queenbookwench (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queenbookwench) wrote2018-07-09 12:02 am
queenbookwench) wrote2018-07-09 12:02 am
Social Media and Its Discontents
It’s interesting to me that I feel safer writing what I’m about to write in the relatively walled garden of DW rather than in the hyper open platforms of Twitter or Tumblr.
One of the challenges of social media is gauging how or whether to respond to a post by someone you interact with sometimes but don’t really _know_. Especially if it’s somewhat conflicted/critical. In this particular situation, a mutual of mine (meaning that we follow each other) on another platform, who I generally find relatable and agreeable, was talking about her feelings of sadness and hurt because she feels like she can’t talk about intentional weight loss (which has helped her back pain) without feeling like people are going to accuse her of being a bad feminist and engaging in diet talk—and apparently some people have, it’s not a theoretical fear.
I really wanted to say, “it’s your body, everyone is different and ultimately you gotta do what’s right for you—on the other hand, given how much intentional weight loss is promoted in society as THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE WAY for fat people to be healthy, and how damaging that has been for a lot of people, maybe you shouldn’t be quite so surprised that some people have strong negative reactions.”
But I didn’t want to start a fight on someone else’s blog, especially when they were feeling vulnerable...so, I posted it here, where the person in question probably won’t see it, to try and analyze my own feelings about the whole thing...
One of the challenges of social media is gauging how or whether to respond to a post by someone you interact with sometimes but don’t really _know_. Especially if it’s somewhat conflicted/critical. In this particular situation, a mutual of mine (meaning that we follow each other) on another platform, who I generally find relatable and agreeable, was talking about her feelings of sadness and hurt because she feels like she can’t talk about intentional weight loss (which has helped her back pain) without feeling like people are going to accuse her of being a bad feminist and engaging in diet talk—and apparently some people have, it’s not a theoretical fear.
I really wanted to say, “it’s your body, everyone is different and ultimately you gotta do what’s right for you—on the other hand, given how much intentional weight loss is promoted in society as THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE WAY for fat people to be healthy, and how damaging that has been for a lot of people, maybe you shouldn’t be quite so surprised that some people have strong negative reactions.”
But I didn’t want to start a fight on someone else’s blog, especially when they were feeling vulnerable...so, I posted it here, where the person in question probably won’t see it, to try and analyze my own feelings about the whole thing...
no subject
I'm sorry to say but being overweight doesn't particularly help with health issues. I have plenty of people in my family that are on various spectrum of the weight issue (and one thing we certainly do not talk enough about either is anorexia) and yes what is primordial is what works for the person in question not what works in principle for x amount of the population.
If you feel that the person will benefit from a little boost pm her (him) :-)