im gonna start a fight; and, at the same time, i need you to take this in the most good-faith way possible, but:
videos that involve body-checking and intentionally (and uncritically) show a mealplan of an unhealthy number of calories are just a revamped version of pro-ana food diaries.
and yeah, i know there's arguments. i address some of them under the cut. but at the end of the day, we're just coming back to romanticizing mental illness; we've just found a better platform for it.
this is already something we've done. we knew it was wrong and tried to stop it. and tbh. it just wasn't enough.
there are people who argue "well, what if you have an eating disorder, you can't help it if you don't eat!" except that as someone with an ED; we are not infants. we know what we're doing. part of having an ED is that you are like, maybe too self-aware. even if we can't help our own food choices, we don't need to fucking romanticize the disorder - something we've been warning you about since 2013. there are hours of setup, filming, and editing that go into these videos. they do not happen to fall into place randomly. there is a reason they are pieced together to be beautiful, bright, inspiring.
there's this woman who pretty much only posts daily plans under a normal amount of calories, and everyone defends her saying but it's better than nothing! and i'm like. except she opens those with images of her showing off her body and provides no context in the video or caption that suggests that she believes what she's doing is unhealthy. she has hundreds of thousands of followers on a platform designed for young kids and teens. i refuse to believe that by accident her content just happens to be cheery advice on "healthy" versions of starving.
for any other symptom of mental illness, we would be incredibly enraged by this kind of placid acceptance of a "tips and tricks" fast-start guide. imagine if people posted pink & pretty videos saying "best places to cut yourself" as if it was a fucking storytime. we, as a society, are so fucking fatphobic that we would rather accept blatantly harmful displays of self harm than admit that we are obsessed with a hyper-thin body type.
i am not suggesting someone never talks about their disorder. i talk about mine. actually, it's a plot point in my book.
here's the difference: i recognize it's a fucking mental illness. i am very careful to never mention a specific weight, eating pattern, or calorie plan. i always make sure to position it as something that ruined my fucking life. i do not put cheery music in the background and hearts and sparkles over my worst moments. i do not film it in bright light. i do not start each passage with an image of a thin body followed by "here's how to look like her."
eating disorders should not be framed as aspirational. and the problem is that society worships the "after" image, so long as you don't get too sick. there is a reason so many people who quit being "influencers" will later admit - i wasn't eating well that whole time; an obsession with food was completely destroying my life.
we let any uncredited, uncertified person write the most backwards, fucked up shit about how to get the body you desire! because the underlying, secret belief is: well, at least they're thin! and the real thing that fucking gets me each time - they make fucking money off of it. their irresponsibility and societal harm literally pays off for them.
"why do you care so much." "don't like it don't look." "so what if people experiment with new ways of thinking of food?"
thank you for asking. we're about to get extremely personal. it's because when i was 18 i discovered "thinspiration"/"thinspo." and it absolutely influenced, shaped, and codified my pre-existing eating disorder. i went from having some troubling habits and traits to being incredibly unwell within what felt like a matter of days. there were actual pages designed to train me on how to have an ED correctly. it was all so suddenly easy. i was sick; and the nature of the illness meant - i wanted to be sicker.
it takes an average of 7 years for a person to fully recover. i know this personally - even now, 10 years from the worst of it, i still fucking struggle. i am so much happier now and i eat what i want and i literally don't think about food at all (19 year old me would shudder) and yet - i still fucking know the calories of plain toast with butter.
an eating disorder is one of the deadliest types of mental illness. over 1 in 4 people with an ED will attempt suicide.
and i'm sorry. i just do not see the exchange rate of "high rate of engagement" versus "the value of a human life."
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This whole train derailment thing in East Palestine, Ohio is so horrific.
And those toxic chemicals got into the Ohio River!
And I heard people saying that there was danger that it could possibly get into another body of water?
Apparently, this is going to affect 10% of the country's water supply, as things are? (According to one comment I saw, anyway.)
The place really has become the next Chernobyl, and everything has been handled so badly! (I feel if this had happened in a bigger state, that wouldn't have happened. And I strongly feel they should have evacuated everyone on day one.)
And no one's talking about it! In fact, at first they were covering it up and tried to arrest at least one reporter on the job of reporting the truth (finally more people are starting to discuss all of this, but still not as many as you would think. Especially with the massive ramifications this could have for so many!)
And why hasn't the president or any of the big wigs talked about this or done anything about it? Why didn't people in hazmat suits knock on the people in East Palestine's doors to tell them to evacuate when they finally did give them that order, instead of acting so blasé? You know if it was a place that people actually cared about, people would do so much more. I'm disgusted with my country.
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I see you responded to my anon without using my anon.
That's cute, but telling of the kind of person you are.
With that being said, I'm sorry about my past few anons telling you to stfu about your interests and calling your takes retarded. Although i stand by my anon that if you're really gonna tell someone to kill themselves because they use the word "retarded" you're probably retarded, i want to tell you that i didn't realize you would take such offense to that word.
Honestly, you look like you're about 4-5 more hate posts from hitting the self delete button, so i just want to tell you that's not my intention. I really do enjoy your art and i really do think you have a lot to share. Me telling you to stfu about your niche interests was just me trying to get back at you. Truthfully i like that you have so much to share, i just felt i was being attacked because when i asked how botw was transphobic you just decided to call me stupid without addressing my question.
But to be honest you give off this energy that you're so sheltered from the real world that you forget that there's more going on in the real world than someone using the r-slur. I just want to point that out because although i know i can't change you, since you think what you're fighting for is truly just, i don't blame you for forgetting about the rest of the world. I just think you have a lot of room to grow. I hope you do grow and change and come to the realization that what you're trying to defend is definitely a priority, but we have a lot more going on.
Sincerely, the professional hater that loves you, and doesn't want to see you fail at identifying what is truly important. I get it though, to you I'm just selfish for implying that what you believe in isn't as important as what i believe in. So I'll just say i hope you do okay out there. Good luck. And stay safe.
im going to be honest i genuinely cannot read this. like idk what the hell this guy is even trying to say and also they're already blocked anyway. but if any of you maybe want to preemptively block to avoid potentially being called slurs for literal weeks in your asks among other harassment, i recommend blocking this FUCKING IDIOT! thank you everyone and have a nice night <3
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