Telling somebody that their body type is in some way incorrect or unsuitable is body shaming.
This is incredibly detrimental to mental and physical health. Body shaming must stop.
Hundreds of times a year, I come across content online with which I disagree. Mostly, I grumble for a while, then move on. It's a case of differing opinions, and I'm adamant I won't be dragged into petty YouTube fights or Twitter clashes.
Recently, I broke this little vow to myself. In a fit of fever-induced anger, I replied to a comment on an Instagram post, and found myself in a short-lived dispute. I gave up and decided to let go, but the anger clung onto me, so I have turned to a platform with more typing space to lay out the situation as I see it. Opinions welcome.
I want this message to be understood by all. So, a children's story it is.
***
One day, a good and righteous Queen from the far-off realm of YouTube awoke and flicked through a magazine before beginning a long day of hard work. She came across an article that made her sad, so she made it into a banner and hung it up from her InstaTurret for all the kingdom to see. She shouted, "Oh People of the Land of Social Media, what do you think?"
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| The banner was let down from the turret... |
The entire kingdom awoke, and began their journey as usual to shout out their opinions from the bottom of InstaTurret. To get there, it was a tiresome trek; they all had to cross the dangerous deserts of Simply Reviewing the Situation, face the ferocious forests of Forming Opinions, battle the perilous peaks of Mount Just-Don't-Get-Involved and finally, wade through the Moat of No-Return-I'm-Right-You're-Wrong. All simply to have their say, louder than anybody else, in the crowd at the foot of InstaTurret.
A lot of citizens were happy. They came to cheer up the Queen. These townsfolk were from the city of Tyne & Wear-What-You-Want. They set up a dance festival and played instruments, singing "We can wear what we wish! And so can you! It would be silly not to!" They were all wearing different things. They all looked very different but it did not matter. They were all comfortable and confident. They were all happy.
Some of the citizens, from Body-Shamebridge, had come along and were angry. They had been taught that people can only be one certain way. They wore cloaks made entirely of fashion magazine pages and Starbucks cups. Body-Shamebridge agreed with the writing on the Queen's banner. They sneered at the dancers and, at intervals, threw chunks of lettuce at them. "You're ugly!" they shouted at anyone who was not wearing their uniform cloaks. They stood at the side, watching the dancers, frowns upon their faces.
One young dancer looked at the unhappy crowd, and saw that a woman at the side of the group had put away her throwing-lettuce and was instead reaching inside a sack of bricks. The dancer ran over, calling lightheartedly but with a nervous edge to her voice, "Woah now Woman, too far! It's not actually even okay to throw lettuce at us, but at least we can brush it off, even if it means we smell like salad for a while. Bricks are not okay at all. They will hurt us. They may even kill us. If the others see you throwing bricks simply because we are happy and confident, they too will want to throw bricks out of anger, fear and ignorance. I have engaged you in this conversation because I believe that I may change your mind, and that perhaps you can in turn change theirs, although maybe that is naive of me." The brick-throwing Woman did not return the Young Dancer's smile. Instead, she sneered and became further angered.
"How dare you all dance before me and wear what you wish," seethed the Woman. "I am blind and therefore unable to see you or be affected by what you wear, but I can damn well assume that you are all wearing what you choose and doing so confidently, and I can guarantee that most of you are wearing clothes differently to how I would. That disgusts me. You should all wear what I wish! The standards in my mind of what is visually appealing are the ONLY standards. I should not have to tolerate this difference, and so if you do not change into our cloaks, I shall have to start throwing bricks."
Then followed a further dispute between the confused Young Dancer and the unhappy Woman. The Young Dancer questioned why this rule had been made - their kingdom had many art galleries, where some of the paintings were thought vile and unappealing by a few people, yet nobody had closed the galleries. Or thrown bricks at them. Why was this any different? The Young Girl also asked how the Woman was really being affected at all by what others wore. The Brick Woman, angered by the simple logic of the young girl's argument, became enraged and unfortunately starting breathing fire.
"Well!" bellowed the woman, "Young, insolent Girl, you will be personally and emotionally punished in a public space for this attempted act of justice! Even though I, a blind woman, have never seen you, I shall assume that you too wear clothes differently to how I would, and I can guess that you are very unattractive by my narrow standards. This makes you disgusting and immoral." The Woman reached for her bricks and threw them at the Girl with great gusto for a random and seemingly nonathletic person, and threw them at the dancing crowd behind her too. The dance became more lively. Mostly because they were trying to dodge the fire-breath and bricks.
Luckily, the strong, happy, resilient spirits of the Tyne & Wear-What-You-Want townsfolk made their skin immune to damage, and they danced their way happily back through the realms of the kingdom without so much as a scratch or singe. On the way, they passed many more would-be dancers who had sat at home calmly the entire time, without ever even feeling the need to join the InstaTurret gathering in the first place, so happy were they in their own skin.
Meanwhile, the Brick Woman and her followers stumbled back into the shadows surrounding the Moat, angry and bitter with confusion. They wrapped their cloaks tighter around themselves and made camp near the Turret instead of trundling back to Body-Shamebridge. They collected more bricks, so as to be ready to attack anybody else who dared do something as atrocious as wearing what they wanted.
One young boy, whose parents were Brick-Woman-followers asked the woman, "If the dancers had not hurt us, why did we try to hurt them? We are happy in our cloaks, and they did not tell us to take our cloaks off. Why did we tell them to change what they wore?"
"Yes," piped up Another Random Small Child. "They were confident in what they wore. I personally found it very unappealing to look at, but this is only because you taught us it was unappealing, oh Brick Woman. I did not want to stop them, but instead only wanted mildly to avert my eyes, before realising that visuals are very little to do with a person anyway."
"Why did you say it was immoral?" asked another. Soon a dozen more young children were harassing the Woman and questioning her methods and entire way of life.
"Oh I don't know, I need a cig," muttered the confused Woman, and she shuffled off. The crowd was in turmoil. The children, and even some adults, ran after the Happy Dancers towards Tyne & Wear-What-You-Want and along the way, some shed their cloaks and made their own clothes out of grass, feathers and malted unicorn hair. There was no denying that it was quite alternative clothing but no one cared because the people wearing it felt confident and comfortable.
The Brick Woman lived in her cloak elsewhere forever more and could never quite shake the feeling that she'd missed something important (that's a lie, sadly: she remained unaware of her limitations because her thought system was too ingrained).
The Young Dancer felt exhausted and regretted trying to change the woman's mind, but felt mildly proud for giving it a go anyway. Her skin was still resilient and brick-resistant.
The happy townsfolk continued to mix things up and continuously wore whatever they wished, regardless of body image. This made for a contented kingdom.
The Queen never stopped hanging banners out of the InstaTurret and causing healthy discussion in the Kingdom of YouTube and other Social Media, because such is modern life.
The end.
***
A Little Epilogue
- Read whatever parallels you wish between the story and the screenshots. I can neither confirm nor deny speculation.
- I hope you enjoyed the story, and find some wisdom within it.
- Finally, a little word on crop tops being "just wrong". Without entering into an ethical language debate, I am going to take "wrong" to mean immoral (it cannot here mean logically incorrect - this is how logic, arguments and inference work, the above does not fit into this system). It seems to me that the only way a person, deemed "overweight" by our society, and wearing a crop top, could be immoral is if it harmed other people. You are not harmed by somebody going against your visual preference. As aforementioned, art galleries are not closed because one person does not enjoy one painting.
Do not throw the bricks. Do not even pick up the salad.
Telling somebody that their body type is in some way incorrect or unsuitable is body shaming. This is incredibly detrimental to mental and physical health. Body shaming must stop.
