I saw this and remembered it is/was Fat Shaming Week, but had not been able to write as I was in Jamaica enjoying life. But as I flew back on the plane and the battery to my laptop dwindled, my mind wandered and as it is wont to do it came up with an observation:
Fat shaming is unnecessary.
The reason why is look at who fat shaming is aimed at - people pushing fat acceptance.
If the goal was to get people who we like, but are also fat the negative reinforcement needed to lose weight, live healthier and better lives, then fat shaming is (in all truth) kindness and tough fatherly love. But since fat acceptance is pushed by delusional (typically), leftist people, intent on destroying yet another fabric of society, the goal of fat shaming is to cause them pain, grief, mock them and ridicule them.
But let me suggest another route if you truly want to get your "revenge" on people who are increasingly responsible for the decreasing beauty in humans and push fat acceptance:
Let them keep pushing fat acceptance.
The reason why is simple - they're wrong. And in being wrong, no matter how much they try to convince themselves otherwise, they are in the end being delusional. Living in a false world. Living a lie. They are trying to change a law of nature - men like trim chicks - and no matter how much effort they put into it, they are guaranteed to fail as it is no different than trying to change the law of gravity.
The consequences of this are far more punishing and brutal than any kind of fat shaming campaign done on the internet. Their health WILL BE worse. Their love lives WILL BE non-existent. Their careers WILL BE a fraction of what they could achieve. And, worst of all, they have to spend years in mental energies constantly rationalizing it.
In the end these are people who love food more than other human beings, including themselves. In doing so, they will never get to interact with and engage other humans (the most important thing on Earth) to the capacity normal humans do. And in doing so, they will waste the one life they have on this planet.
Us merely shaming them and pointing out what idiots they are, not only is likely to go unheeded, but in the off chance they listen, they might actually benefit from it. Ergo, my friends who work hard at staying in shape, take joy in the just what miserable lives these people lead.
I've heard that you don't argue to convince the person you're arguing with, but to convince the other people listening. Of course the fat acceptance people are on a highway to physical/emotional hell. Whatever. It's about preventing more from becoming the next Lindy West.
ReplyDeleteOff-topic, I think that this video deserves a shoutout. The guy compares work and dating women from an economic viewpoint, then compares if you had an employer who treated you as psychotically as a women does.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBScfh97HC4
Source: the comments at Chateau Heartiste.
Cheers Aaron!
I don't think that men liking women who are in shape is a law of nature. A few hundred years ago, standards of beauty were quite the opposite, and women who were fat and pale were in demand; only the upper class could live lives that produced such an appearance. I don't particularly care either way, but male preferences do change, for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteYup.
ReplyDeleteI got banned at that other site for suggesting that the style in which they chose to fat shame was completely counterproductive because it employed the same shrill screeching, hyperbole, insane ranting, question-begging and appeals to emotion that women use when they can't use logic or fact to support a position.
I probably shouldn't have said that many of the writers appeared to be 13-year old girls at a slumber party.
Oh well. Logic, empiricism, fact and reason are the four cornerstones of the manosphere's platform. Fat shaming week could have included all of those, but instead the idea got hijacked in favor of setting the same hysterical tone that actively disqualifies feminist writing from mature consideration.
Obesity is, more often than not, a symptom of mental illness or neurosis. As men, we respond on a primitive level to peer pressure, and that's where we help each other, and it can be an end-run aid that circumvents having to deal with the larger issue- sometimes a good kick in the ass really does help... and sometimes not, too, and in those cases, it's no different than depression-shaming, or psychosis-shaming (I just made those up, but I bet you'll see them soon elsewhere when someone figures out how to get SSI out of it). Fat shaming a buddy IS a different story, because you generally know that your words aren't going to send him looking for a tall glass of hemlock. Doing that to strangers, though... that's just stupid.
It's all just window dressing, anyhow. Weight management is a display of genetic fitness, and everything we do is instinctual, anyhow. More to the good, as you pointed out.
Pax- you do have a point, but that was biological in basis, as well. Obesity in women in a time of scarcity is a marker for significantly higher live-birth success. Skin tone was a social artifact.
ReplyDeleteOur preferences change because of environmental triggers- look at the Russian peasant culture- really, the entire culture of the Steppe environment as well. Classically, a woman with a mix of muscularity and obesity was idealized. It's no coincidence that in that region Famine was the proximal means of population control.
Virtually everything in human biology and behavior is instinctually-driven!
I don't think it was ever about fat shaming. I think they were looking for something shocking to raise the profile of their site. The feministas took the bait hook line and sinker and from that angle I guess it was a success. If nothing else it provided some humor.
ReplyDeleteThis whole "women from 100 years ago were fatter" and "heavier was the standary of beauty" is complete horse-shit.
ReplyDeleteSimply do a google image search:
"women from 1914"
There had photography back then guys, and you will see from the search a representitive sample of women from 100 years ago. You will see that on the first page there is only a "Single" example of an overweight female, the rest being trim and fit by todays standards.
Anon, in 1914 how many cameras do you think were in rural areas in Russia and eastern Europe, the Steppes of Mongolia of other places where agrarianism was a subsistence lifestyle? There's a whole big world out there, and Google still isn't the place to see most of it. Even Hemingway, in "The Short Life of Francis Macomber" had to mention the game hunter's pride in his herd of massive African 'cows', the aboriginal women who paraded their bulk as a sign of affluence and desirability, and whom the men thought stupendous and stunning.
ReplyDeleteFat women WERE exceptional and rare. There's more out there than Google Image search.
Finally - you are the first Manosphere author who makes sense regarding this. If your enemies preach suicide, why argue with them?
ReplyDeleteJust publish diet and workout tips for those who are willing to use them, it will help the normal minded people, and let the rest march nonjudgementally into the 'beetus.
For example I learned 2 important things lately. One, if you are bored of eggs and meat, cottage cheese is also excellent, and this is something that easy to buy anywhere as a "fast food" lunch, a cup of it and maybe a wholemeal roll. It's the only good "fast food" available in every grocery store here in Austria.
Second, I realized I can get into running easier if I focus on speed and time and not distance, in the beginning. Which means beginning with the treadmill which has a clear speed control, then I will switch to outdoors running next spring when I will be able down a few kilometers. Counter-intuitive, but works better.
For the type of people who can be helped this helps more than shaming.
Okay, but what about here in Britain?
ReplyDeleteTheir health problems (of which they will have many) are going to be paid for by the NHS, with taxpayer's money. This is what angers me about fat people, they're selfish, stuffing their faces at other peoples ultimate expense.
What's great is that women can still look good at up to 20%-25% body fat percentage, whereas men at that constitution have huge tanks hanging over their belts.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like FatShamingWeek, it just seemed kinda stupid and immature. There is no reason to be a dick to someone who's fat. Being a dick needlessly tends to create needless enemies. A certain moral grace goes a long way. Don't spit on someone who's down, unless they really deserved it - they might surpass you one day and spit back (or worse). And it'll be well-deserved, too.
ReplyDeleteFat and peaceful people are ok; they're still humble and pleasant. It's the Fat Acceptance and HAES movements which boast the most horrible and arrogant obese members, most of them women.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't bother me though. I just laugh at the denial and delusion in the comments section. They can go ahead and be slobs; at least they provide plenty of entertainment :P