Rainbow Meat

Rainbow Meat, designated by the meat and rainbow emojis 🌈🍖, is an ideology that began on Twitter which is similar to the ideology of anti-antis ("proshippers").Hi! If you're new to the Hannibal fandom, and looking for a bit of a primer on the 🌈🍖 vs 🥩🔪 discourse, Twitter Thread on twtext. (Accessed 4/9/2022) Those who adhere to the rainbow meat ideologies are referred to as "rainbow meaties." In general, rainbow meaties believe fiction does not affect reality in the same way anti-antis do, but may or may not call themselves anti-antis. The term rainbow meat began in the 2020 Hannibal fandom of Twitter, with the "meat" part of rainbow meat possibly being used because the consumption of meat- particularly human meat- is a central plot point in Hannibal.
The opposite of a rainbow meaty is a 🥩🔪, who follow a more antishipper ideology.
==History==
According to a meta piece by partiallyvoidmostlystars in Oct 2020 Tumblr (see The Hannibal Twitter Takedown of 2020), a Twitter user named callmenephila created the rainbow meat movement for the 2019 #JustFuckMeUpFest. She had shared an image privately of Will Graham getting oral from his dog, Winston, in which the image was then leaked. A Tweet from May 15, 2019 backs this up, with callmenephila starting the movement under her other Twitter handle, "cultmenephila," calling the rainbow and meat emojis a "stamp of tolerance and anti-censorship." When coming up with the set of emojis, she stated to another Twitter user that she wanted it to be more "distinctive" than just a tag. Twitter, May 15, 2019 (Accessed 7/31/2021)
Later, on October 7th, 2020, Bryan Fuller re-tweeted art by a rainbow meaty of Hannibal giving Will Graham a blowjob. This resulted in the Hannibal Twitter Wars, a fandom war between the rainbow meaties, who supported Bryan Fuller's re-tweet, and the meat knives, who didn't.The Hannibal Twitter Takedown of 2020, Tumblr. Oct 23, 2020 (Accessed 7/28/2021)
==Beliefs==
Like anti-antis, rainbow meaties believe that dark, edgy, or "problematic" content does not hurt nor affect reality. However, being started within the Hannibal fandom the context of the belief may differ from that of those designed as anti-antis, particularly anti-antis not on Twitter. Hannibal itself is a show with dark themes, such as cannibalism, gore, body horror, murder, and emotional manipulation. Thus, its fan content mirrors its canon content. However, for some rainbow meaties, the content they support isn't simply in the context of the show's dark themes being replicated in fan content. For some, being a rainbow meaty does encompass themes such as non-con and minor/adult ships (see Minors in Fandom and Underage), which is much more similar to anti-anti beliefs in general.
==Fandom==
Some consider rainbow meat to be another name for Hannigram,Hannigram is now called Rainbow Meat, Mar 2, 2021 (Accessed 7/28/2021) the ship for Hannibal/Will, though this seems to be a minority as most shippers still use Hannigram. This is likely because rainbow meat has much larger connotations than the traditional ship name.
In March 2021, a small company called RavenStag Outfittersravenstag.com made a pin with the rainbow flag behind the meat emoji, encircled by the words "PRO-SHIPPER" and the pink triangle (a symbol for gay men used by Nazis, reclaimed by gay people in the '70s). They were sent threatening messages for making the pin.
Bryan Fuller, Hannibal's show runner, tweeted that the pin was great.The creator of NBC's Hannibal, Mar 18, 2021 (Accessed 7/28/2021) The pin was mainly criticized for its use of the pink triangle next to the rainbow meat symbol and the word "PRO-SHIPPER",Im gonna say my last piece on that pro ship pin, Twitter. Mar 15, 2021 (Accessed 7/28/2021) associating a reclaimed gay symbol with pro-shipper branding, even though the pin makers are themselves queer.
==References==
Category:Hannibal Fandom Glossary