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A series of studies has shown a correlation between activities like scrolling through Instagram and negative body image. Can it do the same for people whose bodies are under the greatest scrutiny of all?Īt this point, it’s a cliché to even note that social media makes us feel like shit about ourselves. But social media has been the site of several political and cultural revolutions over the past decade. The problem is that these conversations are largely taking place on social media, platforms that in the past have proven severely unequipped to host the kinds of nuanced and deeply personal discussions the subject requires.
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Thin people, it seems, are finally beginning to hear what activists have been saying for decades: that our world is set up to be uniquely hostile to fat people at every possible turn, and that fat people are blamed for it. Like the failures of a political system that allowed hundreds of thousands of Americans to die of the coronavirus and the racial justice movements that exploded in what became one of the US’s biggest protest movements in history, a reckoning is coming to what is widely, if improperly, dubbed the “body positivity” internet. I mean, I’m 19, I’m in a pretty good place with my body image, but it’s still not great to see all the time.”īut there is another effect of our near-constant exposure to an endless carousel of beautiful faces and perfect bodies, wrought by the extraordinary cultural power of increasingly shrewd algorithms.
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“Even something that’s as innocent as Pinterest,” she says of the website mostly known for DIY ideas and hair tutorials, “my entire feed is, like, Bella Hadid. On TikTok, she sees other college students, who also happen to be very attractive, in expensive cars and houses. On her Instagram Explore page, Ogunbayo says she sees mostly girls discussing their “fitness journeys,” women smiling and posing next to text about “body positivity” while they dispense weight loss advice, thin influencers contorting themselves to emphasize their stomach fat in an attempt to make their enviable bodies seem more relatable. It has always sucked to compare yourself to the prettiest girl in school, but it sucks a lot more to feel like everybody else in the entire world is the prettiest girl in school. She’s well aware that the gorgeous, thin women she sees on her TikTok For You home feed are the product of highly complex algorithms that evaluate billions of tiny screen taps, which ultimately reflect the average biases and tastes of society. Ogunbayo still knows, obviously, that most people are not models. “It seems like everyone had an hourglass figure, and I just felt really weird about not having one.” “Every person was stunningly beautiful,” she says. Then the pandemic hit, and she began spending a lot more of her time scrolling through TikTok. She knew that this ideal was rooted in sexist and Eurocentric beliefs about femininity, that most women fell far short of achieving it, and that that was perfectly normal. As a 19-year-old college student, she knew that to meet American culture’s body standard was to either hit the genetic lottery or have enough money to fake it convincingly.
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So when people hit the point where they have to make decisions about their career in the present, they are doing it in this new space where they see non-Black people in power.In the beginning of 2020, Morayo Ogunbayo was aware that the vast majority of women did not look like Kendall Jenner. "We grew up with Black teachers, superintendents, Black people at every elected level, Black police officers, and things like that. "Detroit being a majority Black city and seeing who is inhabiting and patronizing these spaces is jarring for a Black person who was born and raised in the city," he says. The rapid state of redevelopment, gentrification, and other changes impact his characters' community and the city at large. "The gay guy you work with, this is a book about them."įoley's deep love for his hometown is apparent in the ways he contextualizes Detroit's history and what people living in the city today face. "They are sons, nephews, cousins," Foley says. With Dominick, Troy, and Remy, Boys Come First presents emotionally complex characters who feel real and three-dimensional. "There's a lot of misunderstanding of how gay Black men move in this world," Foley says of how they are often depicted in popular culture. With his first novel, Foley aimed to write something gay men will talk about in their group chats because it reflects their own lives. Aaron Foley is the author of 'Boys Come First'Ĭourtesy Aaron Foley Belt Publishing Aaron Foley is the author of 'Boys Come First'