hey, fat chick!

Some 5 years and 9000 posts ago, I started hey fat chick.

Back then the fat scene on tumblr wasn't what it is now, or maybe I wasn't as connected into it, so my early posts were literally any picture of a fat woman I could find. I searched google, flickr, Model Mayhem, whatever I could think of to build this library of fat positivity. This meant that I have definitely posted copyrighted material, which isn't ideal but it happened. Anyway, Tumblr didn't really care about that back then.

They do now. I'm telling you this because Tumblr has sent me a few notices that I have received complaints of copyright infringement. Yesterday, I received my final warning. This means my account could be terminated at any moment which I assume would also result in the deletion of this blog. Short of me combing through 600 pages of posts and weeding out potential breaches, this has a good chance of happening.

I don't make any money from hey fat chick and I'm happy to delete pictures when people - the subjects or the photographers - request that I take them down. I'll be upset if my account gets deleted but it is what it is.

I acknowledge that I've been pretty quiet on here for a while now (my blog has received even less attention from me). I feel like this chapter of my life is closing but it has been so, so important to me. hey fat chick started me on my fat activism path, it helped me finally make peace with my body, it allowed me to find my voice, and it's introduced me to so many rad babes around the world. I owe this wee page so much.

I know how much hey fat chick has meant to so many of you and I can't even talk about how amazing that is to me. That's why I'm writing this. I didn't want to disappear without letting you know how much all this and all of you have meant to me.

I hope hey fat chick gets to stay and I will miss you if it doesn't. At least I know now that my page is one of many like it, that fat activism is a thriving movement, that thousands more have found their peace and their voices too.