Thin privilege is representation

Thin privilege is turning on the TV, selecting any movie or series through a streaming app, or opening a magazine and seeing at least one person with your general body type being portrayed for their human qualities and not their physical characteristics.

Thin privilege is getting to be a human with interests and a story. Thin privilege is starring in an adventure or romance or thriller as a human being with a name, interests and a backstory that do not revolve around or at least refer in some way to body size.

Thin privilege is the default, the gray icon, the naked Barbie, the first character setting on any game, the crosswalk stickman, the bathroom stall sign, the sample size, the fitness app default.

Thin privilege is representation.

mmeganllou

𝓵𝓮𝓽’𝓼 𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓿𝓮𝓼 𝓽𝓸 𝔀𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝔀𝓮 𝓼𝓮𝓮 𝓸𝓷 𝓽𝓿 🌴🤍🫶🏽

With love island starting and seeing girls on our screens every night who are considered “perfect” or todays idea of what lives up to the “perfect body standards” let’s not pick ourselves apart and remember that all bodies are different and life would be boring if we all looked the same!

I’m not taking away the fact that the girls who go into love island each year are also beautiful, but let’s not forget to normalise normal things like cellulite, stretch marks, natural boobs that aren’t the perkiest, thick thighs, big hips, squishy belly’s and double chins!

I used to be one of the girls who picked myself apart and compared absolutely everything to these girls I seen on tv wishing I could change everything about myself but all bodies are beautiful in their own way, we all come in different shapes and sizes

transition goal <3

photoshopped kardashians have been terrible for body image in our generation as teens, as starved victoria's secret models have been for the one before us

but I wonder what ai-generated waifus etc will do to kids now, it sounds like a nightmare. I've already come across 3 pictures today that were creepily perfect ai-generated models.

seeing very very thin women in movies with a perfect little body and I want so bad to look like that but in reality I need to understand that my figure and the way I look is much different because my body form is different. I have size H breasts. I have wide hips. I have natural meat on my bones and I need to accept that even if I was to work out if I was to diet. Anything to lose weight. My waist may get smaller and so may my legs but the rest of my frame will always be like this. I wish I could just accept this.

Ok I don't normally do this but I'm just gonna rant here. Diet culture is literally the most messed up thing ever. Like not only does it create unhealthy, unattainable standards, it also glorifies suffering and pan; physical, mental and emotional. It severely messes with genes, causes eating disorders and can lead to mental health issues. literally stop trying to tell people, especially girls, that they need to be stick thin in order to be socially acceptable. I have friends, classmates who come to school on an empty stomach and then don't eat lunch. I have heard 'fat' being used as an insult, towards other people and myself. I know children, girls barely 11 or 12 years old not eating what they want to because it's got "too many calories". Stop. It's toxic as hell for everyone involved. just stop

Sorry I'm not even sure why I am posting it on this blog but did anybody ever have a boyband they loved back in the day as a teen / pre-teen / whatever and you would they were SO fit, but actually you look back at them now you're older and realise fuck they were actually quite skinny (even if toned) and actually it probably wasn't that healthy and now I'm worried about them even though they are inside that early 90s video and I'm here only just realising in 2024

Okay it's Take That and the Pray music video and I'm now also sad because that was their first number one and is that what it took for them to get noticed? 🥺

Like they were posing in different ways and there's mostly just rib cages? And to think Gary was deemed the 'fat' one when actually he looked the healthiest?

We need less… physique? That’s not the right word. But super chiseled dudes aren’t real. If they are, the lengths they go through would take over their life.

Just normal bodies. Normal strongman strength is hot. Normal bodies are the most realistic and tangible. Body types you wouldn’t want for yourself can be very attractive. Desirability scales. Like a lot. “Dad bods” are a thing for a reason. If you wanna buff it up, do it. But not to extreme Hollywood shareholder levels. A little bit of tone is better. Sometimes the “I’ve given up” look can be spicy.

Less is more.

new post about how social media impacts mental health!

i know it's been said so many times before but i really think that it works better from a teen girl's perspective rather than all of ur teachers telling u that it's bad for you (plus we're debunking the "clean girl" aesthetic in its toxicity) <3

its really wild how many movies and tv shows are just like, obscenely skinny. how many casts are representative of the average population, if you sampled a crowd in a normal store or on a train? how many actually “average” bodies do you see on screen? how often are the stomachs shown flat or concave, how often are the thighs all muscle no fat, how often are the jawlines and cheekbones totally sharp and not covered by even a hint of softness? its bizarre and offputting whenever you start looking at media with that in mind

Can we please recognize angular/sharp curves as a valid and attractive type of curve, not just the soft/plush, perfectly rounded, slimthick curves.

Having a wide pelvis and broad shoulders makes me curvy. I have an hourglass body by measurement. The only pants that even fit me are stretchy ones from Fashion Nova!

But calling my body hourglass or saying I have curves is often invalidated, with people saying I can’t be because I’m thin.

It’s stupid. There is no weight requirement to having any type of natural body dimension ratio. There are just different kinds of curves. Some people get curves from fat, from muscle, from their skeletons, or any combination of the three. All are valid curves.

Body Modification in Visual Media (Week 7)

The idea of microcelebrity, defined as ‘the commitment to deploying and maintaining one’s online identity as if it were a branded good’ (Senft 2013, p. 346), is becoming increasingly relevant to how digital citizens navigate themselves online. Even for users with less notable online presences, social media provides a new accessibility for users to become ‘prosumers’ (Ritzer & Jurgenson 2010, p. 21): they have roles in both producing and consuming online content.

The branding of these online identities are directed by how much their visibility can be maximised. Particularly recently, social media sites have been honing their algorithms in an attempt to be able to more accurately cater to users (and thus keep them using their site longer). Users who are aware of the algorithm and who can successfully utilise it to gain visibility are able to maintain the status (Marwick 2013, pp. 77) of microcelebrity.

On Instagram, microcelebrities will appeal to specific aesthetic templates to create a mainstream, easily identifiable and consumable image. The way in which this actualises does vary, but one major way is by gender (and by extension, sexuality). Ideal physical traits associated with femininity or masculinity are emphasised (either through physical regimen or artificially via editing programs such as FaceTune or Photoshop) to create an exaggerated ‘performance’ (Carah & Dobson 2016, p. 3) of gender online–although these ‘gendered’ traits are strictly presented in a hegemonic, cisgender manner to remain unquestionable to the biggest consumer base possible. Furthermore, these performances, especially for women, evoke the ‘porn chic’ (Drenten, Gurrieri, & Tyler 2020, p. 42) aesthetic as a form of sexualised labour (Drenten, Gurrieri, & Tyler 2020, p. 43) to maintain their online brand. The unprecedented ability to access (or even accidentally stumble across) and share pornography via the internet (Bran 2016, p.1) has seeped its way into internet culture as a whole, evident through the sexualised labour and branding of Instagram microcelebrities.

Look at Kim Kardashian for example. In this Instagram post, her face is tilted upwards so only her thin nose and sharp jawline are really visible. She is wearing plain, minimal clothing with dainty gold jewellery, thus drawing focus to her body. Her shoulders are back, her hair is slightly draped over her shoulders but not obscuring her body, and she is posing on one leg to push her hip out. This all forms together to create a sexualised image using the porn chic aesthetic.

Moreover, the heteronormative image and ideology depicted by microcelebrities and uplifted by social media platforms is damaging to queer personalities online. Due to this hegemony, not only are they refused the same all-encompassing reach more easily obtained by their cis and straight counterparts, but they are also ‘systematically’ targeted by the social media algorithms on the platforms they use (Duffy & Meisner 2022, p. 286). Thus, their content is comparatively less visible than cis/straight creators on the basis of their identity being counter to cis- and heteronormativity.

These unattainable images (unattainable because they are limited, highly curated, and impossible for humans to actually exist as) also have dangerous ramifications for prosumers. Emblematic of this is Body Dysmorphic Disorder which concerns a dissonant perception of one’s body, now commonly influenced by unrealistic pictures seen online. Although, recently internet personalities have been addressing this directly, and attempting to encourage positive perspectives instead.

>REFERENCES ARE UNDER THE CUT<

Brand, M 2016, ‘PL-01: Internet pornography addiction: Theoretical models, behavioral data, and neuroimaging findings.(PLENARY PRESENTATIONS)’, Journal of behavioral addictions, vol. 5, no. 1, p. 1-64.

Carah, N & Dobson, A, 2016, 'Algorithmic hotness: Young women’s “promotion” and “reconnaissance” work via social media body images', Social Media + Society, vol. 2, no. 4, pp.1-10.

Drenten, J, Gurrieri, L & Tyler, M, 2020, ‘Sexualized labour in digital culture: Instagram influencers, porn chic and the monetization of attention’, Gender, Work and Organization, vol. 27, no.1, pp. 41-66.

Duffy, BE & Meisner, C, 2022, ‘Platform governance at the margins: Social media creators’ experiences with algorithmic (in)visibility, Media, Culture & Society, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 285-304.

Marwick, AE 2013, Status update: Celebrity, publicity, and branding in the social media age, Yale University Press, New Haven.

Ritzer, G & Jurgenson, N 2010, ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital “prosumer”’, Journal of consumer culture, vol. 10, no. 1, SAGE Publications, London, England, pp. 13–36.

Senft, TM 2013, ‘Microcelebrity and the branded self’, A companion to new media dynamics, Wiley‐Blackwell, Oxford, UK, pp. 346–354.

11/12/2022

I've come to the conclusion that I am not really beautiful. I think its a combination of things - the prevalent eurocentric beauty ideal, the fact that i don't wear makeup (more out of my inability to correctly apply it rather than any feminist sentiment that I can pretend to have) but mainly that my face is just objectively unappealing and asymmetric - when I smile you can see the fact that one of my eyes is lazy, I frown perpetually, when i press my chin to my neck you can see i have a double chin, i have large feet, eyebags, etc, etc.

and as much as i pretend that's fine - it'll never be. when someone says "you've never been in a relationship?" i'll go back to the mirror and inspect my jawline. when someone jokingly talks about the lines people use to try and hit on them at parties, i'll think about the fact no one has ever approached me. and when someone tells me i'm pretty, i know they are just being kind to me.

this is heartbreaking because people i find cute will always find someone else cute - but mostly because i would love to have someone who looks forward to holding me and seeing me smile and watching me in the sunlight and. i probably will never have that. i want someone to tell me my eyes make the stars ashamed to show themselves and my lips are curved like a bow and when i smile, the sun seems like a lonely candle in the evening breeze, minuscule and flickering.

some other day i'll express how this motivates me to make other parts of myself beautiful - my words, my soul, my mind. but today i just wish someone would bring me flowers and hold my hand and take me on a date.

no, but really, we need to talk about the casual objectification that has become the fallback discourse of the internet: if you're pretty and dressed nicely, you're a slut. and if you're even vaguely outside of their body standard, you're fucking disgusting.

too-frequently, people position sex workers as being "the problem". they sneer you're addicted to pornography, you don't know what a real woman looks like. but real women are in pornography. the real bodies on display are not the issue here: the issue is that other people feel extremely confident when commenting on someone's physique.

2000's super-thin is slowly worming its way back into the public ideal. recently i saw someone get told to "go for a run", despite the fact she was on the thinner side of average. not that it would ever be appropriate to say that: but it's kind of like sticker shock when you see it. people think that is fat? holy shit. do they just have no idea about things?

but what are you going to do about it? that's the problem, right. because chances are - you're a normal person. we can say normalize carrying fat on your body, but we are not the billion-dollar diet industry. we are not the billion-dollar fashion industry. we are just, like. people. who are trying to make content on the internet, without being treated shittily.

as someone who has been on both sides of things: you are treated better when you are thin and pretty. this is statistically correct. i am not saying that you cannot be bullied for being thin; i'm saying there are objective institutional biases against certain bodytypes. there are videos of men and women who lost weight all saying: i now know for a fact exactly how much worse you're treated. in the comments, some asshole inevitably says something akin to you deserved to be dehumanized when you were fat.

which means that ... the easiest thing to do is be pretty and thin. it is the path of least resistance, because of course it is, because any time you post a picture of yourself without a thigh gap, someone immediately comments something like you need to try a diet.

the other half is also dehumanizing though, huh, just in a different way. when i put on makeup and nice clothes, i am told i slept my way to the top as a professional. do you know how many women in STEM have told me they purposefully dress to "unimpress" because they already struggle to be taken seriously and if they're ever considered pretty - it for some reason takes away from their authority.

so they make it seem like it's your fault. you, existing in a body - it's your fault! if you didn't want shitty comments, don't have a body. they position us against each other like chess pieces; vying for male attention we don't even need.

and i can be an authority on this unless you think i'm fat and unattractive. when i am pretty and thin, i'm an activist. when i am just a normal person who makes a good point: i am immediately dismissed. nobody fucking believes you if you're not seen as attractive. you literally lose value. you cease to exist.

but the whole time, it feels like - is anyone actually grounded the fuck in reality? the line of "pretty and thin" keeps shifting. nobody seems to understand what "a normal weight" even looks like, because it's not something that exists - you cannot tell a person's health by looking at their body. even if you think you could tell that, even if you're sure a person is dangerously overweight - people are not your dolls. they do not need to be dressed up or displayed properly to soothe your aesthetics. you aren't concerned for them, you're stealing their agency. you don't get to say if they're "allowed" to take pictures and post them on the internet - you don't get to tell them how to exist.

people hide behind "the obesity epidemic" without any actual qualifications. they crow things about "normalizing unhealthiness".

but it's bullshit. i have visible abs. there is a pair of parallel lines on my body, even when i'm relaxed; where my obliques meet my abdominal wall. i am proud of this because it means i'm strong, because i overcame an eating disorder only to be ripped as fuck. it is genetic and physical luck that i even get any definition, i'm pleased as punch.

but it does mean that my abdominal wall sticks out a little bit. the other day i posted a video of myself dancing, and, for a moment, my shirt slipped. you could see a little bit of my stomach. i was cartwheeling to the floor. moments before this, i'd had my foot over my head.

a guy slid into my DMs. a row of vomiting emojis prefaced: you should really lose some weight before you think about dancing.

i stared at it for a long time. there was a time when i would have been triggered by this, where it would have encouraged me to starve myself. i would have ignored the fact i'm flexible, agile, good at jumping: i would have lost the weight for a stranger's passing comment. i would have found myself and my body fucking disgusting.

and for what? to please what? because why? so that he can exist in this world without an unchallenged eyeball? what would my self-hatred even accomplish? usually i write paragraphs. obviously. on this particular occasion, in this body i've been at war with for ages: i just felt exhausted.

it shouldn't be even worth saying. it shouldn't be hard to explain. all of this emotional turmoil when he cannot even comprehend the most basic truth: i am not an object on display for him.

Golden Fleece

Yes, Ren genuinely thinks cramming his wolf ears under that hat will distract people from his sharp canines, his tendency to tell Zedaph what to do, and his bad habit of barking at moving objects.

Yes, Doc genuinely thinks hanging an old rag over his face and wearing those ancient spectacles with no lenses will help distract people from... well, everything.

Yes, they're both delusional.