Doxxing in Feedism: The Hannah Montana Hypothesis
I hate making posts like this.
Itâs ironic, but Iâm most well known precisely for posts like these, but everytime another situation like this arises it sickens me to my stomach. It sickens me this stuff keeps needing to be said. But it does need to be said.
A few days ago, I became aware of this thread started by @fattyteaser concerning a recent occurance of a feedee model getting doxxed, the severity of which was dramatically exacerbated by the existence of YouTube video collating all that information (hereâs the thread, please read for more details: https://justanotherworthlessweirdo.tumblr.com/post/653461619220824064/this-is-the-absolutely-the-most-disgusting-thing).
Doxxing destroys lives. Iâve said it enough times already. What I havenât talked about is how the abundance of doxxing in the feedism community strongly relates to a particularly toxic aspect of celebrity culture, something which I think this YouTube channel illustrates perfectly.
This channel, which you absolutely should report if you havenât already (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKudqeMIVRmCFSjvYca1goQ), is entirely predicated upon doxxing. Thatâs all it does. It isnât even reposting modelsâ content beyond a few still images (which are usually censored in any case), itâs just detailing their private lives and backgrounds in as much detail as the channelâs owner can find out. It is a doxxing-themed YouTube channel.
But it doesnât frame itself that way.
Look at the way the videos are titled: the name of a feedee model, followed by âwhere are they nowâ or âbefore and afterâ. This sentence structure is one strongly associated with print headlines, and those two specific phrases are ones popularised by and most strongly associated with celebrity gosssip magazines. This imitation of the conventions of the celebrity gossip microindustry is apparent also in the presentation of the videos: they progress in chronological order, detailing the subjectâs birth and background, then summarising their career before launching into the actual âcontentâ, a report on what the subject is doing in the present day and speculation as to what they might do in the future. It even throws in a few pithy witticisms (the humour of which is debatable at best), much as these gossip magazines do, and as is often the case in those magazines these jokes are often at the expense of the subject.
The channel isnât framing itself as a âdoxxing channelâ: itâs framing itself as a celebrity gossip channel, casting feedee models as celebrities with lives and careers people want to follow. And this is deeply problematic, and incredibly illustrative of how these incels see sex workers, which is really apparent when comparing the lives of celebrities and of feedee models. To do this, Iâm going to employ what I shall be calling âThe Hannah Montana modelâ.
Everyone is familiar with the premise of Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana at this point: teen girl Miley Stewart (played by Miley Cyrus) leads a double life as a popstar, but none of her schoolfriends know sheâs a popstar (and the public doesnât know she leads a normal life in addition to being a popstar) because she uses a disguise. This is a similar situation to that of most feedee models, and indeed most sex workers in general, but the motives behind it differ greatly.
Supposse Mileyâs double life were to be revealed to the public (which might happen in the show at one point, I wouldnât know, Iâve only seen a few episodes). What would she actually lose? Certainly not money: sheâd still be a rich and successful popstar even if her double-life were revealed. Sheâd probably have more difficulty finding times for friends or family, but she could work around that. The main things Miley would lose are the illusion of normalcy, which presumably is a comfort to her outside the stressful and busy life of a popstar, and genuine acceptance by others, which the superficial and insincere life of consumerist celebrity might deny her. Melanie Kennedy has written an article about how Mileyâs decision to maintain a secret identity as a normal teen allows her to still be her âauthentic selfâ, her truest self, unfettered by the demands the public and consumerist life of a popstar would place on her image and self-presentation; itâs worth a read if you can access it through a university network (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19392397.2013.839349).
Letâs contrast with the double-life of the feedee model: what does the feedee stand to lose if her status as a sex worker becomes public knowledge. Potentially? Everything. They could lose their friends and family if they disprove of her occupation, which is more than likely considering the stigma independently surrounding fat, feedism and sex work. They could lose their job if their employer finds out (which would be easy through the internet), and struggle to get more work when potential employers will almost certainly try to find out as much as they can about her online before hiring. And thatâs going to cost them money, because, regardless of what channels like Milkmerz seem to propose, feedee modelling is not a very profitable industry: actual earnings can vary greatly, but Iâm fairly certain no feedee model has ever made as much money as Miley Cyrus. This is not even mentioning the fact that online âfansâ of feedee models can stalk them, threaten them or even assault them if their location is leaked publicly; I highly doubt Hannah Montana ever depicted scenarios like that!
Clearly then, feedee models stand to lose far more than celebrities from doxxing. Yet, so much of the more toxic parts of this community frame feedees like celebrities, not just Milkmerz: we have sites seeking to database their work and wikis about their careers. Hell, Curvage was originally called FatCelebs, and that name lives on a forum on the site dedicated to discussing celebrity weight gain. Framing feedee models this way, as a celebrities, implies that those interested in them should share a kind of parasocial interest in the private lives of their favourite models, just as white soccer moms obsess over the love lives of their favourite actors and muscians. This serves, implictly, to normalise and encourage the act of doxxing.
Now, there is a conversation to be had about whether celebrity gossip culture should be normalised, whether the public should feel itself so entitled to knowledge of celebrityâs private lives. That conversationâs being going on since the 1920s when these magazines first emerged, but Iâve never seen it related to feedism in this way, and I feel it must be.
Most feedee models arenât rich. They donât always have job security, and they certainly canât afford actual security detail. As such, they simply cannot afford the financial, social and physical costs of doxxing in the same way celebrities can. So they have to live double-lives. They need to.
Respect that. Respect their privacy.
Please, for Godâs sake, respect that.
baratheonpilled
romaincrisis
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