I don’t spend much time on YouTube. Truth be told, maybe once a year I’ll find myself curious about what’s being said about my Daily Special/Pretty Imperfect/Elastic Waist videos, and I’ll look at the comments. Inevitably some of the comments say something like “You’re fat and stupid.”
Somehow, it always seems that fat and stupid always go together. Anyone ever notice that? In terms of Internet trolls, I have a pretty thick skin. Let’s face it, if you spend your time insulting people you don’t know behind the privacy of a screen name chances are there isn’t much else going on in your life.
Well, I have a new hero. A friend of mine posted this video on Facebook and I immediately fell in love. What we have here is a video blogger who is standing up against her trolls.
While ”Why does it hurt you, if I don’t hate myself?” is most definitely the message to take away from this. What initially piqued my attention was the part where she reminds us not to judge where a person is on there journey by what they weigh.
I’m a health writer, but that doesn’t negate or diminish my roots in the weight acceptance movement (Elastic Waist, the start of my writing career was a site focused on body and weight acceptance–and the sometimes body insecurities we face while trying to find that acceptance). I am one of those people who believes you can be overweight and still be healthy. Hell, I am not a skinny girl, but I do exercise five days a week and eat a reasonably healthy diet. I also eat cake sometimes. And french fries. Because, you know, I’m human.
Neither am I one of those people who refer to curvy women as real women. Skinny women are real women too. Women are women, and women, in my humble opinion are fan-friggin-tastic no matter what size or shape they come in.
Men are great as well, but the majority of my readers here are ladies, and women, by far, are judged more based on their appearance than men. Not to say men don’t have their own pressures, but it’s rough out their, especially on the Internet, for us ladies.
This has been an Independence Day reminder to love yourself, regardless of your size. If you want to change that size, go for it, but your self-worth is not a number.
I love this. Normally, I am of the school of thought that one does not respond to hate because it gives it credence. But your friend’s response here makes a lot of important, valid points that don’t usually get expressed. Obviously, trolls are dealing with their own self-loathing and projecting those feelings outwards onto people they view as weaker than themselves. It is important that the world be reminded that outward appearance does not correlate directly with emotional strength or self-acceptance. Just because one hates themselves doesn’t mean that others who are, by some measure, “worse-off” feel the same or worse.
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Also– I want to congratulate you for your comment that skinny women are real women too. I am a thicker gal, but I always wince when I hear that “curvy women are real women” line. I wish all women loved themselves and felt beautiful in their skin, but this “curvy girl empowerment” comes from a negative place that turns the tables on societal norms by saying curvy is *better than* skinny. As a culture, we need to learn to build ourselves up without putting other people down.
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