Facebook has responded to a petition by eliminating the status option of ‘feeling fat.’
If only I’d known about this option! And now it’s gone, thanks to political correctness.
The Change.org petition said this:
Did you know that Facebook lets you tell all your friends just how much you hate your body?
Uh-oh, body hatred! Make it stop!
And this:
Having these word choices completely normalizes using derogatory descriptive terms in the place of real feelings. How can a person feel ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’ when these aren’t actually feelings?” …What’s worse is that these adjectives are judgmental and forced on us by society to make women (and increasingly men) feel negatively about their otherwise healthy bodies!
Well, Facebook is sorry and never again will it allow us to fat-shame our own selves. Here’s the Facebook statement:
We’ve heard from our community that listing “feeling fat” as an option for status updates could reinforce negative body image, particularly for people struggling with eating disorders. So we’re going to remove “feeling fat” from the list of options. We’ll continue to listen to feedback as we think about ways to help people express themselves on Facebook.
I’m going to call bullshit on this and I don’t expect a single person to agree with me. But still, this is a disturbing trend. It’s not good to censor feelings, and fat is indeed a feeling, no matter what any petition says.
I feel fat RIGHT NOW. I’m not actually fat but I feel fat. I also feel guilty much of the time. I feel depressed most days and often angry, too. Naming these feelings actually makes me feel better. I know that I don’t need to live in denial, that self-expression is healthy and liberating.
Positivity is nice but shouldn’t be enforced by word police. Fat-shaming is a big deal at the moment but it’s a made-up problem created by scolds, overly sensitive crybabies who think Everyone Is Beautiful even though we’re not all beautiful.
At the same time experts are urging people to talk about mental illness to dispel the stigma, Facebook is now telling us we can’t confess to feeling fat.
Fuckers. Fascists. Fat-phobic fascist fuckers.
P.S. You can’t ‘feel ugly’ anymore on Facebook, either. Because, I don’t know, it’s mean to people struggling with ugliness issues.
Where does it say feeling fat is necessarily a negative statement?
For some people feeling fat is a good thing.
By removing stuff like that automatically makes the assumption that it’s a bad way to feel.
I’m just slow clapping it out right here. And great point Sam! Why is the assumption that “feeling fat” is negative? I think the emoticon is cute and yes, after stuffing my face with a large meal (as the emoticon shows) I feel fat as my stomach is distended.
But I’m not active on facebook enough, and had no idea about these options.
Also agree actually, feeling things about our own selves should not be such a fucking drama. If some of the options are used to bully, or belittle others, it is one thing… but talking about myself feeling like a whale today should be ok… (maybe not for the whales, I hope facebook doesn’t intervene)
I totally agree with you.
But did you actually use the term “positivity”? My all time least favorite word.
I don’t use emojis, they annoy the fuck outta me to be honest.
I seldom post on FB these days but I actually just posted that I feel like something a cat threw up & left in the blazing sun on the porch for 3 days just to have the mailman step in it, but I AM having a great hair day.
I doubt I’ll get any likes.
& what’s this whole thing with likes. One friend is losing his mother to old age & it’s obviously tormenting if you read his posts & 50 people LIKE it?
Really?
Fat IS a feeling! I think these idiots are confusing feelings with emotions. Feeling pertains to touch. It’s physical. If you can touch it, you can feel it!
When you’re walking down the street and your thighs are chaffing, is that not a feeling? When your jeans are cutting off your circulation because they’re now two sizes too small, is that not a feeling? When you look down at your rapidly vanishing feet and you feel the rumple of 50 chins, is that not a feeling? If Kim Kardashian’s big fat arse is in my way and I move it aside, did we both not feel fat? As I sit at my computer, having just consumed a bag of crisps meant for two people, knowing I’ve put on more than a stone since I started working from home again, not having weighed myself, I feel the fat! (and it’s only a little fat, but I feel it.)
There wouldn’t be the same outcry for “I feel thin.” I hate what Change.org is being used for now. What next? Maybe we could all petition Kardashian’s next hair colour or choose her next husband.
Fuck all of those people and their entitled sense of faux social freedom/Justice. You’re constricting the vocabulary, not expanding it! When is that ever good? Dickheads!!
Plus fat is completely relative/subjective. I’m fat as fuck for me. Is that fat for the world? Who the hell knows. Some days I am totally into feeling fat, since it is the opposite (for me) of feeling all kind of wispy and hollow and not quite there and ready to be blown away by whatever bullshit the world has coming for me.
Point is moot anyway since I am the last person in the known world who has no Facebook page.
Howdy Sis
http://boingboing.net/2015/02/25/video-has-everything-nerdy-pi.html
Just sayin’ y’all as I’ve (very) recently turned ano’ther year,
Kim’s a page ain’t she? Reckon Zookerbutt’s gonna be denying her (and for that matter Mister Kardashian) the pleasures of saying’
“Good Lawdy Momma That’s one fat ass!” (singularly globularly speaking) – more’n likely “Great Googly Moogly Moma Kim I’za ‘Bout Ter Zapper Y’all”
Thoungh [sic] being my birthday forgive Mister Kardashian his uzual yeloquince.
I’ve earned every fat cell I have at 61…