Saturday, September 5, 2015

An Open Letter to Nicole Arbour

Dear Nicole,
   Your recent video has caused me to feel a lot of different things, one of those being shame for myself and body. I am not a large woman, I do have curves and fat around my stomach and large thighs that have taken me awhile to love and on some days, still be ashamed but just like you, have never been classified as "fat" or "obese". I don't mean to attack you or criticize your "type" of comedy, but there is a line between satire and flat out offensive and you crossed it in "Dear Fat People". In a way, I can see why you thought of this as OK. I have noticed you make quite a lot of videos in which you mention how you don't care about offending others and even in this videos paid notice to that but to me, I don't think what you created is humorous or "just being silly". Though you may have not meant to, you caused harm to your viewers.
   Starting off, you claim,
"fat shaming is not a thing, fat people made it up" using hyperboloid situations of large people complaining about not being able to fit through doors in a condescending voice. How many times have you heard this actually be said instead of I don't know... complaints on how modern media completely shoves about every body type that isn't thin under the rug and lack of representation because that's mainly what plus sized people are talking about. I would also like to point out your comment that fat people should "stop eating" to become skinny which speaks for itself on being wrong and perpetuates eating disorders as something OK to lose weight with. You even say fat shaming is a great idea because it makes fat being stop being fat. Though I can't speak for your experiences, I can bet you've never been fat shamed. Having others comment on your body isn't fun. It isn't inspirational. Being shamed for the body I live has never inspired me to change, it has brought me personally, and others all across the world to hate ourselves. You calling being fat assisted suicide and comparing obesity to being a shopaholic is also a problem. I'm realizing I don't even have to write this post because all these things you claim speak for themselves without explanation.
   Another thing worth mentioning is your comments on body positivity. For some enlightenment, there is a difference between body positivity and encouraging obesity. The idea of #bodyposi is to share love of human beings, who are constantly being attacked for their appearance, to spread love and well, positivity about themselves and to encourage self love and you comparing this community to things such as chain-smoking and meth completely invalidates and disrespects self love and the ideals around it. This hashtag isn't to help fat people lose weight and your condescending words aren't appreciated.
   The internet does not need a conventionally attractive woman (also your comment on being a minority was an offense in it's own) talking about plus sized people. And please don't try and claim you're being helpful because you aren't. You're horribly undereducated on this topic and should actually understand what you're discussing before clicking "post" to YouTube. I'd really recommend you watch Meghan Tonjes because she wrote a much better response than I did.
Thank you,
Annie







3 comments :

  1. her whole video made me so ridiculously angry... so many vulnerable people have watched this by now and i'm so scared that some of them have accepted what she's said.

    Kafkaesque?

    ReplyDelete
  2. her whole video made me so ridiculously angry... so many vulnerable people have watched this by now and i'm so scared that some of them have accepted what she's said.

    Kafkaesque?

    ReplyDelete