Looking “best”
Online, Rants, World March 27th, 2007Today I came across two entries on Yingna’s blog to do with long entries and “fat” people and looking “best”. Firstly I applaud her for speaking her mind, and rather controversially at that, but that’s about as much applauding as I can go. For context, she was also the person who expressed, what I thought, were rather thinly veiled racist remarks on a messageboard mentioned here (sorry the board thread has been removed since then). I feel bad to be seemingly targetting her, but if it’s any disclaimer, the following criticisms aren’t supposed to be personal attacks on the the blog writer, just her opinions, with my own opinions. At the end of the day, this is just an extra opinion on the matter. With that said, I am going to rip into her “observations”.
Regarding her first post
Firstly, I can’t help but note that she uses the word “fat” in two different lights. Contrast:
My denotation of fat may not be the same as yours.
and
Since, people with excess fat are usually overly sensitive to the topic…
If she really has a non-pejorative, specific definition of “fat” why does she go and make the overarching statement that people with “excess fat” are “overly sensitive”? Does she mean “excess” according to her definition or what is objectively considered “excess fat” (i.e. overweight -> obesity range)? In fact she goes on to say,
What this means is that when the girl is wearing a shirt and standing, bumps can be seen around her abdomen area. Any muffin top. Many times, the people who I consider fat are only considered chubby by others.
I don’t think most people who are merely “chubby” or even have a muffin top are “overly sensitive”. Heck, I’m developing somewhat of a muffin top, especially visible if I wear tight pants, and I’m 44kg (around 90 pounds). Does that mean I have excess weight? Umm, how about no? Even with my increasing potbelly, given my height (around 152cm -_-) my BMI is around the bottom ranges of “normal”. According to her definition, given my APPEARANCE (totally dependant on the tightness of clothing too), should I be “oversensitive” about my “hamburger shaped” body?
Another point is if the girl [presumably a "fat" one] writes that she is emo. I’ve only started to hear so many people utilizing the term emo in blog entries and descriptions of themselves. A few years ago, this word was not as popular.
Because of course, there weren’t any “fat” people before a few years ago. A few years ago (if I am to assume, two to three), blogging was never as popular as it is today anyway. The writer is linking “depressed”, “emo” entries to “fat” bloggers. She wrote in her comments that these are her observations, but did she note that maybe her observations are skewed to confirm her existing biases? Being depressed and emo is generally a social, teen problem and it doesn’t sound much more than just prejudicial to say that it is mainly correlated to a weight problem.
Days pass by and only the computer remains on, the screen never flickering as fingers type madly away at the keyboard. And then, a year later, when the girl discovers she’s gained another 10 pounds, no, maybe 20 pounds, will she give up the Internet? Most wouldn’t. Girls don’t give up opportunities to rant their little hearts out…
Yes, because girls don’t eventually have to go to high school, graduate, find a job or go to college/Uni. While it IS a problem in Japan with young adults (fat and NON-FAT ones of both genders) being incredibly anti-social, in the Western blogs that she seems to use as a stereotype, that is not the problem. She’s created this exaggerated, pessimistic, almost downward pit of anti-socialness that “fat” girl bloggers seem to necessarily descend into, without acknowledging that most of them would be forced by their environments to go out and change their lifestyles in some way. Oh and of course, we’re talking about girls with muffin tops. And finally, her advice,
Take a diet. Look better.
Not sure what she means by “look better”, but since when is a muffin top not good enough? Why take a diet when you can just eat healthy? Because I personally think there is a difference between telling someone to eat healthy rather than going on a diet. I think what most angers me about her post is the idea that girls can’t be comfortable with the way they look, muffin-top or no. Advocating for HEALTH is a good thing (e.g. with exercise), but her advice of “dieting” and “looking better” smacks of incredible superficialness. I guess it comes back to her definition of fat being no way connected to what is healthy amounts of fat (e.g. with BMI), but simply any fat that one can see.
Regarding her second post
Her first few paragraphs sound reasonable so there’s no need to comment on those. But I balked at her statements,
So, if a girl wants to win the heart of some boy, she will have to look her best.
Wait, WHAT? The easiest (non-ranting) way to put it is that it’s simply not true. There IS this thing called personality. Studies have found that knowing about a person’s behaviour can influence how you think of them. Pictures of the exact same woman, could get an “ugly/bitchy” or “pretty/kind” verdict depending on what subjects were told the woman in the picture was like. Even if one “looks their best” that would not necessarily win the “heart of some boy” (unless you want to date someone who’s going out purely by your looks). Yes, first impressions last but the first impression would very much depend on how down-to-earth, approachable, friendly, open you are. People who get together based on looks… I don’t think that’s a very viable solution.
By having an attractive figure and knowing you are attractive… this will help raise self-esteem.
What’s attractive? One can argue that someone who might not have model figure, and IS plump and chubby (I guess what she defines as a “hamburger person” -_-) does think of herself as attractive. Furthermore, her statement of course assumes that you need to have an attractive figure in order to raise self-esteem. What if already you have high self-esteem because you’re accomplished in academic/work and have a great social network; couldn’t that in itself boost your view of yourself and your appearance? Even if it doesn’t, if you’ve already got what you want, why would you need an “attractive figure” to raise self esteem?
Looking good can also lead to better health. There are many times when girls feel overshadowed by others because of their image. If the girl just started by having a good diet and exercised regularly, she wouldn’t be faced with the problem of being considered fat…
GUESS WHO ISN’T HELPING THE PROBLEM?!?! I find it odd that her conclusion to teen insecurities brought on by social standards is to simply conform to those standards. What happened to fighting back against cookie-cutter stereotypes and simply being happy with one’s body? Why isn’t the answer to teen girls being depressed about being overshadowed to reach out and tell them it’s okay for them to be the way that they are, rather than saying that they should try not to be what society (and the writer) calls “fat”?
Another reason for being good looking is just because of opportunities. You will gain more opportunities if you look your best. People would rather hire a slimmer girl than a fat girl for a job.
If I was a smart employer I’d hire someone who can do the job, not someone who looks a certain way. Unless you’re a modelling agency, if you’re looking to make money by hiring someone to perform a task, you’d want someone who’s capable, smart, a team player, a good learner etc etc. I’d think the profits made in a company overrides any notions of “appearance”. I really think the whole idea that the prettier/slimmer girl gets the job is probably decades old and the writer’s opinions comes across as mysognistic in the reasoning. If the writer believes in such archaic stereotypical notions, I wonder if she’d also think that men would get hired over women (not true as much anymore these days, thank goodness) because hey, that’s what happened during the “Industrial Revolutions of America”.
Phew, long post.
22 Responses to “Looking “best””
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I read both entries… and I couldn’t help thinking. She would like that we all looked exactly same. I wonder how it’s posible that there’s “fat/ugly” girls/women with nice relationships and good jobs. Well I guess it’s american thing, I don’t live there so, who am I to say.
Oh shucks, I got my boyfriend though I’m a size 12 with excess weight. He must be blind huh? And you know, there’s my disgustingly high self-esteem that goes through the roof…please, someone start insulting me because someone who’s fat can’t possibly be self-confident. Oh, and forget the fact that I can walk up hills all day without breaking a sweat, that doesn’t count either.
Gag me.
Oh, and I find all her blog entries surprisingly long and whiny…especially considering she said that fat teenage emos write long and whiny posts. Food for thought.
Her points do not weigh (pun!) on any evidence.
Anywords. I suppose I befit the label “depressed/emo/whiny,” but I am by no means fat. Only a BMI-obsessed individual would see every personality defect through the prism of fatness.
She needs to learn that unhappiness can be attributed to anything: economic factors, school, parents, etc. Not everyone is as superficial as she is, thankfully.
You know, I have a fairly long about me page. I guess that means I’m fat; regardless that my BMI is underweight. In fact, if you own a blog and you make an unhappy entry, guess what? You’re emo! And if you’re emo, do you know what that means? You’re fat! And obviously if you’re a little chubby you’ll be shunned by society, not be confident within yourself, and have no boyfriend.
o_O
I found those two posts horrifying.
Scary.
It’s funny, though. When she’s talking about people who are ‘fat’ (by this definition, I definitely am; so I should go quit my job and dump my fiancé?) all that I can really think of is she’s talking about people who dress badly. It’s like seeing Gina Riley dressed as Gina Riley versus Gina Riley dressed as Kim. The really ironic thing is that most bad dressing in young women is caused by the kinds of body issues this girl herself is causing.
Not to mention that she’s completely ignoring — or at least is ignorant of — the well-known Emo Blog Syndrome (people are more likely to post about things in their blog when they are angry or upset, thus making their lives seem disproportionately bad to outside observers).
Well I’m fat (according to clinical assessments) but I don’t really feel emo. The only reason I like wearing black is because it makes me thinner. And regarding my blogs I’d like to think that most of them are humorous and um… not emotionally draining.
However, unfortunately she is right with the opinion regarding who gets more opportunities. I’m not saying that this is a good thing, just something true. Oh and I wish I could hold a diet, unfortunately I lack the necessary will most of the time (but one can always hope).
Heh I hope I didn’t freak you out with this, but then again mostly I agree with you. Especially with the “what most consider chubby, I consider fat”. So what’s her ideal figure? That of a skeleton? And you’re by no means fat. Ideally you should weigh around 47kg (to be the healthiest of the healthiest).
I feel sorry for her. What is so wrong in her life that she has to spew those ignorant comments.
I’m curious now as to what she’d categorize me as from reading my websites. Considering, I can identify with everything she said about “fat” people but I’m on the skinny side.
Its people like her that make other people freak out about their image and hurt themselves through unhealthy diets…
To Vera: If you have the talent/skills to do something, if some stupid company wishes to not hire you because of physical appearance, than it’s really their loss. A more smarter company would realise that “fat” people are just as accomplished and can be just as focused on their work. The market is so damn competitive nowadays, I doubt that many managers would be considering what you look like rather than what you can do for them. “Fat” is a pretty arbitrary thing in the realm of work. Heck, it’s no different than some stupid managers who, say, would pick blondes over non-blondes rather than by what they can do. Good luck to them when their company collapses.
If even if it is true, she’s not helping the problem. Her whole stance on things SUPPORTS any running prejudice against “fat” people. It’s pretty telling that she never once considered that maybe turning the tide is a possibility. Sure she might not accomplish much, but why is she not one more person to reject standing stereotype but instead embraces it because it exists?
Why didn’t you just comment your thoughts on my blog? I would think that would be more appropriate than taking my entry and ridiculing it elsewhere. Or, “expressing your opinion” while deleting anything “sensible” I wrote in my blog.
Also, looking into credits issues, isn’t a bit rude to take quotes without asking someone for permission first?
Hmmm. I’ve never been the biggest fan of these kind of posts, because, while the post in question tends to be more about offering a different argument to the debate, the commenters tend to latch on to attacking the other person. Which I’m not really okay with.
I DO like reading your post. You have quotations from the site in question and only respond to what is in the quotations. But then I read comments and a lot of times, on popular weblogs such as yours, the comments just try to agree with you/(the popular weblog owner) rather than go back to the original source and see if they really do agree with you or not. Basically, generalizing about what the site owner is really like, without getting to know him/her by looking through the site, archives, etc.
In any case, I think I’m tired and just wanted to say something about this. It’s a phenomenon I’ve seen happen before, and I just wanted to point it out, as an observation of mine. I’m not making any judgments for or against either of you, especially since I haven’t read the two posts you reference. I do have to say though, some of your quotations from her site that are reinforcing the stereotypes are… well… scary. I didn’t know people still thought like that. I guess I’m just sheltered. ;)
P.S. I sure hope I made sense. It’s bedtime and homework isn’t done yet… yuck.
And also, is there any way a someone registered here could edit her own comments? I just thought of that…
To Yingna, who commented minutes before I finished my stupendously long comment: if that were the case, well… wow. I can see the lawsuits flying. No one allowed to say anything someone else has already said. Oh wait, then no one would be able to say anything… Quotations, so long as they are clearly marked as such, are totally free use to anybody. Anywhere. Anyhow.
(And now I scooch back to homeworkville…)
No. Welcome to academia.
Are you sure? Things that are usually not clearly published cannot be used in any formal writing. I’m not so sure if it’s due to credit issue or to reliance issue, but I know that for many papers, if something is not published, people usually can’t just take it and use it. The paper would be rejected. And since my writing is a personal blog which isn’t published (unless you consider just writing anything anywhere publishing), people can’t use it as quotes.
Nevertheless, if I’m outrageously wrong with my above statements, I never said you can’t take quotes without asking permission. I just said that I found it rude to take someone’s writing and comment a bunch on it without asking for permission (or at least notifying the person–I had to find that I was getting hits [thanks for the hits, btw] from this site that tore my entry apart). Also, I know that writers when writing an essay about some other writing usually have to ask permission from the original writer.
[Belinda, feel free to merge this with my other post. I want to comment on some other things]
There is a term for that argument–ad hominem type argument. The weakest type of argument there is in any valid debate.
As with what you said before, Belinda quoted certain aspects of my posts, but not the entire posts. Hence, the eclipses.
Not true in the slightest; don’t judge what ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ be done by what your university lecturers will or won’t accept in your undergrad essays. It’s a reliability thing, incidentally; someone’s blog is not considered to be a reliable source of, say, population statistics or scientific experiment results but is (duh) perfectly acceptable when directly discussing the content of the post, which is exactly what Belinda is doing here.
Anyway, this content is published; it, like your blog entry, is in a publicly accessible place in a recognised medium. It’s covered by copyright. It — to a certain extent — is even peer reviewed. What else do you want to qualify something as ‘published’? Sure, it’s not released by a commercial publishing house… but so what? By this definition, most university papers are also not ‘published’, nor is non-commercial art, pamphlets, chapbooks or pretty much anything written or produced before the twentieth century. Do you get where I’m going?
Of course, the other logical flaw in your argument is that this is not formal writing; it’s a blog, and the medium has different conventions. Additionally, in case you were wondering, as Belinda is offering a critique she is covered by copyright fair use provisions.
Whether what she did was rude or not is probably up to individual interpretation, but the one single thing that has made blogging the favoured medium of The Now is the fact that anyone can offer their opinion on anything, at any time. Speaking as someone who’s been around long enough to remember when blogger.com first opened, I’d find it odd to hear that any long-term blog owner would consider linking to and quoting someone else’s public blog entry ‘rude’. It’s the blogsphere; that’s what we do. If you don’t like the publicity, get out of the medium. Or at least do what everybody else does and make your blog private.
That’s the rub; if you don’t want someone else criticising your opinions, don’t share them with Google.
(Also, I read your whole original post; I don’t see how Belinda has mis-quoted or distorted your writing. She’s hasn’t made you look bad — you’ve done a good enough job of that yourself — she’s just drawn attention to it.)
To Yingna I’m responding to all your entries in one go…
Re: Commenting on your blog
Firstly, the entries were dated 13 and 18 of March respectively. I don’t assume that people get emails of comments in older posts. There’s no point in voicing a comment that absolutely no one gets. Secondly, both replies of mine are fairly lengthy and I think it would read better as a post than just a comment. Thirdly, while I personally abhor it, there are blog owners have an opinion similar to “this is my blog, therefore I don’t have to give any regard to your opinions”. I put this as a post in my own blog so that comments I make don’t get dismissed in such a way. Lastly, your post was made to the public where everyone can see. I didn’t “take” your entry to any place that it wasn’t already at (i.e. the internet).
Re: Quoting you
Dee already addressed it very succinctly. To cover legalities, I didn’t take your quotes without crediting you so there ISN’T a crediting issue. If it’s a “quoting without permission”; firstly I didn’t quote you to earn money in any way, secondly I wasn’t trying to defame you in any way, and thirdly, have you seen what that button is when you post an entry on wordpress? It reads “publish”. That’s a pretty big indication that the implication of what you write, especially to the public domain, IS publication even if it’s not okayed by anyone official. And you’re welcome about the publicity, as they say, any publicity is good publicity.
Re: ad hominem attacks etc
A negative opinion to a statement doesn’t make it an ad hominem. At all times I was addressing your opinions. At no time did I say things like “and therefore she’s an idiot” or “man, she’s so stupid” or “I bet she wrote that because she’s a moron” etc. As I stated in my beginning paragraph, I had problems, negative reactions, to your opinions. If you choose to equate criticisms towards your opinions as a criticism towards yourself then that’s not something within my control. As a side note, ad hominems aren’t necessarily the WEAKEST types of argument, there are many bad logical fallacies out there. Try not to commit those kids!
Yes I did quote certain sections because those were the ones that stirred an emotional reactions out of me. I even admitted that you did have “sensible” parts. But the parts of your post that I did focus on were the parts that I thought needed attention. Since I’ve linked to your posts in their entirety, people were given the fullest opportunities to read your posts for themselves. They were absolutely welcome to form their own opinions, as I’ve made mine.
To Stephanie I can’t help but reiterate that I didn’t intend to criticise her as a person. I note that her opinions ARE controversial and I do applaud her for having them. But I have my own reactions to her opinions and it’s in my nature to state them as frankly as I can. I linked to her posts and site, but if people don’t read it, then I can’t do anything about it. The writer might be an awesome girl, but that’s not my place to comment here and I don’t intend to. I am critical of her opinions (on this particular matter; we may agree on many other things), very much so, but not on her.
I do appreciate that you’re so open with on the matter though! I actually expected less agreement to my own one-sided alternate view, especially seeing that many of the comments on the writer’s posts were relatively unchallenging of her. I really hope that it’s not my “popularity” (honestly, I’m not popular compared to many blogs!) that people here are thinking of, but that they truly are agreeing (or not). I’d be more than happy to have to defend my opinions or even change them if I’m proven to be wrong. But as I said, either way, I do appreciate your point of view on this. :)
And hmmm I don’t know how to allow users to edit comments, I think I’ll look into wordpress to see what can be done about user levels and accessibility.
Wow, is she joking? I’d hope so. It’s a pity someone should go through life with an outlook like that.
But you know, it’s okay. I’m a fat, non-emo girl blogger, who is wow, get this healthy and engaged! I can’t help but chuckle at people like that. Maybe someday they will grow up and out of there horrific outlooks on people and really get to know people before passing judgment. I doubt it, but one can always hope right?
Dee: Thank you for your explanation. I only find it rude that Belinda neglected to tell me something regarding my entry. But, I can’t complain.
Belinda, I do get emails and notices about comments. I like to keep track of my website.
Ad hominem doesn’t just mean “she’s stupid.”
1) “she was also the person who expressed, what I thought, were rather thinly veiled racist remarks on a messageboard”
In your first paragraph, you hinted, if not established, that I was racist to the reader. The reader believes the writer, so if you said thinly veiled racist remarks, most readers would believe that I wrote thinly veiled racist remarks.
2) “but did she note that maybe her observations are skewed to confirm her existing biases”
Is that attacking my opinions or me? I find it attacking both, seeing as how you label me as biased.
3) “GUESS WHO ISN’T HELPING THE PROBLEM?!?!”
I’m going to venture a guess, so is that pointed towards me?
If you truly only attacked my opinion, you wouldn’t keep mentioning “her” “she” etc. By saying “her” “she”, etc. you’re equating the views as only my views, therefore labeling me racist or whatever else you inadvertently labeled me as through your comments. However, these are not only my views. I know there are people out there who share the same views.
Also, one aspect that I don’t like about this entry is that it attacks the entry but brings up no other points I had written out. But, a lot of writers do that, so I won’t go into it. But, what results from this is that if some reader reads Belinda’s entry and neglects to read my original, I get many comments like “You’re such an idiot! You need to get a life! You’re crazy! You want people to turn into a skeleton? OMG!!!” Which is pretty annoying, seeing as how I had wrote that skinny stick people aren’t that great.
BTW, my name is Yingna, not Yinga.
The examples you gave aren’t ad hominem attacks. Look it up. To use the definition from the last site, an ad hominem argument has this form:
1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A’s claim is false.
With that in mind, here’s why the examples you gave don’t fit the definition.
1) This was written for a more contextual and disclaimering purposing. I’m running a chance that long-time readers would remember your name from the other post, and I don’t want to be accused of targetting you secretly, hence I openly provided the context. Also, that in itself isn’t an ad hominem attack. If I had said “she’s a racist because she’s a stuck up snobby girl and the way she thinks about fat people is also because she’s a stuck up snob” or something of the sort, then that’s an attack. I justified why *I* THOUGHT you were making racist remarks in that post. A negative opinion isn’t an ad hominem argument.
2) Please consider the context in which you’re quoting me. You yourself wrote as a defence to your post, in one of your posts, that it’s okay that your opinions are not scientific or empirically tested because they were just observations. I then ask the question, did you consider that your observations might be skewed to confirm existing biases? That’s a question I posed, I guess pondered upon, and it’s not a conclusion I made about you. If I had answered it with something like “of course she has these observations, that’s because she’s Asian” or something like that, that’ll make it ad hominem. You can even answer that question if you wish.
3) Yes it is you. You’re from where the opinions I take about comes from. I refer directly to you because that’s less convoluted way (in an already lengthy post) to refer to your opinions. Not anyone else’s, yours. OPINIONS mind you, not you in person. If I were to write “the opinions”, people are just bound to get confused. Still, that doesn’t make it an attack on YOU. I’m not saying YOU’RE intrinsically bad, I’m saying I have problems with what you had stated. That’s in no way an ad hominem argument. I don’t label you, your comments and opinions speak for themselves. People are more than welcome to disagree with me, I give ample indication of where to find your opinions for a contrasting view. Frankly that’s what one IS supposed to do before coming to a conclusion, but if they don’t, I can’t do much about it.
Secondly, as I’ve said I brought to light the parts that bothered me. I’m not your English teacher, I’m not obliged to review all parts of what you wrote for quality. Unless your other parts makes the bits I quote have a drastically different context (e.g. if the other bits said something like “this is just satirical, all the parts about “muffin-tops” and stuff are supposed to be parody”), then I’ll be definitely in the wrong. But while you have things to say about skinny stick people, that doesn’t make what you said about fat people, and the parts I quoted, any less true.
Lastly I apologise for mispelling your name. I’ll correct it now.