Welcome back! First I wanted to thank the people who contacted me about my last few posts. Glad to know something I say is worth talking about ;)... Anyway, I'm
returning to my blog today to express my boring and long-winded views
about a few videos that are on youtube. This post is rather old. The first time I wrote it I knew that it needed serious editing, but I didn't have the resolve to give it justice. So hopefully I have said things appropriately and, as a pipe dream, that it makes some kind of difference!
The original video (which I will be linking to) is about a woman who works for a
television news station and received an email from a viewer about her
weight problems. As you probably know, I have serious 'weight problems'
myself and have struggled with them since I was a child. Basically the
story is that the woman is overweight and a viewer wrote her a letter
which uses formal language and expresses strong, yet common opinions. He
basically says that she needs to start losing weight or stay off the air, expressing that she is a poor role model for the "community's young people,
girls in particular." The first video I will link to is what has been
circling around the
most, and it is the woman's actual response which she made during her
station's news show.
*Note: You don't have to watch either video to follow along with the rest of my post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxiNSDkrekQ
The
second video and the main reason for my post is from a channel that I
follow on youtube, sxephil, which stars the youtube vlogger Philip
DeFranco. In the video DeFranco says that he want's to play "devil's
advocate" by posing the question "Do you think that original letter was actually bullying?".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-ENUvPmWrQ
My first reaction to the letter,
when I heard it in it's entirety, was that the man wasn't exactly a
bully. But the more I think about it, the more I feel that he was extremely
rude and clearly intended to hurt her feelings nonetheless. So, in that
sense, the letter was actually a form of bullying. Not bullying
in the classic sense where one person repeatedly harasses another
individual. But, bullying in the sense that this one man's voice is
actually part of a chorus of thousands of every-day people who seem to
make a point in daily conversations to point out and demean the idea of
being anything other than thin and fit. (ex: "Oh, you had one piece of
fried chicken? You're such a fatass LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL")
So to break
it down I'll explain why I believe this letter should never have been
sent or supported. Mainly, why it's so completely hurtful and why it is
that bigger people, like myself, are made to feel uncomfortable everywhere we go. In my opinion there are 3 big reasons why big people have a tough life. I'm not blaming anyone for them, but it's not as if anyone of us decided, "I want to be fat." Many argue that we've chosen to be fat out of laziness and a lack of discipline which thin people somehow have. I argue that bullies have chosen to be conceited and mean out of insecurities that everyone else has learned to live with. I just hope that, by pointing out some aspects of fat life, some people might reconsider their words the next time they feel animosity towards us.
One reason that life can suck sometimes is that it is physically
uncomfortable to be overweight. Obviously, our body is under extra stress. Most things built to be used by people have an "average" person in
mind which we sometimes don't match up with (restaurant booths and
seating arrangements, turnstiles, chairs, cars... the list is endless). The second major issue is how embarrassing it is to have our body. It is
difficult to shop for clothes, many every-day activities look absurd to others because of our body. When we eat in public others around us assume that we are overeating and view it as gross, and
the first and only thing that many people around us will ever notice about us
is a BIG personal problem that we cannot hide. Lastly, and most importantly, the
biggest thing that makes life as an overweight person into a daily
struggle is the way that we are treated by others. To so many people,
we are actually a problem. We are treated as less important, extremely lazy, dumb, oblivious,
troubled, and overall as worse people. In the opinions of many, we are choosing to make others around us look bad out of our own selfishness.
Can you put yourself in my shoes?
This is how I feel, and not everyone who is overweight will agree with everything I said, but I hope that some of them at least understand where I'm coming from. Our problems are just that, they are OUR OWN. Being overweight, most of us try very hard to not cause problems for anyone else, even the slightest inconvenience. This is extremely embarrassing to us. We are people, so often we are very good people. We try our best to live our life as a normal person and enjoy as much of it as we can! To many, we have an obligation to ourselves to fix our problem, which may be very true! But there are so many other people who have issues that they need to fix but choose to ignore, and most of them are successfully able to hide it! Anyone that we ever meet in person will see our problems and pass a judgement before they even know our name! If it's our own fault, then sobeit. That is no reason for us to be treated like criminals!
And on that note I feel like I need to leave the subject alone. If you've read anything else that I've written, you know how passionate I can be. I'm sorry if I'm borish, but this subject isn't easy for anyone. I want to thank you just for reading! As always I appreciate all of your feedback (good or bad)! I'm always looking for constructive criticism... but, HEY... I wouldn't say no to a metaphorical pat on the back either ;)...
Again
Thank you!
-S
