still wearing the same bondage gear.
• August 12: A twitter account with display name "Mr.Bear" is created for the bear. A photo of the bear next to a sign saying to follow @bondagebear1d proves the account is legitimate.
• August 12-14: The twitter account posts lots of pictures of the bear with alcohol, vomiting into a toilet, watching Judy Garland movies, and having hangover coffees. Through all of this the bear is in bondage gear.
• August 14?: After two days the twitter account is taken down.
• August 29 or 30: After a two-week break, RBB appears onstage again, this time without bondage gear, in Chicago.
• October 5: Tour ends.

2015

• February 6: In Sydney, Australia, Josh Devine, the band's drummer, posts a picture to Instagram with the bear in the background.
• February 7: On The Road Again Tour (OTRA) begins.
• RBB appears at most OTRA concerts in various costumes.
• June 13: A second, smaller rainbow bear joins RBB in Brussels. Fans call this bear Sugar Baby Bear or SBB. SBB appears at many shows after this.
• July 9: North American leg starts; elaborate sets and tableaus are added for RBB and SBB.
• October 10: A new twitter account is created for the bears: @rbbsbbofficial. By December 19, it has 147K followers.[1]
• October 30: At a concert, RBB is holding a real iPhone labeled with a phone number. Fans call and send texts to the number during the concert, and texts appear on the phone's screen.
• October 31: On The Road Again Tour (OTRA) ends.
• December 2: A Texas radio station asks the band about the bears. Harry Styles says the crew was responsible.
• December 3: Entertainment Weekly publishes an interview with Josh Devine in which they asked about the bears. Josh says the crew was responsible.

2016

• January 20: RBB appears at a Baaba Maal/Blick Bassy concert in London.
• February 12: The @Rbbsbbofficial Twitter account deactivates.
• August 27: RBB appears at a Little Mix concert.

2017

• July: PopBuzz interviews Louis Tomlinson and asks him if he was responsible for the bears. Louis says he wasn't and doesn't know enough about the bears to say who did it.

Chronology of Fan Responses and Theories

This section describes how 1D fans reacted to and theorized about bear-related events. It also includes many details about the bears' concert appearances and bear twitter account activity that some fans used as a lens to interpret 1D-related celebrity news. The bears were a subject of fandom-wide speculation, but as time passed, larries became the main group of fans interested in theorizing about what message the bears were sending to the fandom. (Ziam believers, fewer in number, held similar views about the bears: see #Ziam below.)

Where We Are Tour

When fans spotted the bear again at the June 6 show, attached to the stage scaffolding and wearing electrical tape resembling bondage gear, they started calling it Rainbow Bondage Bear or RBB.

According to hiddensymposiarch, the bear was spotted at many shows between June and August. Searching twitter for this period shows many fan comments and bear sightings.

A twitter account for the bear was created August 12. The twitter account posted lots of pictures of the bear with alcohol, vomiting into a toilet, watching Judy Garland movies, and having hangover coffees. Through all of this the bear was in bondage gear. Fans started speculating that this account and the bear were made and run by crew and/or band members:

fan account for the teddy bear that is also called bondage bear? really, 1D crew, really?

melatrix, August 2014

why does rainbow bondage bear have a twitter. who on the 1d crew has too much time on their hands. (why am i pressing the follow button)

rainbowslinky, August 2014

Meanwhile, some fans screenshot the bear's twitter account, expecting it would not last. When the twitter account was deleted two days later, hiddensymposiarch posted the story of RBB so far, with pictures, and included several possible theories about why the twitter account was deleted. hiddensymposiarch was a larrie at the time, so the theories invoked 1DHQ, Big Gay War, and other larrie assumptions about what could be happening behind the scenes. However, hiddensymposiarch did not think Harry and Louis themselves were responsible for the bear or the twitter account. hiddensymposiarch's tumblr post had 219 notes.

The bear then reappeared onstage in late August 2014, this time wearing pink sparkly shoes instead of bondage gear. At that time, most fans thought it was a fun mascot for the Where We Are tour that showed queer acceptance and supported queer fans.

Australian, Asian, and African legs of the OTRA Tour

Twitter fans celebrate the return of RBB.

On February 6, 2015, the day before the OTRA tour started in Sydney, Australia, Josh Devine, the band's drummer, posted a picture to Instagram with the bear in the background. Because of this, some people initially thought that Josh could be behind the bears. Larries felt it was significant that this happened directly after Harry and Louis travelled on the same flight, an event Larries called lairport.^{[citation needed]}

Searching twitter reactions for February 6-7, 2015, shows a lot of 1D fans were very excited to hear the news that RBB had returned for the OTRA tour. (Many of them may have been reacting to concert photos posted by fans rather than Josh Devine's instagram.) Tumblr fans were excited, too; for example, tumblr user whiteknightonasteed posted a pre-concert photo of RBB with the caption "Rainbow bondage bear is here :)))))))))))))" and got 2000+ notes.

The OTRA tour had a bear at almost every show. RBB was frequently dressed as Freddie Mercury, garnering the nickname Teddy Mercury because of this. RBB showed up many times in different outfits, including in a Rainbow Is My Favourite Colour shirt in Brisbane and a pink bathrobe with a Freddie Mercury mustache in Singapore.

• 

  Bearhemian Rhapsody

• 

  Teddy Mercury in Heathrow

• 
• 

  Teddy Mercury in a crown holding a pride flag

• 

  Teddy Mercury riding a Unicorn

A couple of dates during the Asia leg did not feature the bear, which was thought to be due to the size of the stadiums (too small to fit the equipment RBB was normally on).

European Leg of OTRA Tour

During the European leg of the OTRA tour, fans really started to notice the bears and to speculate about why they were dressed the way they were, starting most of the theories.

RBB reappeared on the first day of the European Tour in Cardiff on June 5, 2015 in a leather jacket. Fans on twitter were excited that he reappeared, and a fan photo posted to tumblr the day of the concert got over three thousand notes in a few days.

Sugar Baby Bear's first appearance in Brussels (June 13, 2015)

On June 13, 2015 in Brussels, a smaller rainbow bear appeared alongside RBB. Initially fans on twitter were joking about RBB having a child. However, by late June twitter fans were starting to refer to the smaller bear as "Sugar Baby Bear" or SBB, referencing Sugar Daddy relationships.

SBB showed up the same day No Control and 18 were performed for the first time. At the next show (June 16), the bears were dressed in the same outfits again. Fans theorized that this was because SBB’s arrival had been overshadowed by the two songs being performed for the first time. The bears were always at concerts together from that point on.

On June 27 in Helsinki, the bears were dressed as firemen which was theorized to be related to the One Direction song “Fireproof.”

RBB and SBB in Firemen outfits in Helsinki (June 27, 2015)

North American Leg of the OTRA Tour

Bigger Sets

The North American leg started on 9 July 2015 in San Diego. The bears moved from having outfits to being presented with props in set tableaux. The elaborateness of the setup ramped up right as the fandom really started speculating^{[citation needed]} about what message -- if any -- the bears might be communicating. Some fans believed that the sets became more elaborate in response to the fandom's piqued interest and theorizing.

Some fans started wondering who could have the money and/or time to keep the bears going. Circa August 24, fans identified a watch RBB was wearing as a $7500 Rolex.

RBB and SBB in a bigger set in Minneapolis (July 26, 2015)

RBB and SBB dressed up as royals in Pittsburgh (August 2, 2015)

July 2015 is when speculation that one or several band members were behind the bears really picked up and larries began to believe that Harry and Louis were using the bears as avatars (RBB=Harry, SBB=Louis) to communicate with their fans. One reason that larries decided that Louis must be SBB is that Louis is shorter than Harry.

Arguments for the band member theory included the fact that it had to be someone traveling with the band to be able to put the bears up every show. Larries believed that it was unlikely the crew had the time or money to plan RBB and SBB; in their opinion, the planner had to be someone who could afford the huge expensive sets, and have enough time to research, buy, and set them up.^{[citation needed]} This narrowed the pool of likely candidates so that members of One Direction were the only people larries really considered. (Note that this theory assumes that the bear set pieces were not authorized and paid for by the tour or band. It also assumes that the band members had a lot of free time.) See #Cost for more.

RBB&SBB Connections with Babygate and Larry Stylinson

Larries started speculating that RBB and SBB might be about Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles's supposed forbidden relationship, aka Larry Stylinson, following the announcement that Louis was becoming a father. This was revealed via unnamed sources on July 14, to the utter dismay and/or disbelief of Larry believers. See: Babygate.

The next concert, on July 15 in Seattle, did not feature Rainbow Bondage Bear and Sugar Bear. beccasafan's RBB resource website notes that "The Hello Kitty chair and horse were all alone." Larries speculated that these two events -- the bears missing the concert and the pregnancy announcement -- were related. The stuffed horse prop in particular was read as a symbol of babygate. obviouslymeandyou noted that in the horse's first appearance (July 9 concert) SBB was seated on the horse and RBB was "supportive"; because SBB is assumed by larries to be Louis, this setup was retroactively interpreted as Louis being forced to lie about becoming a father while Harry was standing by to support him during this trying time.

For the next show on July 17 in Vancouver, RBB was reading k.d. lang's book "All You Get is Me". k.d. lang is a Canadian singer-songwriter who came out as a lesbian in the early 1990s, which was unusual at the time. Unsatisfied with the simplest explanation, Larries investigated the contents of the book itself and drew parallels between lang's personal history and their belief that Harry and Louis were undergoing similar struggles. Amazon's summary of the book notes that she had to come "to terms with a sexuality that made her an unwitting poster girl for the lesbian and gay community."

Some fans began to really associate RBB and SBB with Harry and Louis on August 27, 2015 in Cleveland. According to larries, paparazzi had photographed Harry with ice cream and Louis with McDonald's fries the previous day. (lrambling, an anti-larrie, was skeptical about the larrie timeline and couldn't verify when Harry and Louis were seen out with ice cream/McDonald's.) On the 27th RBB was holding a plastic ice cream cone, and SBB was in a McDonalds french fries container. Larries also took note of the green sticker on a cup held by RBB and the blue sticker on SBB's fries container, and felt this meant one bear was being identified as Harry (green) and the other as Louis (blue). Blue and green are very significant colors for larries: see Larry Is Real/Theories.

Blue and green stickers would reappear many times on or near the bears. Some stickers were smiling and some were frowning, and some larries read the stickers' expressions as a sign from Harry and Louis about their current mood or situation. beccasafan's website tracked categories for sticker mood, but didn't provide definitive conclusions about their potential meanings: for example, see the entries for the blue mad sticker at the London concert, ^{Archived version} and red, green, and blue stickers at the Toronto concert, ^{Archived version}.

beccasafan's website also made note of when orange and red stickers appeared on the bears. These other colors don't appear to be discussed as much, but at least one webpage theorized that a red sticker on the back of a chair was a reference to Liam Payne having broken up with his girlfriend, who someone (ziam fans?) thought might be a beard. (Liam's mic color was red.)

RBB reading a Bette Davis biography in Philadelphia

On September 1, 2015 RBB was holding a Bette Davis biography. Bette Davis is a gay icon. Larries dug deeper, drawing a connection from the book to Bette Davis' real-life contract issues and the rumors about her secret sexuality, to their own belief that Harry and Louis were obligated to stay in the closet by an abusive contract with 1DHQ.

Larries also researched clues from the physical copy that RBB was holding, a library book with various stickers on it, including one that read "HCPL." They thought it looked hand-made and hypothesized that the book could have come from a library sale. Fandom speculation led to two main theories of where the book came from: Holmes Chapel and Harris County. The library in Holmes Chapel (Harry's hometown, in England) is referred to as the "Holmes Chapel Library" not the "Holmes Chapel Public Library." Harris County, Texas is where 1D had filmed their Drag Me Down video a couple weeks previous, so fans felt that this library book was another clue connecting the bears to the band members. (Googling "hcpl library" shows results for other U.S. libraries as well, such as "Hartford County Public Library" and "Harrison County Public Library". However, the Harris County Public Library is the first result.)

On September 3, 2015 in Buffalo, one of the picture frames had a photo of actress Judy Garland, another well-known gay icon (see Wikipedia). RBB's twitter account had made references to Judy Garland before.

Also appearing in a picture frame at the Buffalo concert was Ken Dodd. Larries believed that this was another hint at abusive contracts, as Ken was tried in the 1980s for tax evasion because he was using children in his show and not paying them. This was the second concert in a row where Larries found references to legal battles, which they deemed significant.

beccasafan's website listed a second factoid larries thought was significant: that the Ken Dodd trial had been led by Brian Leveson, who was later put in charge of the inquiry into the British press phone-hacking scandal. Larries drew links from this tidbit to the fact that Louis had just told a fan that he lost his phone after their last concert. At the same concert, RBB was also holding what larries identified as a Sony Ericsson phone; larries connected that prop to the factoid that One Direction was signed to Sony and speculated that RBB was trying to tell fans that photos may have been leaked from Louis' lost phone.

RBB reading "Invitation to a Royal Wedding"

On September 5, 2015 in Montreal, Canada, the bears were reading a book titled Invitation to a Royal Wedding, with a cover featuring an engagement photo of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Prince Charles and Princess Diana were commonly referred to as The Royal Couple, and suffered from rumors of unwanted pregnancies and secret relationships; larries thought this was a reference to babygate. Prince Charles also had ties to a phone-leak scandal. Larries, who also used the term "Royal Couple" to refer to Louis and Harry, believed this was significant, as it was the third concert in a row with apparent references to legal battles.

Larries also identified other framed pictures used on the same event as two drag queens: Foo Foo Lamarr (Frank Pearson) of Manchester, UK, and Mado Lamotte (Luc Provost) of Montreal.

At the September 24 concert in London the bears were dressed as brides, seated with a framed photo of English entertainer Larry Grayson that was autographed "Love Larry". According to Wikipedia, Grayson was "often cited as one of the first gay entertainers to have enjoyed mass appeal, although he never made any reference to his sexuality." The Larries freaked out because it seemed like direct confirmation that Larry was real and/or Louis and Harry were behind the bears. One larrie masterpost described the bridal set piece as an act of rebellion by Harry and Louis against 1DHQ preventing them from going public about their relationship, and described the disappearance of the Larry Grayson photo after the concert started as an act by 1DHQ reasserting control. Another aspect of the tableaux that interested larries was that it took place only a few days before what some believed was Harry and Louis' wedding anniversary: September 28. Many larries on twitter remarked upon the date, which they thought was not a coincidence.

Meanwhile, anti-larries thought that Larry Grayson was meant to be a reference to the Larry ship, but not a sign that Larry was real.

The next book RBB was seen reading was All of Me by Claire Richards, at the October 4 Manchester concert. Larries believed that the details of Claire's biography were meant to reflect Harry and Louis' experience: being in a band, feeling incredible amounts of media pressure, and having a bad relationship with Simon Cowell. Claire also suffered from an eating disorder, and 1D fans had speculated that an ED may have affected members of the band in the past.^{[citation needed]} (Harry, Louis, and Niall all have canonical eating disorder tags on AO3, and there was a particularly famous Larry fic called Fading, in which Louis had an eating disorder. Fan discussions not about fic are harder to find [help?], but a few tweets indicate there were rumors about Louis. The only news reports about a 1D member having an eating disorder are about Zayn Malik.)

On October 10, 2015 someone created a new twitter for the bears: @rbbsbbofficial. Josh Devine was the first person to follow it. Fandom determined that the account was legitimate because it posted new behind the scenes pictures of the bears. Once the account was discovered, many fans immediately tweeted at the account; some of the tweets mentioned Larry, though most did not. @rbbsbbofficial would become an important source for larrie theories, especially after the tour ended and the bears disappeared from public view.

Countdown

On October 20, which some have called "the most chaotic day in 1D fandom", One Direction cancelled their first show ever in Belfast, the "Perfect" video dropped unexpectedly, Louis tweeted about the song "Home," and it was announced that Louis would be an X Factor judge in 2016.

Many fans, especially Larries, saw some or all of those events as related.

Fans expressed many theories about the unusual cancellation, which was originally said to be due to Liam being sick. Liam later stated that it was because of mental health issues following a painful break-up.

In typical fashion, some Larries believed that the cancellation might be Larry-related:

what actually probably happened has to do with babygate. when the babygate stunt first started it was originally just going to be that louis had got some girl pregnant and then they were going to end the stunt by having louis take a paternity test and oops he isn’t actually the father. that is why louis “agreed” to the stunt in the first place. long story short the reason why we believe belfast was actually canceled is because louis was told the news that they will be continuing the stunt and not going to original way of ending it before the child is born.

tobesotommo, 2020

Many Larries also interpreted the song lyrics of "Home" (fairly standard love song fare) to be Larry-related: about realizing one’s sexuality (“so many nights I thought it over, told myself I kind of liked her but there was something missing in her eyes”) and finding someone who understands you (“still high with a little feeling I see the smile as it starts to creep in it was there I saw it in your eyes.”)

Also on October 20, the rbbsbbofficial twitter account started a five-day countdown, posting images every day which symbolized numbers (a hand with 5 fingers, the number 4 on a calculator, a phone screen indicating 1 message, etc.) whipping those who were following into a frenzy. The bears did not appear at the October 21, 22, or 23 concerts. (It seems the bears also hadn't appeared at a concert since October 12, according to beccasafan's website.)

On October 23, @rbbsbbofficial's header changed to a picture of RBB wearing glasses, in which some fans believed they could see a reflection of a shirt similar to those Louis sometimes wore. Fans noticed and tweeted at rbbsbbofficial, and the header was taken down. According to larries, subsequent pictures of RBB and SBB wearing reflective surfaces were all deliberately blurred.

Blue and green spotlights focused on RBB and SBB at the October 29, 2015 show. Because larries believe that blue signifies Louis and green signifies Harry, some larries believed that this confirmed the connection between the bears and Harry/Louis.

On October 25, the last day of the countdown... nothing of significance happened. @rbbsbbofficial posted an image of a sign which read "Danger, bears are coming out of hibernation", and the bears reappeared at the concert that evening. Many fans were upset that the countdown had not led to Larry coming out, Larry getting engaged, the announcement that Louis was not going to be a father after all, or any other revelations or significant interactions between Harry and Louis.

However, in a move consistent with many conspiracy theorists, some simply shifted the goalposts to keep the "sign" significant. Some believed that it might just be the start of the coming out process, or theorized retrospectively that the countdown might have been to 5 months or even 5 years:

And back in October when nothing else happened on day 0, I was also so confused because I’d had such high expectations and nothing happened.

But this, the possibility of the countdown being about the number of months actually left, it’s not only something that makes sense given all the other very coded nonsense rbb does, it makes sense based on other facts and assumptions we’ve already had, about contract end dates and the smear campaign progression and the weird ass cancelled show.

This makes sense to me. And it feels good to feel like I know where I stand again after a full day of me floundering and wondering whether I’m a terrible person and a bad feminist for being a Larrie.

sycocaneatmyshorts, 2016

We looked at the countdown all wrong, rbb counted down the months left for babygate. They warned this would happen, and we didn't notice.

njhloverz, 2016

5 months later:

[izouie:] Wasn't lairport, Freddie denial, and Larry coming out suppose to happen on the 25th?

Awkward for you guys. No wonder rbb deactivated.

izouie, March 2016

5 years later:

WAIT SO APPARENTLY THERE WAS A COUNTDOWN FOR RBB AND SBB BUT THE COUNTDOWN WASNT FOR MONTHS IT WAS FOR (5) YEARS

superbloomai, 2020

so if the rbb sbb countdown was for years and not days, i’m wondering if maybe the bears will come back but for a goodbye, one last push of reassurance. maybe they waited to come back til now bc they knew it would be ending so they could tell us that?? thinking

lwtnewangel, 2020

Ziam tinhats, however, believed the countdown did have an effect:

So many larries ignore that the rbb&sbb countdown was about the sophiam breakup, they are like "the countdown happen but it sadly led to nothing 🤧". Yes it did babes, it led to one less beard!

gaylortommo, 2020

Phone Number and Tour's End

On October 30th, the second to last day of tour, RBB was holding a real iPhone, hooked to a battery, with a label that had a phone number on it. It was actually the real number for the phone, which still worked as of 4/11/21. Fans called and texted during the concert and texts were visible on the lock screen as they came in.

Some Larries speculated that this was another part of Harry/Louis not being able to say anything about being gay/closeted/in a secret relationship/in an abusive contract/trapped in a fake baby conspiracy, but letting the fans say it for them. Many ‘Larry is real’ texts were visible on the screen.

After the concert @rbbsbbofficial tweeted a screenshot showing 11K text messages.

The next night, October 31, 2015, the bears were in Halloween costumes and the number was still there.

At the October 31 show, the last show of the tour, all the band members shared hugs, including Louis and Harry. It was one of the first times they touched at all or even acknowledged each other since 2013, which predictably led to a fandom-wide freak-out. @rbbsbbofficial tweeted its first text post after the concert, a goodbye and a promise to return. Fans took comfort in RBB's tweet. (In August 2015 1D had announced a hiatus, which many people concluded was an unofficial breakup.) Tumblr larrie louisandthealien thought the account had the same writing style as Harry. Another tumblr larrie tried to draw a connection between the H/L stage hug and the RBB tweet:

Don’t you realize? The first real hug in a long time and the first time RBB tweets something with text, not just images. And the tweet was from both RBB (Harry) and SBB (Louis). Things are changing. It’s all getting better.

Post OTRA Tour

On November 4, 2015 @rbbsbbofficial tweeted a picture of RBB buckled into a red seat. RBB followers speculated that RBB was saying to "buckle up."

On November 15, @rbbsbbofficial "liked" its first tweet. Tweeted by @proudoflarry, it said “larry ok” as a reply to Tweet 24. Larries speculated that it might mean “Larry is real, ok?” or confirming that Larry was behind RBB/SBB. Fans then tweeted "larry ok" at @rbbsbbofficial and at Louis Tomlinson; fewer fans tweeted this message at Harry Styles.

The tweet got unliked on November 19, the next time the twitter account was updated. Larries were undeterred. A tumblr fan posted a jokey memorial. Another tumblr fan made an anniversary post about the liked tweet a year later.

Also on November 19, @rbbsbbofficial updated its location to Los Angeles. According to tumblr user louisandthealien, the location update coincided with 1D landing in LA to do Jimmy Kimmel Live! (However, the timing may not be correct because 1D were in Burbank to tape the Ellen show on November 17th or 18th.) @rbbsbbofficial posted photos of RBB with several celebrity stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, all gay icons, but only in the section that was shut down for the One Direction street performance that night, according to larries. RBB visited Judy Garland, The Village People, and Liberace. SBB visited Liza Minnelli, and larries thought it was especially significant that she happens to be Judy Garland's daughter (Liza Minnelli is also a gay icon).

That night on Jimmy Kimmel, there was an entire sketch where Kimmel asked 1D fans to follow an Instagram account for “the 1d potato” and made fun of fans for complying. The majority of the interview was about how crazy their fans are and plays into the “all 1d fans are tweens” trope. Upset and angry fans felt disrespected.

Later that night, @rbbsbbofficial seemed to acknowledge the fan response, tweeting a picture of an angry RBB and SBB, seated with a box of instant mashed potatoes, with RBB holding a potato masher and SBB wearing a "potato chef" hat. According to beccasafan, fans were specifically discussing mashing the potato. It seems that @rbbsbbofficial being responsive to fandom social media discussion may have been interpreted by larries as evidence that @rbbsbbofficial must also be seeing larrie speculation (also publicly discussed on social media) and therefore that any larrie symbols deployed by rbbsbbofficial were done with knowledge of their meaning. (Meanwhile, some twitter fans started tweeting "chicken stuffed with mozzarella wrapped in parma ham with a side of homemade mash" at @rbbsbbofficial, something mentioned in an interview years before that was widely considered by larries to be evidence for Harry and Louis being in a romantic relationship in real life.)

Walk Like A Man Video

On November 28, @rbbsbbofficial posted a picture of RBB watching Divine's Walk Like A Man video on a laptop. Larries had been freaking out because rumors surfaced that Louis was seen shopping for baby clothes with Briana (the baby's mother) after weeks of no celebrity gossip about Louis' baby, but they felt reassured by RBB tweeting soon after, theorizing that it was not a coincidence. Larries investigated the song itself and scrutinized the laptop for clues: The song is about a woman lying, and the video was paused at the lyric “she’s telling dirty lies.” (Larries believed this meant that Briana was lying about Louis being the father.) All the letters on the keyboard were blurred except those that spelled out RAINBOW. Larries also identified all the bookmarks in the browser's bookmarks bar, most of which were gay culture references or social media sites.

December

On December 1, @rbbsbbofficial updated its profile image to Divine; larries believed this was intended to communicate something to fans. Larries speculated that Harry tweeting "I have this some of the time" shortly after the profile picture change was not a coincidence. Harry's social media presence is often somewhat cryptic, and he has been known to tweet lyrics, so fans thought it might be a lyric from Hozier's "Cherry Wine". Larries thought that the preceding line in the song confirmed their belief that Harry was connected to the RBB twitter account. The lyric: "And it’s worth it, it’s divine."

On December 2, for the first time the band was asked about the bears. Larries scrutinized their reactions in the video and concluded that they became silent and briefly glanced at Louis. Harry said that he believed the crew kept it after being thrown on stage and taped to a scaffolding. Liam said that he didn't even know the bears existed. Larries speculated that this was unlikely, given how obvious they felt the bears were on stage. Tumblr user bulletprooflarry wrote a popular post five months later mocking what they saw as a very poor attempt at lying when put on the spot: What is the Rainbow Bear, Harry?.

According to tumblr user louisandthealien and beccasafan's website, on December 3, 2015, the RBB twitter account posted a "Throwback Thursday" picture of RBB dressed as Freddie Mercury from a show in South Africa. Fans immediately speculated about the meaning of the post and initially thought it was a message about the set list at an upcoming 1D television appearance, but then a few hours later, another interview denying that the band was behind the bears was published, so they reinterpreted the tweet to be about the interview. The interview was with Josh Devine, who specifically mentioned that fans read "hidden meaning in things" and there was no hidden meaning in the bears. Larries, who believe that band members post selfies as warnings to larries ("warning selfies") when news that contradicts larrie theories will soon be published, speculated that RBB's "Throwback Thursday" photo was meant as another warning to fans that misinformation would soon be published and that larries should ignore Josh Devine's interview.

On the same day, the official Twitter account updated its profile image to Freddie Mercury in a crown.

File:Freddie Mercury in a Crown.jpg

@Rbbsbbofficial's profile picture

Larries later speculated that this was based on the YouTuber freddieismyqueen’s name (despite images of Freddie Mercury wearing a crown during concerts being common).

On December 7, @rbbsbbofficial updated its location to "Home, soon to return....!" Because Harry had just arrived back in the UK, while Louis was known to be en route to the UK, Larries speculated that this meant two locations: RBB (Harry) was home, and SBB (Louis) was soon to return home. On December 8, Louis tweeted the house emoji, and on December 9 RBB's location was updated to "London"; larries were thrilled, thinking that this proved a link between Louis and the @rbbsbbofficial account. A number of fans tweeted "home, soon to return" directly at Louis' twitter handle. In a popular tumblr post, a larrie described the sequence of events and excitedly concluded "I LOVE SCIENCE".

On December 12, @rbbsbbofficial updated its profile to The Judy Garland Christmas Album cover and the location to "RBB residence". Larries initially thought the bears just loved Judy for being an icon/code name; however some fans pointed out that, among the 100+ recordings by Garland, there were two called "I'm Just Wild About Harry," and "Skip to My Lou" (whose lyrics include "But if I do it's up to you, to let me dance with Harry") -- though neither appeared on her Christmas album.

RBB's media collection

On December 18, @rbbsbbofficial tweeted a photo of its paw putting a Hairspray DVD into a DVD player, with its media collection visible in the background. Larries researched, documented, and theorized about many of the items visible in the picture. A few of the books appeared to be same ones seen with the bears at concerts (the Bette Davis, Judy Garland, and Danny La Rue biographies), while others referenced the same icons RBB had referenced before (Divine, Freddie Mercury, Liberace). Larries linked a few other titles directly to their theories about babygate and Harry and Louis being forced to stay in the closet: Hotel Babylon and Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. Beccasafan's website indicated that Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity (a nonfiction book debunking what it says in the title) could be a reference to the media lying about Larry; about Hotel Babylon (a nonfiction book about the hotel industry) beccasafan said "The Daily Mail has previously published an article from Pop Babylon on how to manufacture a boy band. Part of the plot involves a pregnancy with an unknown father."

On December 24, Louis' birthday, @rbbsbbofficial changed its profile to a picture of Divine holding a birthday cake for the day. Larries thought the profile change was a way for Harry to communicate Happy Birthday to Louis, because management was preventing him from tweeting it. (In reality, Liam also failed to tweet Happy Birthday to Louis, leaving Niall as the only 1D member allowed to date Louis publicly.)

On December 25, @rbbsbbofficial's profile changed again to an image of Army of Lovers, a campy pro-gay-rights Swedish band. (First, larries thought this was significant for confirming that the previous profile change was about Louis's birthday, even though a 1D-related account acknowledging Louis' birthday is entirely reasonable and does not prove anything about Larry. @rbbsbbofficial also seems to have acknowledged Harry's birthday, which larries thought was significant, but Liam and Niall's birthdays didn't happen during the few months the account was active, and Zayn had already left the band. @rbbsbbofficial may also have been playing to its audience's interests.) According to Wikipedia, Army of Lovers' name is an allusion to a documentary film on U.S. gay rights activism in the 1970s, which in turn is an allusion to the Sacred Band of Thebes. Larries dug deeper, drawing a connection between bandmember Alexander Bard, and 1D, postulating that 1D could have met him in 2014 when he was a judge on Swedish Idol. In addition, Army of Lovers has a single titled "Love Me Like a Loaded Gun," which Larries thought could possibly be a reference to the 1D song "No Control".

2016: Babygate, Redux

On January 4, 2016, @rbbsbbofficial changed its profile picture to a screenshot of Grace Jones saying, "This has been going on too long already," while being mistreated on the Russell Harmy Barty Show. Larries interpreted this profile update as a complaint about babygate, specifically in response to "Briana's family and fans" complaining about Louis abandoning Briana and dating Danielle, and claiming that Louis was like his biological father (who left his mother 10 days after Louis’ birth).

On January 18, @rbbsbbofficial changed its profile to the lead singer of the band Erasure, Andy Bell, who is openly gay. Fans then started mentioning Andy Bell on twitter. When someone asked him if he knew what rainbow bondage bear was, he said, "don't know honey just saw it!" He then retweeted a tweet from Rainbow Direction's twitter account (possibly this tweet[2]?). (As of 2021, the retweet is not visible on his timeline.) Another fan tweeted, "We turned @AndyBell_info into a larrie 🐻 nice," and he replied, "proud to be a Larrie X" This tweet received many excited replies, though it is unclear if Andy Bell knew what a larrie was.

On January 20 @rbbsbbofficial tweeted a picture of RBB putting an Erasure CD into its CD player. Other CDs were visible in the photo, and larries speculated about possible connections between the CDs and Larry. It was also suggested that the clock on the DVD player was a reference to Harry's birthday (02:01).

On January 22 @rbbsbbofficial tweeted a picture of RBB reading The Little Book of Calm. Because Louis's son Freddie Reign Tomlinson was born the previous day, which was upsetting to larries, larries believed that this was a message for them to stay calm and not worry, because the baby would turn out to be a PR stunt. Many larries on twitter were counseling each other to follow RBB's advice and stay calm.

RBB and SBB reading "Coping With Diarrhoea"

On January 27, @rbbsbbofficial tweeted a picture of RBB and SBB with a bathroom tableau--RBB on the toilet reading a book fans thought was homemade (titled Coping with Diarrhoea) and SBB ready with a toilet brush. Fans thought it seemed like a repeat of the set piece at the Toronto concert. Fans were also excited to see happy green and blue stickers in the scene. Beccasafan described this tweet as occuring "amidst fandom chaos" related to babygate, Harry switching management companies, and rumors of Harry's solo career. The larrie interpretation of this photo seems to be that Harry and Louis were happy and that they were working to "clean up" the bullshit being spread by PR (the truth that Louis had a baby).

Ending

@rbbsbbofficial appeared to celebrate Harry's 22nd birthday on February 1, updating its icon to a picture of ducks on a rainbow ("two little ducks" is apparently bingo slang for 22), then tweeting a picture of RBB and SBB sitting next a birthday cake with the number "22" on it, then tweeting a picture of the bears messily eating the cake.

louisandthealien noted, "This is the first time SBB is EVER pictured without glasses and the first time since the very early days that RBB does not have a costume on. This is also the first time in several posts that SBB has not been held up by strings (which some fans interpret as him being a ‘puppet’)." Beccasafan also noted the bears were holding hands and described the meaning of the tableau as "blatant", apparently interpreting it to mean that Harry and Louis were now free of disguises or artifice, able to be together. louisandthealien pointed to a news item the same day that all four 1D members had officially left Modest! Management (the PR team that many Larries blamed as perpetrators of H&L’s supposed closeting and other PR stunts such as babygate).

Although posting a birthday cake on a band member's birthday might seem like a straightforward message, some Larries theorized it to be a reference to 1D’s 2011 performance at the G.A.Y. club where Louis got cake smashed all over him. Others took the fact that the bears were “dirty”/”destroyed” to mean that a) Harry and Louis would no longer need to use them or b) they would have to be washed, which referenced a Larry theory headcanon that the day H&L came out would be “laundry day” (referencing a 2014 Harry tweet which read "it all comes out in the wash").

Not long after the bears tweeted, Harry tweeted, "I don't know about you but I'm feeling 22," which some larries thought was connected to the RBB updates (possibly just because of the timing?)^{[citation needed]} even though it was a reference to a well-known Taylor Swift song, Harry had indeed just turned 22, and other 1D members had also referenced the song on their own 22nd birthdays.

On February 12, 2016 the @Rbbsbbofficial Twitter account was deactivated. It was then reported that on February 10 and 11 bigger Larry blogs on tumblr started receiving messages from shady anons that they should screenshot the bear's twitter. alltheselights' initial response indicated that anon asks like this were a daily occurrence, so confirmation bias might be in play. It is unclear how many tumblr accounts received these messages.^{[citation needed]}

Some fans hypothesized that @Rbbsbbofficial's deletion was a sign of imminent coming out:

Le compte RBB et SBB est supprimé. Donc larry n'a plus besoin du compte. [the RBB and SBB account was deleted. Therefore larry doesn't need the account anymore]

1DHQ ont tweeté une video en "remerciant" les fans. [1DHQ tweeted a video "thanking" the fans.]

COMING OUT ?

miniji07, 2016

but yall the modest website is updating

1dhq shared a "thank you" video and now rbb deactivated is larry coming out or what

definelarry, 2016

Ok, so Modest is down & out. 1DHQ has a good-bye video up. And RBB has deleted because the boys don't need a substitute voice anymore. Cool!

LoveActually92, 2016

But Larry did not come out. The band went on break, and RBB/SBB weren't seen for months.

On August 27, 2016, RBB appeared on the stage of Little Mix's final show of their tour in Newmarket, England. This was the last time RBB was spotted. Larries hypothesized a link with the fact that, on August 20, Louis had liked a picture of Little Mix performing, and that Louis had arrived back in the UK on August 22.

General Comments on Theories

Larry

Larries came to believe that RBB was a coded message sent from Harry and Louis to their fans, indicating that Larry is Real and that Babygate was a conspiracy.

skepticalarrie posted her own opinion about the original purpose of RBB in a popular tumblr post:

Is rbb&sbb related to babygate? No, I don’t think it’s directly related. Although I fully believe rbb&sbb threw shade on babygate, I also think you can totally believe Louis is not the father and have no clue about the bears or Larry, but the other way around is complicated. Have you ever asked yourself what the hell was rbb&sbb? They were ✨communicating✨. In a very unusual way. They were educating, the countless references about gay culture and about the industry….

The bears were never there to prove larry is real, they were there to show us that closeting is a real thing. To show us how there was a war happening behind the scenes, how they literally couldn’t talk about it and how they couldn’t even talk to each other.

They were communicating. Believing the bears is believe they communicate with us.

skepticalarrie, 2020

Other fans, including Anti-Larries, believed that it was an elaborate prank, probably meant to make fun of Larries. Some fans expressed doubt about how much the person behind the bears understood about how the bears were being interpreted by the fandom:

we’ve seen over and over again that people just do not grasp how serious a thing Larrie is. I doubt Louis is telling everyone on the crew how fans tormented his girlfriend.... the person running the bears probably didn’t know people were making them about Larrie until the second twitter. It didn’t start until after the first twitter was over. So stuff like the larry picture at the wedding, all that was before the second twitter when they probably hadn’t heard much of anything about Larry and the bears. After that point, they definitely did some baiting, but I do find it very easy to believe that they just didn’t know what they were doing.

lrambling, 2017

But yes it was really easy to game the Larries - they had a twitter and a phone where you could leave all kinds of desperate messages about what kind of signs you wanted the bears to send you and what “signs” and things you enjoyed they were doing. They weren’t in a vacuum. They directly sought the fan reaction and played off it. It’s just like that Ketih Calder guy, or Dax Holt or Richard Lawson. People genuinely don’t have any idea how seriously Larries take things. They assume it’s just fun. It’s really really hard for outsiders to grasp how deeply Larries take everything.

thelarrative, 2016

tellmethisisnotlove created a masterpost about "Coincidental" Harry and Louis Links to RBB and the RBB twitter which listed over 50 supposed links, for example the blue and green stickers on RBB's feet. In multiple theories, blue and green represent Louis and Harry because of their eye colors and the color coding on their mics. Thus they believed that the bears were signs sent by Harry and Louis, and indicated the status of their relationship:

The fact that the fandom was so paranoid and so many anons where saying that Louis and Harry broke up or that they don't support each other. But look at RBB ! Giving us a glimpse of their status : blue and green smiley stickers, both happy, they are alright

idareyoutotakealook, 2016

Ziam

Some Ziam tinhats saw RBB (and many other events taken as "Larry proof" by Larries) to be about their own preferred oppressed closeted gay couple, as evidenced by the speculation that the RBB countdown in 2015 did in fact count down to something (the Liam/Sophia breakup), and more:

You can’t use rbb and sbb as proof and ignore the bg AND ziam side

hsxxxlt, 2020

Some Larries must have forgotten that rbb and sbb hinted at Ziam too.

GUCCIXMIA, 2020

Some larries cannot accept the fact that the bears are also for ziam while rbb one time sat there with a tag that says "ziam levine stylinson" lmao some people are pretending to be blind.

[retweeted with comment] [@hyuckilsten, July 21, 2018:] i think one of the funniest things i’ve ever had to witness was that time rbb had that big countdown and all the larries were all excited expecting it to be elounor ending or babygate ending and when it turned out to be a countdown for sophiam ending they were so confused

aeipathyforher, 2018

Ziam fans seem to subscribe to the theory that Louis was behind RBB, and was using it to hint at the state of the Zayn/Liam relationship, in much the same way that Larries analysed it to decipher the supposed state of Louis/Harry:

RBB was wearing a Batman costume on the 5th (hinting at Liam/Ziam) and Louis was sad about it [...]

Yellow happy sticker under the left foot. Ziam will be okay. Or never broke up in the first place. But anyway Ziam was always included in the tales of RBB and SBB.

1dziamboy, date?

Queerbaiting?

Many 1D fans criticized the RBB shenanigans as being queerbaiting:

i miss rbb though, he was so cute. the queerbaiting had gone too far though there was only one way out of it

brianasbabymama, 2016

6) non-larries should be way more angry about the queerbaiting shit behind rbb and the boys allowing it

ultkaiyong, 2016

Sometimes Larries themselves admitted that, if RBB weren't about Larry being real, then it would be queerbaiting:

So last night when I saw the picture I felt so utterly betrayed because if I was wrong then the bears were deliberate manipulation/queerbaiting that I, despite trying to remain impartial at the start, completely fell for. And that fucking hurt.

sycocaneatmyshorts, 2016

Anonymous asked: I saw an ask on another blog today about how RBB and SBB were part of management-sanctioned publicity in themselves (I don't want to say "queerbaiting" because I do legitimately believe that Larry is real and that both boys are gay/bi/whatever). But it did make me wonder why Modest would allow the boys to do the RBB and SBB stuff in the first place--was it the kind of thing where they thought "this is so crazy that no one will ever believe the fans"? Or was it to keep the Larry demo appeased?

I don’t think Larry being real and their management queerbaiting the fans is mutually exclusive. [...]

sexatoxbridge, 2018

Others believed that RBB was a prank or running joke from a queer crewmember, which had nothing to do with Larry:

[Anonymous asks:] well, i didnt mean the band as harry and louis. i meant The Band, management and stuff, and rbb was queerbaiting theres no denying

[...]Also I think their sound guy did the bears and deactivated when it became apparent (or he was informed) that larries were using the RBB content to fuel their incessant harassment of Louis’ family and their conspiracy theories. I think there is very, very little evidence that anyone who has not interacted directly with individual larries or faced a torrent of direct hate can remotely grasp how deep the conspiracy goes and how seriously larries take it. I think the whole idea that anyone in that band was queerbaiting rests on the assumption that the larrie conspiracy theory is clear cut and imminently accessible, that it is easy for someone to see how their actions or mundane imagery will be interpreted by larries. I assure you, from the outside, it is not.

back-to-louis, 2017

Trolling

Many factions of the fandom thought that RBB and associated accounts might have been trolling fans, though they did not necessarily agree on who was doing the trolling.

Larries oftten accused whoever was behind RBB of trolling when their predictions based on signs sent by RBB didn't pan out. For example, the day before the 2015 countdown ended:

How much do you wanna bet nothing is gonna happen tomorrow and the rbb account is just trolling us

theeidk, 2015

I personally don't think anything big is going to happen tomorrow, the RBB account is just trolling everyone 🙄 ,but it's still perplexing.

OhNoLou_, 2015

In Janary 2016, a few days after the birth of Louis' son, as RBB was making references to diahrrhea:

I bet RBB is just a het trolling us again

voteforglover, 2016

Others thought the trolling might have been done by 1DHQ (though why isn't clear). For example, when RBB appeared at the Little Mix concert:

Does anyone really think they would let Little Mix have RBB? This supports the theory that it was a sound guy. Simon is trolling big time.

mermaidxharry, 2016

Who Did It

Official Sources

The identity of the person responsible for the bear has never been confirmed, but when asked in interviews multiple people have said it was a crew member.

In a December 2015 interview with Entertainment Weekly, drummer Josh Devine said:

It's just so random. It's one of the stage crew that dresses it up and thinks it's funny. Everyone pins the blame on me and no matter who I tell it’s not me they just … no one seems to believe me, so I just don't say anything anymore. They can believe what they want to believe. [...] Yeah, it’s as far away from the band as possible. That’s one of the things fans like to … they do like to find hidden meaning in things and I can honestly say there is no hidden meaning or anything with those bears. I don’t think anyone really knows they exist apart from the fans.

Also in December 2015, in a video with KIIS staff in Texas, 1D was asked about "the rainbow bear", and Harry replied:

I believe it's a bear that was thrown on stage at one of our shows, and the crew kept it and they have it taped to the scaffolding. I believe that's what the Rainbow Bear is.

Louis might be looking at RBB in this picture, taken on June 6, 2014.

In a July 2017 podcast interview with PopBuzz, Louis was asked if he was behind RBB and said:

"I'll tell you now, honestly - god's honest truth - I only used to see what everyone else see's on Twitter, right?" he pleaded. "I don’t know if it was some member of the crew or whatever. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen it in the flesh."

The video podcast was embedded in an article on the PopBuzz website. The article framed Louis' response as unreliable by including a picture of him during a concert looking in the direction of RBB and commenting, "Hmmmm. Not sure we entirely believe Mr Tomlinson, do you?" Larries took this as evidence that Louis' answer could not be taken at face value.

Fan Speculation

Fans tried to figure out who was behind the bears, and named multiple members of the 1D crew as suspects. They tended to agree that it was someone who was on both the Where We Are Tour and the On The Road Again Tour.

Initially many fans believed that drummer Josh Devine was responsible, but he denied it.

No one on the 1D crew publicly claimed responsibility for the bear.

The Choreographer Connexion

On December 14, 2015 an Oh No They Didn't post made a coy reference to the bear being planted by a choreographer, writing:

One Direction broke the mold of other teen oriented groups because their choreographer is more interested in rainbow bondage bears they are too lazy, terrible, and "cool" for dancing.

Paul Roberts, the band's choreographer, is an openly gay, theatre-loving member of the inner circle. On the day of the Jimmy Kimmel appearance, he posted pictures of Judy Garland's handprints on Hollywood Boulevard just as RBB's account posted a picture of the bear on the Judy Garland star.

Fans have also pointed out that he would have had the knowledge of LGBT+ culture needed to make the references in RBB & SBB's costumes, props and sets.

The Sound Engineer Theory

A prominent theory named Mark Littlewood, a front-of-house sound engineer, as the bears' mastermind.

Tumblr user themanbehindthebear laid out the arguments for Mark:

• The bear appeared in the first shot of a video interview with Mark alone in the arena.

• A job center in Chorey, where Mark lived, seemed to be in the background of an RBB photo.

• Drag queens from some RBB photos were also asked for details and allegedly described the person with the bears as an "old man".

themanbehindthebear's post was reblogged as a debunk by anti-larries as late as 2017.

Tumblr discussions among anti-larries show other reasons in circulation. thelarrative shared information that RBB had been spotted at Little Mix shows, and Mark was known to have joined the Little Mix tour after 1D ended. A larrie masterpost on RBB had also mentioned the Little Mix concerts, but tied it to Louis's proximity.

Allegedly Mark also owned a Rolex watch, something that was once seen on RBB.

This theory, like all others, has never been confirmed.

Louis and Harry Themselves

Larries tended to believe that the band members themselves were behind the bears.

Many larries speculated that crew members who don't have millions of dollars wouldn't have a Rolex (which might have been untrue in the case of Mark Littlewood) or spend a thousand dollars on the bears, or have the time to set up the bears when they were on the clock.

As one fan argued:

"It’s ridiculous to think ANY crew member could be setting up these elaborate bear scenes every night and 1D not only wouldn’t know about it but also would just be like ok, cool, you do you. not to mention the large amount of money spent on the bear stuff and the fact that RBB literally wore a rolex. I’ve never met a crew member who would “waste” thousands of dollars just for shits and giggles. being a crew member isn’t the kind of job where you have thousands of dollars in spare change to throw around."

However, the assumptions about the bears being personally paid for by their mastermind, the free time of crew members, or their supposed salary/ability to own a Rolex were unsupported by evidence.

Most people who think that Larry Stylinson did it cite some or all of the following:

• Harry and Louis were rich enough to afford RBB and SBB's clothing
• On July 27, 2015 the bears were holding objects that Harry and Louis were seen with the day before, ice cream and McDonalds respectively
• There was a picture of Larry Grayson signed "Love Larry" onstage once
• RBB wore green stickers and Harry's eyes and microphone colors were green while SBB work blue sticksers and Louis' eyes and mircophone colors were green
• There was a reflection of what the fandom thought was Louis in the bear's sunglasses once. The picture was quickly taken down and ever reflective surface was blurred in pictures after that
• The one time the band was asked about the bears, they would glance between Harry and Louis
• The Bears changed their profile picture to celebrate Louis' birthday and on Harry's 22nd birthday they had a cake with a "22" candle on it
• Multiple times Harry or Louis tweet within 20 minutes of the Bears tweeting. On one particular occasion Louis tweeted 41 seconds before the bears
• The RBBSBB Twitter account's first and only like was a tweet that said "larry ok"
• The RBBSBB twitter icon at one point was Judy Garland’s Christmas album which included the songs "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Skip to My Lou." Skip to my Lou also has the lyric "But if I do it's up to you, to let me dance with Harry"
• On 14 December 2016 Harry was at a recruitment center. Exactly a year previous RBB had been there.^{[citation needed]}
• One night RBB took pictures with drag queens at a bar. The same night Louis was photographed with fans across the street from that bar.
• Fans also thought writing and photography were hobbies that Harry and the bears shared

tellmethisisnotlove created a masterpost called "Masterpost about the “coincidental” Harry and Louis links to RBB and the RBB twitter" it had 63 "coincidences" when it was last updated.

Note that all of those are circumstancial. None of those reasons listed disqualify a person or people close to the band, such as a crewmember or several, who would participate in post-gig outings, be in the same places and have roughly the same work hours/free time as the band. The references to Harry and Louis and the events of the Larry canon could justifiably be simple trolling of a fandom trend which was frequently making mainstream news at the time.

As one fan highlighted:

Look the thing I find most fascinating, is that larries will say this about the sound guy:

‘How does it make sense that he was allowed to behave like that without anyone stopping him, especially once people realised the gravity of the situation??? Surely that means that Harry and Louis were involved!’

Ironically, they don’t seem to comprehend or have an answer to this question, however:

How is it possible that people are powerful enough, smart enough, detail orientated enough, to closet Harry and Louis with a fake baby, and to keep it secret for 6 plus years despite massive illegality, BUT they knew what Harry and Louis were doing with the bears, knew they were trying to 'undermine the plan’ and did nothing about it? [...]

What’s more likely, an uber powerful set of conspiracy theorists who can fake a child for six years didn’t bother to stop Harry and Louis from destroying their expensive and massive plan by taking two bears away, OR the crew guy didn’t comprehend quite how seriously it was taken until (and this happened) he was told by fans that it was being used to theorise around Louis’ child, and RBB disappeared forever?

[...]

portraitofalarryonfire, 2021

The 1DHQ Hypothesis

Some Larries seemed to believe that at least some RBB appearances were due to 1DHQ, maybe in a bid to keep fans invested in the band:

I can't believe larries are buying rbb and sbb being back when it's obviously 1dhq trolling

Don't forget lm are under the same devious team as the boys use some logic ffs

ughasia_, 2016

This hints at the fact that fans might have believe some RBB occurrences were "real" while others weren't.

I swear to fucking GOD if this is 1DHQ trying to break us for the final time through RBB I will fly to London and burn some shit down.

harryandlouisarehappilystrong, 2016

but RBB was so clearly staged by management, larry wasnt even mentioned till some fans asked if it was to do with larry and then larry was heavily implied with baiting. and this then kept the big fandoms involved as 1d was getting old news.

anonymous ask to portraitofalarryonfire, 2021

Cost

A fan tried to calculate roughly the amount spent on the bears from Sydney, February 7 of 2015 to Los Angeles, November 28th of 2015.

They figured out that there were 217 props total used during that time. Not counting people, portraits, RBB himself, or stickers, or the Macbook or Rolex watches (which were presumably not only bought for RBB) there were 186 props.

The fan tracked down prices for 68 of them (others being too generic -- a banana, a skateboard, sparkly tiaras; too weird, or impossible to find -- the unicorn, the horse, some jewelry box chair, etc.). The fan concluded,

So in the end, including iPhone, Walkman, stuff from the Build-A-Bear shop, stuff from eBay, books, a label maker, and so on, the grand total was: $750USD [...] Yes, that’s right. $750 dollars and it’s not even half of the props. And not including the Macbook or the Rolexs.

And just because it’s a curious fact: From those 68 props I was able to track down, 25 were from Build-A-Bear. Whoever is behind the bears literally spent $255USD on the Build-A-Bear Shop.

We are talking about almost one thousand dollars being spent on RBB and SBB, and like only on half of the items (60 from 180, that’s less than half actually). As some of the items’ prices were calculated and are only approximations the estimate could be higher, but it can’t be lower since I tried to pick the cheapest items. (For the approximations I would look at the average prices of the item by different sellers.)

Anyways, congratulations to our “random crew member” for having such a great salary which allows them to spend over one thousand dollars on something that seems funny to them. Because that obviously makes sense, right?

rbbearents on Tumblr

Another possible theory is that the bear set pieces were authorized and paid for by the tour or the band.

Resources

• Rainbow Bondage Bear Masterpost, by Tellmethisisnotlove (November 25, 2015).
• RIP Rainbow Bondage Bear (archived) by hiddensymposiarch (August 14, 2014). Post made when fans thought they'd seen the last of RBB
• rainbow bear masterpost (archived) by rbbupdates (August 26, 2015)
• RBB and the Countdown (archived), English translation of a Spanish-language tumblr post by investigando-rbb that analyzes RBB's secret messages about Larry coming out. (October 24, 2015)
• May I ask for your thoughts on the Bears (RBB & SBB) and the intention of those behind these bears? (archived) anon ask answered by i-swear-i-used-to-hate-them (April 5, 2016)
• (RBB & SBB for Dummies) (archived) by louisandthealien (updated August 27, 2016)
• 1D's Rainbow Bondage Bear and Sugar Baby Bear - fansite for cataloging bear appearances
• You're contradicting yourself if you believe H&L were behind the rainbow bears but also that Louis is father. a babygate RBB&SBB masterpost by skepticalarrie

Fanwork Examples

• rainbow bear :D by susumzee (June 2014)
• untitled June 2014 and September 2015 art by rosketch
• utitled October 2015[3] art by lying-here-i-counting-hours
• Rainbow Bondage Bear tag at AO3

References

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