Campfyre Stories

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, "Yes there are.  There’s you, there’s me, there are these other friends of mine.  There are *lots* of fat people on Facebook, at least as many as there are in real life."  And, you know, you’re right, but only to a certain extent.  As far as population is concerned, They say that a third of the US population is obese.  I have no reason to doubt that the proportions are the same on the internet and on social networking sites.  Fat people are everywhere, whether you notice them or not, but if you really look at the profile pictures on Facebook, fat people are not represented visually.

I ask that you conduct your own experiment.  Look at your Facebook friends, specifically the ones who are heavy.  How many of them have a profile picture?  How many of those pictures are recent?  How many are of their kids or some kind of avatar?  How many heavy people photograph thinner in the face than in the body and of those, how many actually show you what they look like below their face?  How many of your friends have you not seen in years or decades?  Do their pictures show them fully, or do they only show how they want to be remembered?

There are no fat people on Facebook, not like they are in real life.

There’s this stigma that goes along with being heavy.  It has nothing to do with health or the rising costs of health care, which are often blamed on fat people and smokers.  The reality is that many heavy people are healthy.  Healthier, even, than their skinny counterparts.  We’re scorned, though, by those who refuse to have their own cholesterol levels checked; who eat fast food for most meals; who can’t tell you their blood pressure, but consider themselves healthy simply because they are able to maintain a healthy weight.  This misconception is prevalent even in the medical community and among medical professionals.  If you’re fat, you’re unhealthy.  It’s a "fact".

Another "fact" that society throws at us is that if you’re fat, you’re unattractive.  That one’s a lot harder to disprove.  While I like to think of myself as attractive, or at least cute, society tells me that I’m disgusting.  Society tells me that I shouldn’t breed (although I have successfully and my son is beautiful, healthy and thin) and that no one would ever be interested in seeing me naked.  My guy friends tell me that for every body type, for every skin color, for every body/facial feature, there are men who are attracted to that, but in anonymity, men mostly say that they’re looking for a "shapely" woman and that round is not a shape.  They say "No offense, but I’m repulsed by BBWs."  They use "politically correct" language to tell fat women why they’re not desirable.

Is it any wonder, then, that people on the internet still hide from those they consider their "friends"?  Is anyone surprised that people, and women in particular, don’t want to ruin the nostalgia of when they were thinner?  For some, it’s not even that simple.  Those who were fat before it became an "epidemic" have been subjected to that sort of thinking and the degradation that people are comfortable doling out for so long that they hide from cameras and refuse to share themselves with others.  But even people who are comfortable in their own bodies fall prey to the persecution warfare that has been launched against an easy, though incorrectly singled out, target.

I’ll admit it, I’m guilty of this, too.  First it was an avatar, then it was a picture of the tattoo on my leg.  An old friend of mine complained to me in person about how "It’s not called Thigh book.  Where’s the picture of your face?"  And he was right.  There’s no reason for me to feel ashamed of no longer being the thin teenager I was 15-20 years ago.  I like who I am, I’m a pretty successful person on most fronts.  I just happen to be fat.  I also happen to spend time on the internet where I am told time and again that I am worthless.  I hear it in real life, too.  Sometimes it’s about me, sometimes it might be about me.  Sometimes I know that it’s about someone else in my proximity, but when I hear it, I still take it in and it still hurts.  It was hard for me to post a picture that looks like me, but is unflattering.  I don’t have the kind of face that photographs as thin.  The way my body is angled makes me look even bigger than I actually am, but it looks more like me than any other picture I have.  It wasn’t until I posted my picture that I realized how few photos there are of people not looking acceptably thin.

So I stand by my title.  There are no fat people on Facebook and it’s a real shame because it means that we’re only visible in real life and that all the anonymous assholes putting us down on the internet, do so with free reign, since WE don’t actually live there, too.  At least not so anyone can see us.