Everyone is a fucking nazi
A day in my life as a 19 year old stay at home girlfriend. Come with me to get preventative botox at 20 so I don’t look like an old hag. Here’s a list of things only high value men do. How to do the perfect slick back bun and nude lip for a clean girl look, this aesthetic was invented by Hailey Bieber. Here’s why ozempic saved my life. Workout tutorial for the perfect bikini body. A list of clothes that should be illegal to wear if you weigh over 50kg. I had six white babies in six years to save our master race. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in. Thin is in.
Every single one of the sentences written above are based on real things I saw on the internet, though I exaggerated some. If you spend time on social media (which, unfortunately, I do), you know at least some of these trends and talking points. I wanted to compile some of my least favorite repeating trends and explain why they are genuinely harmful and signs that point us towards the global rise in fascism. I’m always a hater first and sociology student second.
The co-option of Black culture
All the greatest cultural cornerstones of the USA are rooted in Black culture. Whether it’s fashion, film, music, or language, you can almost always trace it back. I myself am not Black so I will only speak to what I know.
The large majority of fashion trends you will find today originated with Black women. One of the most prominent examples recently is the “clean girl aesthetic”—characterized by hair in slicked back buns, golden hoop earrings, and dewy skin. And thinness, of course. Decades before tik-tok discovered this “aesthetic” Black and brown women were dressing and looking this exact way, but the way they were perceived was different. Their hair was seen as greasy and dirty, their earrings were trashy, and their skin was sweaty. Only when a skinny blonde girl did it, it became chic. The same applies for many make up and fashion trends that come and go.
When it comes to language, the words and phrases categorized as “gay slang” or “gen-z slang” come from trans Black women and Black drag queens in ball culture. Slay, cunt, read, boots, eat, chop, serve, all these words that are thrown around by people who don’t understand their meaning or origin. The same applies in a broader sense, too. A lot of modern slang is re-appropriated AAVE. Phrases and words like “no cap” or “cook,” the use of the habitual “be” (girls be like…), and many more all come from Black culture and are used, but their context and history are forgotten.
There are many other examples of this reoccurring phenomenon, I only brought up the two I’ve seen most.
Black culture is stolen and thrown aside very often. White people will parade it around and pretend to have invented it until it doesn’t fit what they like anymore, then they get rid of it to find the next shiny new thing. We’ve seen it often before; tanning to very dark shades becomes popular, augmentations made to the body to mimic the curvier body type Black women possess naturally, using elements lifted directly from primarily Black music genres that are central to Black culture, etc. Unfortunately this is not uncommon, but the denial that these trends are coming from Black culture is getting worse and worse as racism and anti-Blackness rises all around us. We can even see it with women reversing plastic surgeries like BBLs or breast augmentations and music artists who previously took a lot from Black music reverting back to a different sound.
Self improvement and the manosphere
A few years ago a man named Andrew Tate went viral from clips of his podcast. Tate allegedly offers advice for young men on improving their self image, but upon quick inspection all of the content he shared was regurgitated posts from incel forums. Get rich quick schemes, slut shaming and other common forms of misogyny, harsh fat shaming towards both men and women, and other common bullshit.
Since then we have seen a steady rise in this type of content, often labeled as “manosphere” or “red-pill” (based on the film The Matrix, which is ironically an allegory for being trans). These men are trying to sell a lifestyle that they do not have to young boys. With all of their talk of being rich, looking a certain way, dating young inexperienced women, and conservative and religious values, a lot of them are only saying it for the grift. Many of them are perpetually single, in debt, or do other general things they disapprove of.
The main problem is that they are luring young boys and men in through a pipeline that radicalizes them to the right. It starts off innocuous, these men are genuinely trying to improve themselves in a very difficult world that presents many obstacles to the average person. It’s true that people and specifically young men are lonelier than ever, but the “solutions” these manosphere podcasters suggest are not helpful or even intended to help. Many of the things they offer are just money grabs, the most obvious ones being the courses on how to be masculine and make more money (mostly in ways that don’t actually work, like cryptocurrency), or things that quickly lead into full white supremacist ideologies. The real issue young men are facing that is causing this loneliness all stems from our patriarchal society. There are stigmas against men showing emotions or being too close to their friends, but the manosphere podcasters are only exacerbating the misogyny society feeds. This makes women want to be around these men even less (and for good reason), inducing a cycle that doesn’t seem to end. Misogyny, money, and right wing politics will not save these men. Equality and community will.
Heroin chic, pro-ana and weakness
This is the main issue that drove me to write this essay. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “heroin chic,” it denotes a certain level of extreme thinness. The name comes from the fact heroin makes you lose a lot of weight, therefore achieving this type of physique. It’s characterized by very pale skin, dark undereyes, a skeletal and angular frame, and a level of emotional detachment in the expressions. Popularized throughout the 90s, heroin chic had a few very large problems.
At the time many news outlets reported a large rise in youth using heroin, but statistically that was not proven. The real issue was eating disorders, which no one really reported about because thinness was very idealized. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in 2003, 62.3% of teenage girls and 28.8% of teenage boys report trying to lose weight. 58.6% of girls and 28.2% of boys are actively dieting. 68.4% of girls and 51% of boys exercise with the goal of losing weight or to avoid gaining weight.
This is a very scary statistic to look at, especially when you look at teenagers and remember their bodies are not even finished developing yet. A year from where they are they’re going to look so different, but all they can think of is that the way they look now is wrong.
I recently read a piece from Byline titled “the drug that made me want less” by Caroline Calloway. I had originally seen a lot of controversy surrounding it and did not want to engage without knowing what was the substance being critiqued. What I found was a jarring, fluff filled emotionally detached piece that confirmed a lot of the scariest ideas I had around skinny culture.
In the piece, Calloway describes her experience going on Ozempic and states that “her life is better in every way.” She also says that she has lost her appetite for everything else. Calloway puts a positive spin on it, in a way I find fair. She writes about how she struggled for a lot of her life with substance abuse issues that have now quieted down for the first time. That’s excellent. What is not excellent is her description of the experience around Ozempic—wearing weights around her ankles to qualify for the medication, modifying pictures of herself to make her look more overweight. She describes a peace I genuinely hope she achieved, but she makes a dangerous promise.
I understand wanting to be thin. I grew up surrounded by diet culture myself, although somewhere in the middle there were embers of the body positivity movement. I was never overweight but my weight distribution was often different from the picture perfect Hollywood stars. It sucked not to see myself represented. I was lucky to be raised by a mother who understood the dangers of this and reminded myself and my brothers at all times that food is neutral and that our worth as people isn’t tied to our bodies. Nowadays I’m actually medically underweight due to my medications, and I hate it. I’m always tired and hazy, I’m far weaker than I used to be. I’m a quick thinker and even quicker talker, but I find it hard to string a sentence. I used to be able to write at an average of 37 words per minute, but now I’m lucky to get 25. I’m weak and I’m exhausted after a full night of sleep and there’s no amount of supplements in the world that can help me. I am living inside a jar of honey and the rest of the world is passing me by at lightning speed.
It’s not coincidental that we are being encouraged to be skinny while everyone becomes more violent. Being too thin makes you weak. It makes you hazy and disconnected. When we are weak and disconnected it is far easier to hurt us. The clouding of our thoughts and difficulties engaging in conversation makes it hard to defend ourselves.
“A man with a toothache cannot be in love” is a quote with unknown origins, usually attributed to either Freud or Shakespeare. The meaning behind a sentence that seems almost like a joke is that intense pain will turn us inward without a way to see what is going on around us. When we are sick, how can we think of things other than the sickness? The hungry cannot go on a hunger strike.
A well known tyrant I have personal reasons to deeply despise said that to conquer a nation, first unarm its citizens. Unfortunately, he was correct on that end, though wrong on many others. By weakening us, what do the people in power gain? The people who shamelessly abuse that power and jump through hoops to exploit the people they were meant to serve. The answer seems rather obvious, if you ask me. In another time the reaction to the state of modern politics would be far more outrageous, but what can we do? How do we worry about these things when everyone is on the verge of losing everything? The thinness that is so strongly encouraged is not just of the body, but of the soul. Everyone is struggling, everyone is worn out.
I don’t know what can be done about the things I’ve talked about in this essay. I don’t know how to mobilize into action. I’m watching the world go up in flames around me but I keep getting distracted by how hungry I am. For food, for community, for safety. Everyone I know is in a similar boat.
So what the hell do we do now?