“Our little corner of chaos”

The cloud dancer in me recognizes the cloud dancer in you

For academically minded fans of (the great) Morris Cafiero's work, know that her thesis (2023) is online and covers Wait Watchers along with other projects.

westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/w4641/r...

I appreciate these photos on so many levels, not least of which is that they call into question the knee jerk “you must have imagined it” response.

Maybe someone imagined it once, but dozens of times? Hundreds? What quantity of evidence would convince you to believe fat people the first time?

Absolutely will never forget sitting at the terminal in an airport while a thin couple directly opposite me (like a few feet away) took pictures of me, snickered and whispered.

I tried telling a couple of thin friends whose immediate responses were essentially “they weren’t, you imagined it.”

Okay wait who’s your Meryl Streep

Whither Downtown Julie Brown

(Hello from the night shift, you know shit’s bad when I’m writing whole threads over here, good god)

Of COURSE many of us are brutal to ourselves wrt our bodies and body image. But that doesn’t mean we can’t also hurt other (fatter) people in the process. Indeed, it is a major engine of anti-fatness. And not intending to hurt fatter people doesn’t mean we don’t.

(The “the person I’m meanest to is myself” stuff often comes up in the conversations about unpacking our individual anti-fatness. In that context, it derails the conversation, washes one’s hands of the problem, and brushes off the idea that internally directed behavior impacts others too.)

Thinness is primarily seen as socially valuable as a contrast to fatness. As such, our social scripts for thin people include defining oneself in contrast to fat people, in general or in particular. (This is perhaps most visible in formerly fat/newly thin people, but is def not limited to them.)

Oh my goodness, this is such a good and welcome reminder that even in the heart of those spaces, deradicalization is possible. 💕

It’s so tempting to rest on rote narratives and common wisdom with this stuff, and as you’ve so clearly laid out here, it’s just a whole lot more complicated than toxic dipshits vs damsels in distress. I so appreciate your analysis here.

HARD AGREE. There’s also such a big gap in how the impacts are conceptualized: there’s a belief that 4chan/incel forums direct their toxicity outward, while pro-ana forums are seen as directing theirs inward, which ignores the massive and ruthless trolling that pro-ana folks aim at fat people.