Body Shaming

About

Body shaming refers to the practice of mocking or insulting others for their body type, which includes fat shaming, fit shaming and thin shaming.

Origin

In the context of Internet meme culture, obesity has been a popular subject of online mockeries and ridicule on discussion forums and imageboards, such as 4chan, since as early as 2007 through expressions like “man the harpoons” and “a wild snorlax appears!” (shown below).

Spread

In early 2010, the Fat Girl advice animal character first appeared on Reddit with captions shaming and mocking stereotypes that are often associated with obese people (shown below, right).

On May 17th, 2012, feminist YouTuber Laci Green uploaded a video titled “Fat Shame,” in which she criticized using the word “fat” as a pejorative, promoted the HAES approach to health and urged people to “love their body” (shown below). In the first two years, the video received more than 830,000 views and 6,500 comments.

On October 19th, 2013, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Kanade-chan submitted an entry for “fat shaming,” defining it as “A term made by obese people to avoid responsibility to actually take proper care of their body.” On October 30th, YouTuber Philip DeFranco uploaded a video titled “Fat Shaming in America,” in which he criticized those who equated fitness inspiration to fat shaming (shown below). In eight months, the video gained over 600,000 views and 7,000 comments. On December 23rd, BuzzFeed^[2] published a listicle titled “19 Times People Got Body-Shamed in 2014.”

Fit Shaming

Following the emergence of fat acceptance movement in the social justice blogosphere around the turn of the decade, criticisms of fat shaming continue to gain popular consensus, which in turn prompted counter-reactions against “fit shaming” from online fitness communities. On November 1st, 2012, Redditor HughMerlin submitted a Facebook screenshot titled “Swole Hate/Shaming on FB,” featuring a photograph of a man and women showing their abdominal muscles juxtaposed with disparaging comments made by Facebook users criticizing their appearance. Prior to being archived, the post garnered upwards of 1,000 upvotes and 220 comments on the /r/swoleacceptance^[3] subreddit.

Various Examples

When Did This Become Hotter Than This

When Did This Become Hotter Than This? is an image macro series comparing two sets of photographs featuring celebrities or famous subjects from two distinct time periods or generations. What began as a commentary on the ever-changing definition of beauty across generations, eventually led to online debates regarding the controversial issue of body images.

Fit Mom Controversy

The “Fit Mom” Controversy refers to the online debate surrounding a Facebook photograph of Maria Kang, a mother of three and fitness blogger, posing in a bikini suit with her children and the caption at the top reading “What’s your excuse?” The image was accused of body shaming after it began widely circulating online in September 2012.

Bikini Bridge

“Bikini Bridge” is a slang term used to describe a horizontal line that is formed on a woman’s bikini bottoms as a result of the suspended gap between the bikini and the lower abdomen. In January 2014, 4chan users launched “Operation Bikini Bridge” to promote photos of bikini bridges on social media, leading many to accuse the fad as a type of body shaming.

Protein World’s “Beach Body Ready” Ad

Protein World’s “Beach Body Ready” Ad refers to a London Underground weight loss product advertisement featuring a bikini-clad women with the message “Are you beach body ready?”, which was accused of “body shaming” and promoting “unrealistic body images” by activists in April 2015.

#FindDancingMan

#FindDancingMan is a hashtag campaign launched by Twitter users in search of an overweight man who became a target of fat shaming after a photograph of him dancing at a music concert surfaced on 4chan in early March 2015. After the man was identified as London resident Sean O’Brien, a party was held in his honor by anti-bullying activists at the Avalon in Los Angeles, California.

/r/FatPeopleHate

The /r/FatPeopleHate subreddit was a web forum highlighting user-submitted images mocking overweight and obese people, which was banned by Reddit administrators in June 2015. In May 2013, the /r/FatPeopleHate subreddit was launched. Over the next two years, the forum accumulated upwards of 150,000 subscribers with a subreddit rank of 230 according to Reddit Metrics.^[4] During the summer of 2015, users on the subreddit began flooding Imgur with pictures mocking various Imgur employees’ weight, which was purportedly done in retaliation for the removal of /r/fatpeoplehate submissions on the image-hosting service. On June 10th, Reddit posted an announcement^[5] that they had removed /r/fatpeoplehate, along with four other subreddits, “based on their harassment of individuals.” Within 24 hours, the announcement post had a score of “0” and over 28,600 comments, many of which expressed dismay with the decision to ban the subreddit. In retaliation, users flooded the site with replacement fat shaming subreddits, with each being banned shortly after creation.^[6] Throughout the dat, the front page of /r/all/ was overrun with fat shaming images, posts criticizing the /r/fatpeoplehate ban and posts denouncing Reddit CEOEllen Pao.

Search Interest

External References