Feeling annoyed today

It’s a combination of having to wait an insanely long time in the cold for the streetcar (24+ minutes when it’s supposed to come every 11), the boredom of the fracture clinic waiting room, and an irritating email, compounded by the fact that the waiting room boredom led me to follow links from the irritating email to a rabbit hole of stupidity about “body positivity.”

I’ve complained about body positivity before. Because it’s just another platitude, just another way to pick apart women’s bodies for being wrong.

So the annoying email was from a friend’s Substack (literally everyone I know has a Substack) about celebrities I am not familiar with who have lost weight, and why you shouldn’t criticise the individual but it’s okay to criticise the phenomenon, and then refers to the celebrities as “dumb-dumbs.”

Like really?

You want to be holier than thou about bodyshapes but if anyone doesn’t follow your rules it’s because they must not be very smart?

Stupidly I clicked a link (waiting! bored!) and started reading a whole bunch of articles attacking women for getting thinner, excusing themselves for their judgy behaviour because they are “unavoidable.”

The “celebrities” I haven’t heard of are “unavoidable.” I googled some out of curiosity (and boredom!) and some are very thin and some look pretty normal?

I also stumbled into a thread of women talking about how they’ve been skinny-shamed, and various hurtful comments received when dealing with weight change caused by illness.

Not gonna lie, the “body positivity” community makes me want to lose weight out of spite, the same way anti-smoking ads made me want cigarettes as a crabby teenager.

I am not a big social media user, especially lately, but when I think about what my “explore” tab looked like on my old Instagram, it was mainly local theatre productions, cycling, baking, and vintage clothing (especially knitting patterns). I started a new Instagram for a new project recently, and that explore page is all visual arts and small press literature.

Which makes me think—maybe the self-discipline issue isn’t about having the self-discipline to eat or exercise a certain way, maybe it’s about maintaining a healthy media diet? One that isn’t celebrities or influencers—including “body positivity” influencers—but instead people doing actual things that have nothing to do with bodies at all?

Maybe I would be just as fussed about weight if I spent my time looking at pictures of people obsessed with weight. But choosing to look at other stuff instead is the easiest thing in the world.

I won’t criticise someone for looking a certain way. I will criticise someone for making other people’s bodies the focus of their own existence.

ETA: It just occurred to me, my boredom hate-reading this morning probably messed up my search algorithms. I hate the internet.