elinn

"don't comment on people's bodies!" i wouldn't usually do so, no. however, do not act like what is happening is a usual situation. also, do not gaslight me. i grew up in the 90s-00s. i remember when y'all would comment about how "fat" extremely-thin celebrities were. the push to not comment on people's bodies was, at least in part, to prevent eating disorders. also, this rule only seems to be followed when it is someone hyper-thin - every time a woman on the red carpet is even a little bloated, comments fly.

most importantly: she's a public figure. she is quite literally a model for swarovski. she is currently on tour. she regularly posts pictures of herself in ways that highlight her exposed bones. this is not a private citizen. she is making millions of dollars and is not in any way hiding what we all see to be true. it could also be argued that she is going so far as to highlight and sexualize her current figure.

her PR team - and there is one - obviously knows there is an issue here. they would have most likely released a statement if it was a health issue. they can do so without violating her privacy. so far she is quoted as saying she's "the healthiest" she's ever been. meanwhile her instagram content would have been flagged 5 years ago for being "thinspo."

research shows that exposure to ultra-thin body types does encourage self-image issues in young girls and women. to quote NEDA: "Of American elementary school girls who read magazines, 69% say that the pictures influence their concept of the ideal body shape. 47% say the pictures make them want to lose weight." I cannot even imagine what social media is doing on a much larger scale.

due to social pressures, you can "catch" an eating disorder. eating disorders are also the most deadly mental illness to have.

anecdotally, before i recovered, figures like her would have been extremely triggering for me. most people who have any passing experience with this content will agree: it is becoming harder to fight the internalization of those thoughts.

this is not because i dislike her. i have no opinion on her actually. it literally has nothing to do with her as a performer or as a person. however, there is a reason people fought to deplatform eugenia cooney: it is not because we seek to abandon that person, but instead because their behavior is genuinely concerning and they should not be given massive amounts of access to the public.

if she was self-harming or doing drugs (or god forbid shaving her head), companies would be too "concerned" with their public image to support her as a model. but she is just... too skinny, and it's okay to be skinny, because we as a society hate fatness.

as more and more celebrities follow in her wake, we are beginning to see hyper-thinness as being "normal" or "toned" where it is not normal nor is it toned - it is often extreme thinness.

and no, there is nothing wrong with being skinny. every time i comment on something related to this, some skinny person regales me with times they've been attacked by some kind of pro-fat mafia - as if that makes my point untrue; as if private suffering negates the existence of public research. eating disorders are real, and they are dangerous, and if you feel attacked because i am concerned about the normalization of sick bodies as role models - you need to go outside and talk to any fat person. what i am talking about is more important than your personal validation that your life was hard. if you're thin, you can just be thin, i am not stopping you nor am i judging you. i beg you, please think rationally about what i am actually saying. it is not a reflection on you; nor on your body; nor on your experience. this is about a popular performer displaying signs of an extremely dangerous mental illness.

she has done great work for charities. she's a great singer and actress. i do not know what she went through. my heart hurts for her and the pain she's clearly in. my understanding is that it is not uncommon for victims of sexual assault to develop an eating disorder. whatever is happening to her, i really, really hope she gets the help she so clearly needs.

in the meantime, though. she should not be on billboards. she should not be posting thinspo disguised as normal pictures. she should not be touting her health and wellness. she should not be held up as a paragon of sex and wealth.

It is our human purpose to help each other.

If you see someone steal food, hop on a bus for free or jump a turnstile...

no you didn't.

business of policing each

other. EVERYWHERE.

On Friday, I got a notification that I had a package. My apartment has package lockers that FedEx/UPS/USPS/DHL/etc. deliver int and when they register a package to me, I get a code emailed/texted to me that I can use to pop the locker open.

I didn’t remember getting a package, but that happens sometimes. I preorder a lot of things and Bookshop doesn’t always let you know when they’ve finally shipped something, or a friend surprises me, or whatever. So I put some clothes and shoes on and went over to the leasing office building to get the package.

It was not for me. FedEx is gonna FedEx.

So I picked it up out of the locker and went to the leasing office staff to hand it to them. They were kind of closed for lunch, so I was contemplating what to do if they weren’t in. It had the address. I could walk over there and deliver it maybe?

‘Cause see. A lot of people apparently just shut the locker and are done with it. But if I did that...how would this person know they had a package or where it was? How would anyone get the package back out of the locker, now that the system registered it as retrieved? They don’t have the code, and the code is expired anyway.

I could just leave it in the locker. Or take it out of the locker and dump it to the side where it could be pilfered; the exact function the package lockers exist to prevent. It’s not my package. Not my problem.

But it costs me a tiny bit of inconvenience and time to place it in the hands of and appropriate custodian and save a bunch of other people a lot of inconvenience and time. I live in a society. Society is designed to save everyone across the society as much time and effort as possible cumulatively.

Sure, it’s easier and faster to just shove your shopping cart out of the way and pull out. Not your problem. You don’t need the cart anymore. Except now the cart is blocking other people’s cars and other parking spots and can ram into cars and people and some poor worker is going to have to go track it down. You have saved yourself a tiny amount of time and inconvenience and in doing so wasted everyone around you’s time and convenience.

Sure, you could put your neighbor’s mail from a government agency with an URGENT stamp in your mailbox and mark it “NOT AT THIS ADDRESS.” Or you could. Just. Pop it in their mailbox or slip it under their door (I’ve been having mail problems recently okay. Give the USPS more money).

You don’t have to wait an extra 5 seconds to hold the door for someone just behind you. But. Like. Come on, man, really? (Unless you're entering a secured area with restricted access, because that causes a separate cache of problems)

Weighing how much time and effort something is going to cost you compared to how much time and effort it will save everyone else around you cumulatively is...well...pro-social way to think. There are obviously always going to be exceptions and a balance to things, especially if the cost to you is much, much higher proportionally.

We live in a society. We live in many societies.

You can leave your dishes all around your house. But whoever has to do the dishes later (even if it’s you!) is then going to have to remember or know this happened, figure out where they all are, pick them up, deal with any spills/etc. that incurred, and return them to the kitchen and then was them. Was that really worth just putting them in the kitchen earlier? Maybe. But probably not.

“But what do I get out of that?” Firstly, you’re a tarpit. Secondly, you get all of the time and energy everyone around you has saved you by also being a functioning member of a society.

Societies work because we’re all contributing so the burned is distributed, just the way people can walk over a bed of nails but not an individual nail. We all take up a small part of people’s burdens that aren’t necessarily ours so we all have better lives.

Consider: how pro-social is your behavior? Sometimes pro-social behavior is a huge undertaking for massive gains elsewhere. But so much of the time it takes an extra 30 seconds, an extra minute.

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.