I will admit to being a tad sensitive at times. Sometimes I can be touchy. But as I've gotten older I've started to realise maybe people aren't trying to insult me, and to not take things so personally. And it's working. Also, with things I find immensely annoying, I bitch and moan that they are immensely annoying, but I don't try and have them banned. Yes, I'm back on my soapbox again. It's come to my attention over my recent travails of cyberspace that Facebook have banned the emoji, or whatever it is, that depicts the feeling of being fat. Yes - FAT! Fat, people! Fatty-Boom-Sticks, Fatty-Boom-Bah, Fat-Fat-The-Water-Rat, FAT. It's FAT! Give over it, you people that don't like it. Never mind feeling fat in the waist, bum, or thighs; you're all a bunch of fat-HEADS!
This cute little emoji depicted a smiling face with a double chin. Posters would occasionally use it to let everyone know that they were feeling a bit bloated. Maybe a bit stuffed full of tucker. Maybe they had overdosed on the Norgen Vaas.
But the sooky la-las of the world have united AGAIN and after an outcry about perceived negative body image to which this little emoji is contributing, and it's been eliminated. Eradicated Erased. Vaporised. Whatever. Now, to all you people who complained about that chubster: what the total fuck is wrong with you? Seriously?
Hey, I get images in the media can make people feel bad about themselves. I get irritated at airbrushing and photoshopping and all this. But I know the end result photograph to which I am subjected is just artifice. The model is unlikely to be 'beautiful', and beautiful is subjective. Some cultures think sticking a Frisbee in your lip so you end up looking like Mick Jagger after bingeing on peanuts (assuming he was allergic to peanuts) is beautiful. Some cultures think dangling things in your earlobes until they sag and hang like the ears of a basset hound is beautiful. I'm in a culture that doesn't find those things aesthetically charming. But so what?
But if I wanted to post that little emoji because I'd stuffed myself silly on McDonalds, I absolve myself of any responsibility for any insecurity someone else has. You twerps posting pictures of signs saying 'Fat Is Not An Emotion', sometimes I DO feel fat. I feel fat when my period is imminent and I'm trying to button up my work trousers, and practically divide myself into a Figure 8. Sometimes I feel like I have to do up my belt with a boomerang when the old uterine lining is getting ready to leave my body. Sometimes I feel fat when I'm watching the Sports Illustrated Swimwear special on television (for all of two minutes because I change channels), and I'm usually watching it whilst eating chocolate biscuits, too. Goodness, I felt a bit fat when I found an old picture of myself and my now husband, taken a few months after we started dating It was back in the 90s, when I could actually get away with wearing a lycra dress (if you're reading this, my sweet, remember that blue dress? No, I will entertain no Bill Clinton jokes). But my feelings of fatness are of my own making, and my own problem. And I'm doing something about it. I've been going to the gym, and cut down on eating so much crap. I'm controlling my destiny, and blaming myself for any feelings that I might be able to double for the Michelin Man. I'm not going to complain about some silly little smiley face thing with a double chin. You see, I have this thing called a LIFE.
But if I feel fat, I'm going to say so, whether or not I have a little emoji to punctuate and amplify that sentence.
So all you sooks and whingers, stop uniting. Please.
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