a The strange paradox about being fat is the way people seem to be unable to see past your fat, but at the same time you somehow can't see. For some people, your fat is your only thing and the only quality you have. My fat makes adults say things like laughing, sneering, abused on the streets, or terrifying de-drops online. Strangers hate my extra meat so much that they can't help but let me know about it regularly when I tweet, walk to the house, stand in the mall, order drinks at the bar, or enter my front door.
I can't remember all of the numerous public incidents, but I remember the first time it happened. I was a (lonely) 14 year old and was waiting for the bus at 8:30am with the other kids. It was humiliating, it was stupid (I'm clearly a land animal), and in my memory it was the sharp beginning of my life in a fat world. It was the beginning of the radically changing Fatphobia of who I am, who I was growing up and planting seeds that will affect me for decades. Shortly afterwards, I stopped being able to speak in public. And I still have to take my own medicine. My body goes into flight mode when I place her in front of the crowd.
But even with all this pain Visibilityinvisibility is just as bad. A small amount is self-harm – tactics you teach yourself, try to reduce yourself in space and not warn people of the presence of your body. But invisibility is always handed over to us by others too. It comes from someone who doesn't say it doesn't mean anything, but pretends not to see you. Many people don't see you as someone worth engagement. It's not just an individual, it's social. The rise of Ozempic combined with an already very thin and obsessed world means that there are very few people like fat, or fat on any kind of screen.
This week, Vogue and Gigi Hadid are obviously not the people I would count on for inclusiveness in my body, but I took it a step further in the wrong direction. Put a hairspray themed cover and spread it out.including posting a full lip sync for the song “You Can't Stop the Beat” online. If you're not familiar with hairspray, it's one of the only musicals present featuring Fat Reed, and the majority of the story is that fat is spotlighted. Vogue's covers and lip syncs were characterized only by thin people. The fat characters were played by Gigi Hadid, Cole Escola (Love) and Laverne Cox (Love), and everyone else involved has also faded. It's just not a shame to be completely and completely cut out of one of the only fat-focused stories. That's a really bad sign. The perception that fat people exist in the world and that we are okay with beings has returned to nil.
People of all kinds hate fat. I'm prepared for that. I'm hoping for that. What I wasn't very prepared for was a world other than this where normal, wonderful, thoughtful, politically aware, open-minded people seemed to care about inclusion in all areas. Thin people are everywhere, and our experience is realistic and important, but we mess up the programmes of writers, women's festivals and art festivals. These are not men on the streets and are not walking nearby and flicking bright cigarettes to me (real story). Otherwise, it is those who are kind, empathetic, knowledgeable and politically aware of it.
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At this point, it feels like you've lost every step of your hard-working, progressing fat movement, like a chubby shishphus watching the rock roll. If you're currently spending your time on Tiktok or social media, there are disgusting, gross, hatred, fat, fat comments on all posts by women over size 12. Fat phobia is an ugly, blunt instrument that is performed on people of all sizes. Almost every woman I know had problems dislike her body, literally, at all sizes and at all ages. There has been a recent rise in Tiktok, a young fat girl, doing videos screaming about how much she hates her life. It is a throwback to the heroin-chic and deadly anti-fat age of the 90s and 00s, and is dangerous to everyone. These teenage girls don't actually risk being fat, but the situation in our world has already made them scare to the point that they're already starving themselves.
The thin and difficult world is growing worse and worse for fat people, but others do nothing to stop it. When you hate our bodies, you are teaching everyone to hate them. I plead people to start thinking about this broadly and specifically. How to portray and include different types of bodies, and those who say it when they are not should consider it carefully. If you are someone who cares about us just as much as everyone else, now is the time to prove it. We may be big, we may have a lot, but we desperately need allies.
Fat people don't go anywhere. We are not going to stop being because you abuse us or exclude us. It only makes everything worse for everyone. We need to grow ourselves with us and take up space with us. It's time to open your big, fat mouth.
