Following last week’s article about social media and how dangerous it is, I have learnt this week – albeit a little late – that this machine, this living breathing wheel also has a way of exposing people for who they are.
I thought long and hard about writing this one, I was just about to enter my “no social media” detox for a month when BAM! It hit me, there came another one! A “Shamer” a “Fat Shamer” no less to publicly humiliate any woman who is below his “perception” of body beautiful. I thought about taking him on #toothsa (go look it up) and giving him some defensive guns in a well written diatribe. Instead I think I will stand in my own accountability as a human.
Before I do though and as always, some context: So this dude, (he really does personify a dude) goes onto his socials – twitter being the stage of choice – while driving, and rants on about how a certain woman is fat (the picture of the woman is absolutely not fat by any standards or perceptions, clinical or otherwise in fact she is beautiful and posing). Dude goes in on her thus “I am so sick and tired of people making as if these overweight little hippos are perfect and there is nothing wrong with them,” then after showing the picture goes on to say “b*tch get on the treadmill and lose some fat!”
The twitterverse lost their cool with dude and a social media bomb exploded with the likes of death threats and how dare you’s and and and. I do not want to give him more airtime- apparently, he has since apologised and the company he works for has taken disciplinary action.
Enter Kim stage left: <Cracks knuckles begins to type>
Here is what is wrong with all of it: we made him. YES readers, hate me swipe out of this article but we made him, I am not excusing his behaviour, in fact if I ever see him, I will take him out for lunch and make him watch me eat an entire pizza and then get into my bikini. We, the COLLECTIVE WE made him, we somehow told him when he was a little boy what beautiful is, we told him that going to gym and working for a company that does not sell anything for curvy ladies is ok, we let him believe that when a woman poses and shows her curves from a place of bravery that is disgusting and that its ok to call us B*itches. We allowed this.
This dude represents a billion-dollar industry that says thin, pill popping, whey protein drinking, gym obsessive, plastic surgery taking, steroid inducing lifestyles are ok and then SHAMES those who do not conform.
Now I am pro-choice, I live on the live and let-live side of life, I have friends who are gym bunnies and very body conscious but never have they ever taken to a public platform nor in private shamed anyone for their choice of lifestyle.
Dude takes us back by centuries.
Twitter, well done on calling him out as quickly as you did, Nandos, well done on getting on board with your advertising as satirically as you did.
If we were 200 years ago, Dude would have been tarred and feathered, I would have sat on the side watching with popcorn. I must note that I doubt he would have been tarred and feathered for his disparaging remarks about women, but twitter did take care of that.
So fat shaming and any shaming has no place anywhere do not do it, do not allow it. Check yourself, check your circle I promise you, if you are around or are someone who thinks like him in private, then its going to come out in public. Fat/slut/mom/dad/race/sexuality/lifestyle choices, JUST NO, NO MORE SHAMING!
Also “if you spot it, you’ve got it” that is for another article
On that note: integrity says “what you think, say and do, should all be the same” if you are one of those who say “he can think that, but not put it on social media, then SHAME on you too, please sit down with this mirror and read the first sentence of paragraph 6 again. Its not ok to THINK that way ACT that way or BE that way.
Come on, have we not already come so far.
Some serious notes to remember,
- Most of the time people already feel bad about themselves, they do not need your addition to their already damaging thoughts thank you very much
- Check those unconscious biases and repair and rinse and repeat
- STOP SHAMING ITS NOT OK
In conclusion as I suck on my drumstick with my curves and relish my new healthy lifestyle please watch the video by Cynthia Nixon
PS this article is not only for women