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Gen Z May Be Done With Body Positivity.... · The imuRgency Room

• 0:03
  There's been a weird resurgence online of thin is in content and
• 0:06
  beauty standards, and also an equally if not more so strange
• 0:10
  rise and normalization of fat phobia across the Internet,
• 0:14
  specifically among younger generations, which has got
• 0:17
  people wondering, is Gen. Z over body positivity?
• 0:20
  It is borderline radical and at the very least an embodied
• 0:25
  political statement to be fat, chubby, plus sized.
• 0:28
  Really. Awesome seeing the message of
• 0:31
  fat liberation coming from not just fat people's voices.
• 0:35
  That's something that I know that I and other advocates talk
• 0:37
  about a lot is that it is only fat people trying to get fat
• 0:42
  liberation concepts out there, that hey, it's OK to just be in
• 0:46
  your body. And I think it's really cool to
• 0:48
  see fat liberation get some tractions.
• 0:51
  Hey guys, it's up to emergency and welcome back to my channel.
• 0:53
  Today we're talking about a very sensitive topic and I want to
• 0:56
  make sure to be as intentional as I can about this conversation
• 0:58
  because it is so sensitive. And that is a conversation
• 1:01
  around body image amongst young people.
• 1:03
  And also the striking correlation between the
• 1:06
  resurgence of the thinnest in sentiments wanting to be as
• 1:09
  small and thin as possible. And it's correlation to the
• 1:12
  rampant rise of conservatism amongst not only Gen.
• 1:15
  Z but amongst the general culture as well.
• 1:17
  Because as we like to say as we dissect multiple things in this
• 1:20
  channel, most things, if not all things are all related.
• 1:24
  Now, generally, I'm not one to ever talk about bodies.
• 1:27
  And honestly making a video talking about bodies is kind of
• 1:29
  new and also uncomfortable for me.
• 1:31
  But I think that it is such an important conversation because I
• 1:33
  do think that the implications of what is happening right now
• 1:36
  are serious and can and will affect the lives of many people,
• 1:39
  especially the youngest and most impressionable of us.
• 1:42
  So I do think it's important to point out these cultural trends
• 1:45
  because in case you did not know, we are going back.
• 1:47
  This has been precedented before.
• 1:49
  There are some new players in this conversation, but by and
• 1:51
  large, we've seen how this plays out before and it has not looked
• 1:55
  the best and it's time we talk about all that.
• 1:57
  But before we get there, if you are new in this, your first time
• 1:59
  seeing my face. Hello, I'm Ruby, nice to meet
• 2:01
  you. If you enjoy content like this
• 2:02
  or general cultural conversations, both pop and like
• 2:05
  socio, then don't forget to subscribe so that you jump us on
• 2:07
  this single video. Also, we like on this video
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• 2:11
  You can follow me on all my other socials at emergency on
• 2:13
  Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. And what else do I normally only
• 2:15
  say? Oh, you can also check out the
• 2:17
  audio and video version of these videos over on Spotify if that's
• 2:20
  more your vibe. So check the links for that.
• 2:22
  But let's get into this conversation.
• 2:24
  And in order to dive into where we are today, we kind of need to
• 2:26
  start backwards and talk about where we've been, how far we've
• 2:30
  come, and how quickly we seem to be moving back.
• 2:33
  So this little history lesson is going to be taking us back to
• 2:36
  the lovely mid 90s because what happened in the mid 90s, besides
• 2:40
  the birth and rise of 90s kids? Well, the chic Thinnizen
• 2:44
  movement right In the mid 90's the term chic came to popularity
• 2:48
  specifically in the fashion world.
• 2:50
  It glorified the look of thinness, pale skin, dark
• 2:53
  circles under the eyes, thigh caps and protruding collarbones.
• 2:56
  But like in a couture in high fashion way, it was often times
• 2:59
  associated with a more grunge and gritty aesthetic.
• 3:02
  One of the reasons why colloquially the term chic got
• 3:04
  its name was because this look often captured the essence of
• 3:08
  the time when it came to substance use.
• 3:10
  And while not everyone who was cheek necessarily was on these
• 3:14
  substances, they did the whole presence and elusive factor of
• 3:19
  these substances being involved and being in these spaces really
• 3:22
  gave this cool, effortless kind of look to the model that was
• 3:25
  really popular during that era. The model credited as the
• 3:27
  original cheek model was Jia Karanji, who was a user who
• 3:31
  unfortunately and tragically passed from the 26th and 1986.
• 3:35
  And when it comes to the whole aesthetic of heritage, cheek and
• 3:38
  then being very much in the roots may go further in
• 3:41
  embodying withdrawal objection and the the popularity of hair
• 3:44
  teak. Mary Rizzo argues that while the
• 3:46
  trend gained popularity in the 90s that there were actually two
• 3:49
  other trends. The first is the substance that
• 3:51
  lent the style. Its name, which has long been
• 3:53
  associated with the urban lower classes, has seen an upsurge in
• 3:57
  use in the 1990s. What has been most commented
• 3:59
  upon, however, is the fact that newest users are white, middle
• 4:03
  class youth and young adults. This upsurge has coincided with
• 4:06
  a boom in the portrayal of use and popular culture, especially
• 4:09
  in film. Taken together, these images
• 4:11
  create a trope of the junkie as the ultimate authentic critic
• 4:14
  who withdraws from society. The second inspiration peak is
• 4:17
  the art and fashion photography of the 1970s, characterized by
• 4:21
  its realistic style and gritty subject matter.
• 4:23
  In this example, it's sort of that thing where like a
• 4:25
  substance, a dialect, a trend, or whatever will be condemned to
• 4:28
  look down upon when it's used by the working class or low income
• 4:31
  class. But then when those same things
• 4:34
  are used by the often times white middle and upper class,
• 4:36
  it's then revered as this next big thing that everyone needs to
• 4:39
  hop on and something that's super cool and edgy.
• 4:42
  Heather Hayes article use that as a result, thigh gaps,
• 4:45
  protruding hips where collarbones and slim flat waist
• 4:48
  became the desirable look which drove up the rates of eating.
• 4:51
  Between 1990 and 1998. The prevalence of EDS in the US
• 4:56
  increased sharply in the ages of those 15 to 29 and only began to
• 5:00
  slowly decrease again in 2010. Obviously there are many factors
• 5:03
  that lead to the rise and fall of EDS, like it's not just this
• 5:06
  one trend or this one look or this one beauty standard.
• 5:09
  But at the same time, it is important to understand this is
• 5:11
  where representation does happen to matter, but not in like the
• 5:15
  positive uplifting way and the like, Oh, this is the beauty
• 5:19
  standard. This is what I should be looking
• 5:20
  like, this is what I should be working towards.
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  If I'm not this, then there's something wrong sort of form of
• 5:25
  representation. I guess that would be called
• 5:26
  misrepresentation, huh? The 90s and early 2000s were not
• 5:29
  a kind time for diversity of body types and that's just real.
• 5:33
  Whether it was in magazines, TV representation, tabloids, blogs,
• 5:36
  basically any media you can get at essentially made humiliation
• 5:39
  rituals, shaming them for anything over but a flat stomach
• 5:42
  in 0 inch weight for the male body standard being like this
• 5:45
  slim but also lightly muscular frame.
• 5:49
  I want to say like twink plus. And it's no secret to anyone
• 5:52
  that the 90s and early 2000s were extremely fat.
• 5:54
  But like just for a quick glance for how cutthroat the culture
• 5:57
  was at the time, these women were considered fat and were
• 5:59
  made fun of and mocked for it in magazines.
• 6:02
  But now let's talk about when tides change with the body
• 6:04
  positivity movement. But before we get fully into the
• 6:06
  body positivity movement, let's make sure we're all familiar
• 6:08
  with its roots. At the origin of the body
• 6:10
  positivity movement lies the Fat Accepted movement of the late
• 6:14
  1960's. The Fat Acceptance movement was
• 6:17
  created to call attention to the discrimination and mistreatment
• 6:20
  that fat people face in everyday society.
• 6:22
  It started with a sit in in Central Park where 500 people
• 6:25
  came together to protest this discrimination.
• 6:27
  Together this group 8 carried signs of protests, burned diet
• 6:30
  books and photos of Model Twiggy and were visibly, publicly and
• 6:34
  loudly fat without being apologetic.
• 6:36
  And around that same time, a man named Llewellyn Lou Louderback
• 6:39
  wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post titled
• 6:41
  More People should be Fat in response the discrimination his
• 6:44
  wife faced. And this is one of the first
• 6:45
  public defenses of fatness in the mainstream.
• 6:48
  In 1969, the National Association to advocate Fat
• 6:51
  acceptance was founded to address bias towards fat people
• 6:54
  as a civil rights issue across the country.
• 6:56
  In a California activist started a collective known as fat
• 6:59
  underground with a more radical form of activism informed by the
• 7:02
  2nd wave feminist movement in gay activism in the 70s, this
• 7:05
  group published the fat liberation manifesto, aligning
• 7:08
  themselves as allies to other struggles in oppressed groups.
• 7:10
  We believe that fat people are fully entitled to human respect
• 7:13
  and recognition. We're angry at the mistreatment
• 7:15
  by commercial and sexist interests.
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  These have exploited our bodies as objects of ridicule, thereby
• 7:19
  creating immensely profitable market.
• 7:21
  So like the false promise of avoidance of and relief from
• 7:24
  that ridicule. We see our struggle as allied
• 7:26
  with the struggle of other press groups against classism, racism,
• 7:29
  sexism, ageism, capitalism, imperialism and the like.
• 7:31
  Which is a quote from manifesto. With that, we now cut with the
• 7:34
  modern day body positivity movement as we know it from the
• 7:37
  20 tens. At first, a more modern body
• 7:40
  positivity movement started online around 2011, which the
• 7:43
  conversation at least kicked off on social media.
• 7:45
  And the point of it all was to love and accept your body.
• 7:48
  No need to change yourself, no need to put yourself through the
• 7:50
  ringer to look a certain way. Just radical self acceptance.
• 7:54
  It really sought out to challenge the standards of
• 7:56
  beauty. In 2014, hashtag body positivity
• 7:58
  became mainstream on socials with more plus size influencers
• 8:01
  than ever content normalizing fat bodies in different spaces,
• 8:04
  plus size models and magazines. And it was the year that Jen
• 8:07
  Baker of the Militant Baker went viral after a takedown of
• 8:10
  Abercrombie and Fitch for refusing to sell plus size
• 8:13
  clothing on the basis that it didn't appeal to the cool kids.
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  And following the fallout of that, the brand promised to
• 8:18
  produce a larger size range of clothing in that spring of 2014.
• 8:22
  So some change actually started happening.
• 8:24
  It's because of this. But as things began to get
• 8:26
  better, the conversation shifted a bit, as a lot of movements do
• 8:30
  when they go mainstream, their arguments and worries that the
• 8:33
  body positivity movement was becoming a watered down version
• 8:35
  of itself to appeal to more people.
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  As seen, the people took the hashtag That's not to normalize
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  different body types and bring awareness to them in visual
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  media begin to shift in a different way.
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  It essentially was the all lives matterification of the body
• 8:49
  positivity movement. There was actually a really
• 8:51
  great study though, and if you're interested, you
• 8:52
  definitely take a look at the critical exploration of the
• 8:54
  hashtag body positivity hashtag. But in summary, people went
• 8:57
  through the hashtags most recent posts to take a sample and sort
• 9:00
  of them by their differences to analyze.
• 9:02
  And what they found from their data is that certainly in these
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  data, particularly within the disclosure of body related
• 9:08
  journeys, we observe a conspicious absence of explicit
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  images of Black Indigenous persons of color, fat, thick,
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  plus size people, disabled people, LGBTQIA plus people of
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  aging bodies or overall representation of non normative
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  bodies and a lack of diversity in the types of physical
• 9:25
  modalities. Instead they were met with a lot
• 9:27
  of fitness influencers, typical white CIS able bodied men and
• 9:31
  women paired along to share their body transformation
• 9:34
  journey with the equivalent hashtag Wellness journey or
• 9:37
  hashtag body transformation. Body positivity slowly but
• 9:40
  surely became synonymous with wanting to change your body for
• 9:43
  the better. And are we seeing the
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  disconnects? Are we seeing the
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  contradictions? Here we pause it.
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  Although others within broader society may yearn for connection
• 9:50
  and validation through their Instagram posts, this comes with
• 9:52
  considerable risks. Expressing vulnerability through
• 9:54
  sharing images, personal stories and experiences that are not
• 9:57
  typically celebrated often result in trolling or bullying,
• 9:59
  bringing with it considerable concomitant mental health and
• 10:02
  safety implications within the posts.
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  In our study, white muscular men and then lean toned white women
• 10:08
  who powerlift freely posted about their body related
• 10:10
  journeys of fitness and body acceptance.
• 10:12
  Which brings up a great question of like who gets to document
• 10:15
  their journey? Who has access or their
• 10:16
  permission to share their personal body related stories?
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  Because the majority of people that had been posting under that
• 10:22
  hashtag are white in shape men and women and they had been
• 10:25
  getting positive feedback from it.
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  Whereas if the opposite were to happen, that would not be met
• 10:29
  with the same positive feedback. Which kind of suggests that the
• 10:32
  movement has been moving and becoming something that it never
• 10:35
  was. Now it seems like there are more
• 10:37
  people who don't necessarily see themselves as much in the body
• 10:39
  positivity movement and have moved more into the body
• 10:42
  neutrality or fat livery movement.
• 10:44
  Now let's talk about then being back in.
• 10:45
  Unless you've been living under a rock, you may have seen the
• 10:48
  uptick in the amount of fitness content, Ozempic commentary, or
• 10:51
  just blatant fat phobia on the Internet.
• 10:53
  Just have a visual representation of how so back
• 10:56
  fitness is in. Let's take a look at the size
• 10:58
  distribution of what the last fall winter fashion collection
• 11:01
  look like. You're not saying something
• 11:06
  groundbreaking or revolutionary by talking about how proud you
• 11:10
  are to be a skinny person. Okay, and it's wild to me that
• 11:14
  in the same breath, a lot of these same people will talk
• 11:17
  about how they grew up skinny and and they were bullied for
• 11:20
  it, but then also recognize that society treats fat people and
• 11:25
  plus size people as subhuman. OK, but when you talk about how
• 11:29
  proud you are to be thin, you were reminding me of a certain
• 11:33
  group of people and I'm not going to say it directly.
• 11:36
  I'm going to have you read in between the lines a little bit.
• 11:39
  Actually, if you had any knowledge of the fat acceptance
• 11:43
  movement of the body positive movement, you would understand
• 11:47
  that fat people and plus size people loving and accepting
• 11:51
  their bodies has always been political.
• 11:54
  There is a reason that this movement, OK, went alongside
• 11:59
  with other social justice movements, OK?
• 12:03
  When people come online and they talk about how they face similar
• 12:08
  challenges as fat people and yada yada yada, it's giving
• 12:13
  reverse racism, OK? And I'm saying this is as a
• 12:16
  white privileged woman, OK. There are creators who are much
• 12:22
  more knowledgeable than me. I will link 1 below.
• 12:24
  OK, but I need you to understand that there is a power dynamic,
• 12:29
  all right? There is a power dynamic and by
• 12:33
  you recognizing that there is a power dynamic and you being able
• 12:37
  to understand that society treats you better but not doing
• 12:41
  anything about it and also feeding into it, you are the
• 12:45
  problem. There's a reason why that
• 12:49
  conservatism and traditional values are on the uptick at the
• 12:53
  same time that all of this, like thin is in, skinny is whatever.
• 12:58
  They go hand in hand with one another.
• 13:00
  And this is the case across the board.
• 13:02
  We're seeing less plus size representation in media and
• 13:04
  shows in the passion and just in general.
• 13:07
  And this is concerning. And I feel like when people say
• 13:09
  this, people oftentimes think like, why are you romanticizing
• 13:12
  or why are you encouraging people to not try and be as fit
• 13:16
  as possible? But I think oftentimes what that
• 13:19
  argument does fail to acknowledge is that a lot of
• 13:21
  people have pre-existing conditions and physical fitness
• 13:24
  looks different on everybody. Like not everyone is going to
• 13:27
  have these 6 packs, size 0, ultra muscular and also somehow
• 13:31
  ultra toned body despite living a healthy lifestyle.
• 13:33
  Like it really discounts a lot of other environmental, social
• 13:36
  and genetic, biological factors that go into somebody's body
• 13:40
  composition. And I think part of that
• 13:41
  messaging was like the whole backbone behind the original
• 13:44
  body positivity movement was like, yeah, sometimes these
• 13:47
  things can be out of your immediate control, but like, you
• 13:50
  could still love yourself and still see yourself in media and
• 13:53
  have that be OK. Now it's not so much the case.
• 13:56
  And I think a lot of this has to do with the rise in conservatism
• 14:00
  in the country, in the world, and specifically in our
• 14:02
  generation. We previously talked about how
• 14:03
  there's a rise in conservatism in Gen.
• 14:05
  Z. And there are about a million
• 14:06
  videos talking about how the rise of trad wives, the rise of
• 14:10
  clean girl aesthetics were initial indicators towards us
• 14:13
  swinging more so to the right. But I think one thing that we
• 14:16
  don't talk about nearly enough off his like fitness content
• 14:19
  because that also does have a very right leading swing.
• 14:22
  In fact, the recent Netflix show called Adolescence kind of
• 14:25
  touches on this a little bit. It's like a very minor point
• 14:27
  when talking about like the alt right pipeline.
• 14:29
  But like 1 character says like they were just trying to find
• 14:33
  fitness videos and all of a sudden we're being fed content
• 14:35
  from people like Andrew Tate. Like the pipeline is definitely
• 14:37
  there because it does prey on people's insecurities.
• 14:41
  And there's a reason why Jim bro slash Jim self content feels
• 14:46
  like that when you watch or if it comes across your free page.
• 14:49
  There's a reason why it feels kind of conservative, even if
• 14:52
  the person that is the bodybuilder is not or isn't
• 14:56
  trying to push that messaging at all.
• 14:57
  And I think part of it is because the whole concept, like
• 15:00
  bodybuilding and powerlifting, is about creating that physique
• 15:02
  that embodies true traditional masculinity.
• 15:06
  And in male circles, essentially revolves around the strength and
• 15:09
  building the strength and body image of men, which if you go
• 15:12
  far enough, can lead you down some other pipelines through a
• 15:15
  similar way of thinking. A.
• 15:16
  Few years ago the body positivity movement was like at
• 15:19
  its peak. It was all love your body.
• 15:22
  Move your body because you love it, not because you want to
• 15:24
  shrink it. Food freedom woohoo.
• 15:26
  And now we have regressed to thin is in the thin is in
• 15:31
  movement is rooted in self-discipline and control,
• 15:34
  which is conservative values at their core.
• 15:36
  The thin beauty standards are talking about shrinking your
• 15:39
  body, taking up less space, which are also generally seen as
• 15:42
  like feminine values because women are meant to be seen and
• 15:44
  not heard. And this goes beyond fitness and
• 15:46
  I've said this before, but we need to be so careful how women
• 15:48
  talk about jobs and money because being able to have a job
• 15:51
  and being able to have our own money are very new for women.
• 15:54
  So by saying I'm literally just a girl is giving rise to these
• 15:57
  conservative movements as well. But back to fitness, let's talk
• 15:59
  about how Pilates and bar are marketed towards women.
• 16:02
  It's tone up, lengthen your muscles, get lean, which are all
• 16:06
  ways of getting smaller. Whereas like go to the gym and
• 16:09
  lift weights is ways of getting bulkier, AKA more masculine.
• 16:12
  Whereas Pilates and bar are being marketed as more feminine
• 16:15
  because they don't make you bulky.
• 16:16
  Weightlifting is masculine whereas you can be a Pilates
• 16:19
  Princess or a bar ballerina. The gender stereotypes are very
• 16:22
  subtle but they are very crazy to me.
• 16:25
  All of this to say that the overt feeds are constantly
• 16:27
  flooded with these tiny size 0 girls doing Pilates, doing
• 16:32
  weighted yoga, sculpt yoga, hot yoga, whatever.
• 16:35
  Then wearing low rise jeans and eating 1000 calories a day and
• 16:38
  people are like Oh my God body goals.
• 16:39
  And honestly, don't even get me started on low rise jeans,
• 16:42
  because that's what started all of this.
• 16:44
  But on the other hand, and other fitness content, you see a lot
• 16:46
  of emphasis on self-control and discipline, which oftentimes do
• 16:50
  fall in line with some of the core tenets of conservatism.
• 16:54
  In an article by Days, it states that the relations between
• 16:57
  pursuing physical superiority and conservative ideology in the
• 16:59
  West is centuries old. We're all aware of Darwinism
• 17:02
  survivable the fittest sentiments.
• 17:03
  But what's less obvious is that these ideas underpin how the
• 17:06
  right wing ideology positions, disregarding the marginalized as
• 17:09
  natural. The line between striving for
• 17:11
  physical superiority and eugenics is very thin.
• 17:13
  It's no coincidence that physical training is a key
• 17:16
  feature in the mustache man's youth program, which ultimately
• 17:20
  aimed to create racially pure area in society.
• 17:23
  Embarrassedly, this ideology even predates 1930s and 40s.
• 17:26
  In the 19th century Britain, the muscular Christianity philosophy
• 17:29
  took hold, characterized by self-discipline, self sacrifice,
• 17:32
  patriarchal duty, nationalism, religious piousness, plus the
• 17:36
  conflation of aesthetic beauty and improved morality.
• 17:39
  And variously this facilitated the prevailing negative
• 17:41
  stereotypes of overweight people being lazy, unclean and sinful.
• 17:44
  After centuries of media enforcing these messages, it
• 17:46
  makes sense that young boys and men will equate weakness to
• 17:49
  worthlessness. So it really shouldn't come as a
• 17:52
  surprise when we see things like a right wing administration and
• 17:55
  a culture trending towards conservatism also have a rise in
• 17:58
  fitness content trying to have that physical superiority.
• 18:01
  Like there has historically been fitness content that is not
• 18:03
  weird. But like with all these factors
• 18:06
  and how the alt right pipeline does tend to funnel people in,
• 18:09
  especially young people in through like their insecure weak
• 18:12
  points, which when you're younger, it is like your
• 18:15
  appearances, because you're trying to make yourself
• 18:16
  attractive and desirable at that age to your peers that you would
• 18:19
  fall down that pipeline by thinking like, Oh, I need to get
• 18:22
  the best body possible so I can attract the most blah, blah,
• 18:24
  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, going down there.
• 18:26
  And also if we do want to get into the except at all crutches
• 18:28
  and spices is a great video talking about this now a.
• 18:32
  Piss literally coming up on my. For you page.
• 18:34
  OK, so I'm going. To say something that it's going
• 18:37
  to piss a ton of you off, but if a lot of you are being honest,
• 18:41
  that's why you're really here. So there's been a couple of
• 18:43
  trends, including the toddler Tees and the Y2K fashion.
• 18:45
  That is a very alarming sign that is of post pandemic.
• 18:51
  Now are we over these pandemics? Absolutely not.
• 18:53
  There's a new one actually. If I talk about it I will cry.
• 18:55
  Usually during and after pandemics there's a huge uptick
• 18:58
  in obsession over who has a perfect body because who
• 19:01
  survives a pandemic is usually seen as more genetically
• 19:04
  superior or extremely invested in their health and thinness as
• 19:07
  an indicator of health. This toddler tea trend is
• 19:09
  disturbing for many reasons. The timing of it is what
• 19:12
  disturbs me more, not only because of the pandemics, but
• 19:15
  because the economic downturns and recession.
• 19:18
  Because recessions and economic hardships are how people get
• 19:20
  recruited to harmful ideologies and fat phobia and obsession
• 19:24
  with fitness and what is considered healthy bodies is how
• 19:28
  they recruit people. Yeah, so a lot of trends are not
• 19:32
  just trends. They're like cultural pop
• 19:35
  quizzes on belonging and who belongs.
• 19:38
  And at the time when I made that video, the baby tea trend was a
• 19:41
  thing of buying teas in a baby section or toddler section.
• 19:46
  And guess who could never fit into one of those fat people?
• 19:50
  Even the Stanley Tumblr trend is very similar.
• 19:52
  It flexes who can afford one, and to a certain extent, so did
• 19:56
  the soft life trend, which flex how much time you have to spend
• 19:59
  on yourself. All those things are privileges,
• 20:02
  but flexing access to those things determines who belongs.
• 20:06
  Trends are not just trends, my darling.
• 20:08
  So I hate giving these people air times so I'm not going to
• 20:10
  but like the funk and foot podcast.
• 20:12
  That's not the actual name but grams read between lines that
• 20:14
  one funk and book guy that was in the jubilee video recently.
• 20:18
  But he like use of ones appearance to prescribe
• 20:20
  qualities and trades to define if someone is good solely best
• 20:23
  off their physical appearances. Nasty work but it has been and
• 20:26
  continues to be done by everyday people.
• 20:29
  Like the quote that we just talked about.
• 20:31
  People often times can play physique with character which is
• 20:34
  1. Dangerous and two, not
• 20:35
  necessarily a great indicator all the time.
• 20:37
  And like I was getting at before, another assumption is
• 20:39
  that like we all have the same bodily functions and all gain
• 20:43
  and lose weight in the same way. Which is just like not true.
• 20:45
  Everyone has a different metabolism.
• 20:47
  People's eating habits, workout habits are not reflective of the
• 20:50
  way that their bodies look. And shocker, thinness is not an
• 20:53
  indicator of health. I guess that's someone's health
• 20:55
  and character based on appearance is just ridiculous.
• 20:58
  Now, is fitness content inherently conservative?
• 21:01
  No, However on women's side, the increase in popularity and
• 21:04
  things like Pilates, Lagree, or other low impact forms of
• 21:07
  exercise in recent years for leaners and smaller bodies for
• 21:11
  women does send the message and does seek to uphold beauty
• 21:15
  standards that women should be leaner in trying to achieve this
• 21:18
  sort of thinness. Not to mention the spatial
• 21:20
  politics of physically taking up less space, like women trying to
• 21:23
  get smaller while men are trying to get bigger again.
• 21:26
  Like we're going back to really old stereotypes that did not
• 21:29
  serve us back then and certainly aren't going to serve us now.
• 21:32
  So I think it's really important that we keep an eye on this.
• 21:34
  And then there's a whole conversation around the rise of
• 21:36
  things like Ozempic and its Ozempic dupes.
• 21:38
  And honestly, at this point, what hasn't been said about
• 21:40
  Ozempic? People have talked endlessly
• 21:42
  about Ozempic and how popular it's become because it has
• 21:46
  exploded and has been deemed the miracle of this generation.
• 21:49
  And I also understand why people might think twice before they
• 21:51
  would take it. But I do think it's another
• 21:53
  example of like society rewarding you for being thinner.
• 21:55
  Unfortunately, the way that this society has been set up is that
• 21:58
  you do gain privileges for fitting into what society wants
• 22:01
  from you and wants you to look like, wants you to behave like.
• 22:04
  So it's understandable why people would take it for
• 22:06
  aesthetic reasons. And as long as you're being
• 22:08
  saved and are well informed of the effects, long term effects,
• 22:10
  short form effects and believe that that's the best decision
• 22:12
  for you. I'm never wanted to judge
• 22:14
  someone's life choices like that's on you and I love that
• 22:16
  for you. But what I will speak on is the
• 22:18
  increased popularity of Ozempic and it's wide distribution to
• 22:21
  pretty much the general public. Really seems like as soon as
• 22:23
  Ozempic and its other hit the market that people kind of just
• 22:28
  abandoned the body positivity movement.
• 22:29
  Like when given the option to lose the weight, it seems like
• 22:31
  culturally we move to like doing that.
• 22:33
  Like Oh yeah, let's do it. Which again, I understand
• 22:36
  because of how society treats people.
• 22:37
  But when we talk about the conversation like Gen.
• 22:39
  Z being over body positivity, it's just like wild to see how
• 22:42
  fast to switch up once there was a clear alternative.
• 22:45
  Moving on to my last point honestly is just a quick
• 22:47
  conversation about and how comfortable the internet's
• 22:49
  gotten with fat phobia online. It's really gotten rampant in
• 22:52
  ways that are more sinister and intentionally malicious and
• 22:55
  others. Let's just get this out the way.
• 22:57
  Did fat phobia ever really leave the Internet discourse or
• 23:00
  zeitgeist? No, it did not.
• 23:02
  There are definitely some progressive steps taken forward,
• 23:05
  but we never really got to where we should have been.
• 23:08
  But now it really seems like we're OK with taking steps back.
• 23:11
  And this comes at a time where other things like slayers, like
• 23:13
  we've talked about in previous videos and other previously
• 23:16
  taboo or more so less socially acceptable ways of interacting
• 23:21
  with each other had become more popular.
• 23:23
  Fat phobia has also become one of those things where people are
• 23:26
  just like OK with saying whatever.
• 23:28
  Like we're really seeing the regression of social issues in
• 23:30
  real time. Like thinking about some recent
• 23:32
  trends that have been going on online.
• 23:33
  You have the AI chubby filter, which again, does not sound that
• 23:36
  deep when you say it out loud. But when you think about the
• 23:38
  implications and what this means and what the whole thing of like
• 23:41
  laughing and mocking the chubby filter is saying in terms of
• 23:45
  beauty standards, especially on an app like TikTok that is a
• 23:48
  kids app first and foremost, Let's be real.
• 23:50
  It's just really telling for where the beauty standards are
• 23:52
  going and what message you're sending to young people over
• 23:55
  what is a body type that should be mocked and it's OK being
• 23:58
  mocked and which one is more so coveted.
• 24:00
  And then the most relevant offender that has crossed the
• 24:04
  Internet in droves is the whole big back trend.
• 24:07
  And I think there was a little bit of discourse about this when
• 24:09
  the trend first started. But like, now it's kind of just
• 24:11
  like whatever. But like the fact that we
• 24:13
  normalize like using the term big back and like being like,
• 24:17
  oh, I'm begging my back or like using it as a form of like gym
• 24:19
  motivation or like whenever someone's eating a lot of food
• 24:22
  or basically anything revolving around like being big really
• 24:27
  kind of shows where we are. Because the butt of the joke at
• 24:29
  the end of the day for both of these trends are being big or
• 24:32
  being fat is a joke and you don't want to be it.
• 24:35
  Like that's the message that's coming from these.
• 24:37
  And while the intention often times when people are saying
• 24:39
  this is not that, that is what is the narrative that's being
• 24:42
  reinforced each time you say it. So really, it is kind of
• 24:45
  concerning. Like with the general rise of
• 24:47
  conservatism that's been going on, the normalization of weight
• 24:49
  loss and social media regressing to a place honestly, I did not
• 24:53
  think we would see again. And since the early 2000s, like,
• 24:57
  it's a wild time online. And honestly, I am concerned for
• 24:59
  where this is going to lead us because like I always say,
• 25:02
  everything is connected. Just because one or a few
• 25:04
  communities are being affected that don't directly have to do
• 25:06
  with you does not mean that eventually the issues are not
• 25:09
  going to knock directly on your door.
• 25:11
  So it's important to be vigilant and also be proactive at like
• 25:14
  combating a lot of these regressive ways of thinking
• 25:16
  because they can lead us to some very spooky places.
• 25:19
  But yeah, that's all I got to say for this video.
• 25:21
  I know that this is a pretty heavy video topic, but I hope
• 25:24
  you're able to get something out of it.
• 25:25
  Let me your thoughts on the comments section below Again, if
• 25:27
  you do the channel to please subscribe to the like and follow
• 25:29
  my social media on Instagram, tick Tock and Twitter all at
• 25:32
  emergency. Other than that, y'all I have an
• 25:33
  emergency and I'll see you in the next video.
• 25:35
  Peace.