hi everyone welcome back to my channel in today's video i want to talk about a topic that has been
on my mind for the longest time finally i feel like i'm ready to talk about it it is body
positivity and the thought's exciting
it is body positivity and the toxic side of the movement since i started making content i have
been calling myself a body positive content creator and i thought there's nothing wrong
with that you know i make videos to help people feel better about their body people with body may
be similar to my body type or different body type but somehow can relate to me having insecurity and
being body shamed and that's why i call my content body positive what triggered me to make this video
is recently i was invited to an event called the botcon it's like a online conference that
help people feel confident or love their body the event invites maybe like 20 30 speakers and i was
one of the speakers on the panel so the speakers that the event invites all come from different
body shapes and sizes with different ability and genders i think that is amazing and i feel so
honored to be included in this event for the past one week on the instagram they have been
announcing speakers for the event and everything was going well until they started posting about me
on the post possibly introduced me as one of the speaker there were several comments that made me
question if i should still be body positive and i'm gonna read out one of the comments
to you as much as i am all for acceptance of our bodies and just loving and living in our bodies
this pose is not it fat shaming and skinny shaming are very different body positivity was made for
marginalized fat bodies who are not getting the same treatment and benefits in life that others
get they are compared to what not to be constantly in a world where being smaller is braced you need
to change the terminology to something that is not associated to that movement i feel bad for her for
being made fun of and criticized in her life for her body but she likely get a lot of privileges in
life because of it too her story is valid but should not be associated with body positivity
or being called skinny shaming i have a lot to say about this because this is not the first time
that i see there's a subset of people that don't want to include skinny people thin people in the
body positivity movement because they say that the movement was started for and still for only
people of color with bigger bodies i also want to bring up an instagram post that i recently came
across that i think would make the point clearer this creator posted on her instagram a post that
includes multiple body positivity accounts of thinner women and this is what she has to say
i'm sorry but i have to say it it really bugs me that themed people are taking up a lot of space in
the body positivity slash south left corner of the internet i know i'm going to get backlash for this
but it's honestly a major thing for plus size creators a lot of these people make big money
and have great success creating this content also great the problem for me is that i've noticed for
myself as far as many other plus size creators in the same corner of the internet is that we don't
get half of the recognition that slander people do i find that most slender content creators who
promote body acceptance have to distort their body in order to show off their imperfections
unlike them i don't have thin privilege i can't take out my fatness when it's convenient or
advantageous for me and live the rest of my day without scrutiny or being shamed and yet these
accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers even millions people love these accounts it allows
them to feel good about themselves without having to confront the internalized fatphobia
i could post the same damn photo and not get any engagement from it why is that because
people inherently believe that my body is bad whether consciously or not it's so damn hard i
would love to be able to support myself by doing what i love and help people through social media
the problem is that my body isn't palatable but instead it's these slander influencers that are
making big bucks from brandios creating their own fashion lines receiving massive opportunities
instead of those living in more marginalized bodies who are portraying the same message be
vocal tell your favorite influencer that it's time to pass the damn mic making a purchase through an
influencer stop and check to see if that brand has inclusive sizing diversify your feed we
don't have to only follow slander white women there's a lot to unpack this particular creator
has a plus-sized body and i respect everyone's opinion i think that there's valid points in
both sides of the argument but just speaking from the point of view of a skinny woman creating body
positive content for the past three years this is what i have to say a lot of other creators
on youtube have done videos on this topic and they have talked in great lengths about the history of
body positivity and i highly recommend you to check out their videos because they are great
i'll put them here i will not go into the history of body positivity movement in depth because i
think other people have talked about it better than me but i just want to say that i acknowledge
and i understand the fact that the movement was started out to support people of color with larger
bodies i agree that people with larger bodies have suffered a lot and have been discriminated
a lot in society hysterically and even until now however i think that the body positivity movement
has evolved over time to be inclusive to include not only people with larger bodies but people
of all shapes and sizes people with different abilities or special needs or even born victims
and everyone it has evolved to include everyone and so i find it hard to understand why or certain
subset of people in the movement wants to get keep the movement and wants to exclude other people
from being in the movement and you can't sit with us it's like everybody is body positive until they
see someone who is skinny and trying to love their body and they would go to my comment section or
other slender creators comment section and say that oh you have the ideal body type or you have
thin privilege and so the movement is not for you or skinny shaming is not the real thing and i find
it interesting because in one of the comments she was saying that my story is valid but at the same
time she was saying skinny shaming is not a real thing it's very conflicting you know you can't say
that someone's story is valid and then invalidate their story by saying skinny shaming is not the
real thing or it's bullying and it's not skinny shaming why do you have to get keep a terminology
that has over time evolved to be inclusive of all body types and why do we have to even compare the
struggles of bigger people to struggles of thin people i think that the feeling of insecurity
is subjective and it's different for everyone but at the same time it's similar i can feel
insecure and you can feel insecure it's not dependent on the body type that you're in
anyone could feel insecure i don't think that the movement should be about comparing our struggle
or saying that i have more struggles than you i go through more discrimination than you so i deserve
more platform or i deserve more followings than you i deserve a bigger voice than you
i don't think that it should be about comparison i think that it should be about inclusivity
and to continue what i was saying these slander influencers have a platform because a lot of
people relate to them and the same goes with me i have a platform and followings because there are
certain people out there like you who relate to my content relate to my insecurity had the same
body type as me and i think that we all in this together we all in this movement together and
different people will find different creators relatable i don't think that slander influencers
are taking the platform or taking the movement away from plus size creators because if they're
someone who's plus size and is insecure about their body and wants to work on their self-love
and their self-confidence they will seek out people with the similar body type as them and
relate to that creator the similar goes with people with smaller chests a smaller body
and i just feel like from the post that i share with you there's certain sentences when i read it
and i just feel like and it's just my own feeling i'm not saying that this is true i just feel like
from what she was writing there's a little bit of jealousy in there because she was mentioning how
slender creators have hundreds or millions of followers and brandios and fashion line
i think that it's completely understandable to feel like that if you're a broad-sized creator
and you feel like you're not getting their amount of attention or support or platform that you think
you deserve i think that is totally understandable because i could relate to that sometimes i look at
other creators and i feel like oh my god i don't measure up or my content is not good enough my
content is not good as them but i would not want to call them out or i would not want to say that
they take away my platform or they take away my movement because i understand that everyone
is on their own journey and they have their own audience and i have my own audience people who are
meant to find me will find me the audience that my content is meant for is made for will find me
we should not get keep the community i don't want to get kid body positivity from any group
of people because from my understanding and what body positivity mean to me is that body positivity
is meant for everyone it's meant to help everyone to feel positive about their body that's literally
their terminology when people say that i should not put body positivity in my bio because the
movement is made for larger bodies i just don't understand like yeah of course the movement was
made for them but over time it has evolved we're not here to take away your platform when we're not
here to take away your movement we just want to be included i hope that we can all lift each other up
and not try to exclude each other from a positive movement that i think should be for everyone
the next point that i want to bring up is that a lot of people still think that skinny shaming is
not the real thing and i have done a lot of videos about this in the past but i just want to quickly
talk about it here in this video i just want to quickly bring it up and stated again that skinny
shaming is real there are lots of people out there who go through it it's a form of body shaming if
you have fat shaming then you have skinny shame if you believe in fat shaming then you should
also believe in skinny shaming because it's just another form of body shaming throughout the years
i received countless of comments and messages from people that told me their stories it's not
just me it's hundreds and thousands of people out there who go through this and i would really hope
that there would be a day that everyone would understand that skinny shaming is a real thing
that people would stop saying things like you need to eat or do you even eat you will be blown away
in the wind or all i see is bones and you look like a skeleton all those things so that's why
i'm trying my best through my content to spread more awareness on this issue and help more people
the creator also mentioned something like slender influencers with a platform should pass the night
to other marginalized people with larger body people of color and for me i don't really agree
with this because i feel like everyone who has a platform has the right to their platform if you
have your own instagram account you have to write to your instagram account right you have the right
to speak from your experience and tell people about your story i think that saying that thin
people should pass the mic to fat people so fat people can have a bigger platform is another way
of excluding feeding people from the conversation about body positivity i feel like a lot of times
bigger people assume that theme people don't have any insecurity or struggle with their body image
and and it's not true like come back to the point of what i was saying earlier we just want to be
included we don't want to take away your platform you can say that slender people have millions and
hundreds of thousands of followers but there are also a lot of other plus size creators who are so
well known so successful like lizzo like alicia macawell and a lot of other creators that i adore
and i absolutely love what they're doing and i would no way would want to say that they take away
the platform for skinny people you can come to us and tell us that our struggles are not bad enough
and not valid enough to have a platform that your struggle is much worse than our struggle because
there should be no comparison in terms of what we go through thank you so much for watching to
this point and hearing my rant and my opinion on body positivity as a slender woman in this space
should i still call myself a body positive content creator yes 100 because i don't think the term
body positivity should be kept away from skinny people it should include every man every woman of
every stranger every ability and every skin color everyone i hope you enjoyed the video i would love
to hear your opinion what you think about the body positivity movement whether it being inclusive or
exclusive for people of different body types i love to hear what you think so let me know in
the comments and till next time love yourself be kind to yourself and treat others the same way bye