It's amazing how controversial "Bodyshaming is bad" can be on this website. People really, really, really want to be able to bodyshame the people they don't like.
You see it all the time with Trump, just all the jokes about his dick size and his fatness and whatever else. Which to me is lazy. The voluntary choices he makes about his appearance are so, so much worse than anything he was born with. The horrible hairstyle, the awful makeup, the fake tan, the clothes that don't fit, the weird faces he makes, the awkward gesturing he does.
But no, people must make fun of the man's penis. And any time I push back on it because it's bodyshaming, I get so many replies from people like, "Yeah, but Trump sucks" or "I'm not saying small dicks are bad! But it's what he thinks, so I'm using that insecurity to make fun of him!"
When AOC said that some guy is short I had so many people trying to convince me it's a good thing or even straight up try to insult me or imply I must be short for criticising obvious bodyshaming.
I will keep saying it: Too many people learned to not criticise certain demographics, but not why.
i fucking hate when somebody says a completely unwarrented insult and you try to say that it isnt ok and they just turn to "well if you are so sensitive it probably also means you are x"
When she apologised she still couldn't help herself from saying that being short was a bad thing. She tried to say that short guys who were cool appeared taller to her lmfao. It's a blind spot for sure.
The whole "leftist short men are valiant and good and 'spiritually tall'" thing was such a comical blunder that I half-suspected it was intentional. Seriously, it's about the shittiest possible way to have handled the whole thing, I couldn't have done any worse if I tried.
“Spiritually tall” is just about the worst way to phrase it I can come up with.
Even if we go with the absolute most generous interpretation of it, that short men who are good people can make up for their genetically unattractive trait with good actions and appear more attractive that’s still horrible. And mind you that the nice interpretation.
The other interpretation is that she doesn’t care and is just doing damage control.
This type of behavior reminds me a lot of Republicans being casually racist. It’s is so easy for them to condemn racism or not make a racist comment and they’d have way more supporters, yet they do. AOC would probably have way more male supporters if they didn’t feel like she secretly has contempt for them the way a Republican has contempt for their Latino constituents.
AOC would probably have way more male supporters if they didn’t feel like she secretly has contempt for them the way a Republican has contempt for their Latino constituents.
"Secretly" is certainly a nice way to put it, lol. Yeah, sometimes I wonder why the only party worth voting for at the moment has such a consistent habit of shooting themselves in the foot. Oh well, better than the alternative, at least.
go for the type of things that are more specific to the person in question, if somebody is noisy something like "is your ego so loud that it can only bear to listen to itself?" or "you are so full of yourself you are probably a matryoshka doll".
This type of insult will hurt way more than generic insults that would fit most people, be creative, hit things they know are true or that are sensitive to them but arent just inate aspects of them.
The unwashed ass thing is specifically aimed at men who think it is gay or feminine to clean their asshole. So saying someone looks like they would have an unwashed ass is basically saying they're an insecure idiot who would take it so far to refuse basic hygiene.
you need to actually frame it saying "you look like you have an unwashed ass" will go over the head of many, say "you probably dont wipe your ass because you are afraid you will enjoy it" its more creative and shows their fragile masculinity
i use that line a lot to bigots because im a femboy lmao
The moment with Elon's kid telling Trump to "Shut up, you're not the president" was probably the most speaking truth to power moment in the last ten years.
ye adults can insult you for a lot of reasons, because they dislike you, are jealous, dislike something you did or represent, kids are insulting you because YOU are ugly or directly bad in their eyes, and that hurts way more because you cant over rationalize it
I'm depressed and have trouble with hygiene. Sometimes my body smells bad. That's still entirely within my control. If I subjected another person to being anywhere near my bits without first showering, that's a gross move and would be bad. Shameful, even.
Absolutely, and don't forget all the people clamoring to call him gay or womanly for the same reason. Trumps physicality doesn't contribute to or originate from his evil, but it's 100% fine to make fun of him for pretending he's some picture of health as if we can't see him
Confidence and honesty are choices that we can hold people accountable for. Physical appearance is the genetic lottery
Redditers loves to be so homophobic and misogynist and bigoted and to justify it by saying "oh but I still think gay/trans people should have rights," or "I'm only calling them gay/girly/fat/whatever as an insult because they think it's an insult so they're being hypocritical". No, it doesn't work that way. There are a million billion ways you can insult or criticize people without turning people's identities into an insult, and yet they choose to do it anyways.
Yeah, there’s absolutely no shortage of things to legitimately criticize him for, like the whole being a wannabe dictator part, but instead people want to make dumb jokes.
And I’m fine with comedians making offensive jokes about him, they do that to everyone, but people who also want to be taken seriously making political statements about him, and especially people involved with social politics absolutely have no room to be making small dick jokes and then saying “the patriarchy hurts men too.” My brother in Christ you are the patriarchy that you criticize.
I'm with you. I could go on all day about his horrible taste in interior decorating. I'm not going to say anything about the size of his hands, the state of his neck, or even his alleged incontinence. We should not shame people for things they didn't choose.
its generally the same people who will lash out at anybody saying "gay" as if its an insult that usually do this in regards to trump in specific, i dont know how somebody can think "ye obviously we shouldnt use that as an insult because not only is it not reflective of a bad moral compass but its something inate to that person :)"
I remember people desperately claiming Trump was short, and then when it got pointed out he's actually taller than most men (as is usual with American politicians), people straight-up said that it wasn't true. He wears lifts because he's already insecure on top of being tall, it's why he does that awful "shake your hand hard to make you look weak" crap or when he literally tried to loom over Clinton during the debates. He's a pathetic child, but he's taller than most.
exacly, saying he is insecure and overcompensates is a good thing to point out, and a very valid insult that is way more likely to get to him than "haha your pp small"
like if somebody insults another person for actions they take to show their character is flawed will get to them way more than simple generic insults, be creative if you are gonna be mean at least lmao
people not being able to comprehend that there's a middle ground between glazing and bullying, and accusing you of supporting the former whenever you criticize the latter
I mean, even that stuff is still just superficial physical stuff. He's a prodigious criminal, rapist, child rapist, con artist, ect. Like if you want to trash someone, trash them for what they've done, especially that loser, god knows he's done enough.
Ultimately I think people go for physical stuff because of a combination of that whole "morality is reflected on the physical reality" thing so many people just love, because it both feels good, and is safe if you don't share whatever deviation from the norm.
Plus criticizing someone's actions ideally means you're reflecting on your own, and that's often uncomfortable for many folks.
And any time I push back on it because it's bodyshaming, I get so many replies from people like, "Yeah, but Trump sucks" or "I'm not saying small dicks are bad! But it's what he thinks, so I'm using that insecurity to make fun of him!"
Or "found someone else with a small dick lmaoooooo"
I have never not been downvoted for saying that mocking a dude for being in a wheelchair just because he's evil just makes you someone who makes fun of people for needing wheelchairs.
Like you can talk about it in the context of berating him for his selfishness or his hypocrisy re: that very thing, but if your insult could be applied to a normal person in a wheelchair, it is functionally just a dig at wheelchair users.
Same goes for any disability.
Same goes for any body part.
Same goes for pronouns and gender related insults.
Can it apply to anyone with that circumstance?
Then pick one that doesn't.
I've seen "Body shaming is bad unless it's someone I don't like, then it's perfectly fine" too many times and it never gets any less frustrating to see
Same with Elon Musk. People will post old images from when his hair was balding as some kinda gotcha, and if you defend it on principal, you just get a ton of replies saying shit like “How does that boot taste?” Really disheartening how many people are perfectly fit to fall back on such hateful beliefs just because it happens to be someone they don’t like
when I've seen people comment on Musk's hair plugs, it was usually to point out that it's hypocritical of him to then turn around and go against gender-affirming healthcare. not saying there aren't people just being shitty about his balding, but that's my experience
Honestly, even making fun of Trump’s fashion isn’t great. Plenty of other people have shitty tans or fake hair that they’re self-conscious about. Can’t we make fun of the fact that he’s literally an evil asshole?
see i don't think this is a very useful perspective. if it's alright to mock people for choices they make regarding their appearance, then anything can become a choice just to justify body shaming
I've recently found myself thinking the same thing. "if you need to, insult by their choices..." next thing is they're calling obesity a choice (so fatness is ok as insult), they're calling homosexuality a choice (so that's a valid insult) etc etc.
Have you found a solution more interesting than "dude's a steaming pile of shit"? Because I haven't and I'd like to.
I think some of it is that people want to hit Trump where he will feel it.
If we point out he is a bully, a grifter con-man or a rapist, he would smirk and agree and feel proud that he is untouchable for all of that. He will take our insults and turn it into a flex.
So you go after the things he has shown insecurity about. His hair. His hands. His penis.
Those people are complete idiots though, considering the fact that he'll never be reading or caring about their specific comments no matter what they write. Why would he? From his perspective, he already won.
Since that photoshoot of the Trump flacks came out I have been seeing massive threads of people taking absolute glee in mocking their appearances because "hate ages you." And like, I get it. I do. But "hate shows in your skin" is literally just physiognomy, aka the belief that your character is worn in your outward appearance and so you can literally tell by somebody's face that they're a criminal or whatever, which is a thing people actually believed along with phrenology and other contributors to race science. And I know a good chunk of the people doing this are also willfully pretending not to understand lighting to make some of these comments, they're just having too much fun poisoning their own brains with 19th century eugenics instead of doing something useful.
Edit: Obviously "hate ages you" is a broader discourse that's been around longer, I can just really feel the joy people are getting out of choosing to interpret signs of aging as direct signs of bad character in this round. We will all get old and have crinkly undereyes and it won't be because we were all hateful, but if we have the idea that it looks that way, that sure does help create the market for cosmetic treatments.
More than I trust a lot of world leaders. Grandpa has a palsy a lot like MS in that he's lost the ability to move his body; his mind, intelligence, and memory are unaffected. He's far smarter and a better person than Trump.
Several years ago, I was in a traffic accident, and lost some of my teeth. A couple of months later, I had a denture that, because the swelling had gone down, would sometimes come unstuck from my mouth slightly. I now have implants, but at the time, I was really self-conscious about my teeth. (COVID, and the related masks, were good for in public, but having meetings and things online meant I would occasionally see myself laughing out smiling and immediately feel bad(
Anyway, during this time, I was browsing Reddit and there was a video from some protest or other, and a woman was shouting about her views, and her denture became unstuck. Almost all the comments were taking the piss out of this woman.
I can't remember what the woman was arguing for. It was something I very much didn't agree with, I think she was pro-life or anti-mask or MAGA. Something that Reddit didn't usually have any trouble arguing with.
The woman probably never saw any of these comments, but I did. They made me feel like absolute shit. And they are all I really remember if the conversation.
I have larger hands, like King Charles but not as extreme, and I've learned not to open threads about him because of the horrible things people who dislike him will say about his hands. He will never see those comments, but I saw them. It's a horrible feeling and I totally empathise with you
i have large hands too, and i really appreciate this. not just cause i understand what you might go through (FUCKING MAKE GLOVES THAT DONT HURT WHEN I PUT THEM ON YOU ASSHOLES), but because now i can avoid this pitfall. thank you.
I have thin long and wide set fingers and large hands I have never found gloves that fit remotely well the best I hade were climbing/biking gloves that barely went to my first knuckle, I tried so many horse riding (did it for years before my health gotbad), ski gloves, full length biking gloves, just regular gloves for cold weather but nothing fits
For what it’s worth, there’s lots of us who think big hands are sexy. My partner’s hands are massive, and it’s one of my favorite singular features about him.
Also less sexy, but my cat has large paws for his size and I find them incredibly adorable.
Honestly this can even still apply to things that aren't traits people can't control
I once saw a post about some right wing influencer or other, and the comments were being absolutely vicious about the fact that he was wearing a beanie. According to them, it's an awful fashion choice, a hundred times worse than a fedora, clearly indicative of his poor fashion sense (and thus his poor moral fiber), and also he was probably only wearing it to hide a bald spot anyway
I wear a beanie all the time (temperature permitting). It's a really cool beanie, it has a time gear from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon on it, and my sister made it for me by hand. It's a choice for me to wear that beanie, but those comments still hurt to read
Those commenters need their heads examined because last I checked wearing a beanie was a thing that was heavily associated with liberal and progressive guys.
So to have the satisfaction of making fun of the one conservative guy that wears a beanie they’re willing to throw a lot of their male allies under the bus.
Which is why in designing animated characters designing villains is kind of hard, because what physical traits you put onto them might indirectly end up as being associated with them being evil. Like when the villain is depicted as ugly, or fat, or bald, or deformed, or disabled, it sometimes gives off negative connotations to people with those traits. Especially if the heroes and protagonists mock the villains for those traits.
Solution: Give one of the heroes a similar trait, like maybe both characters lost a limb, and then make the villain, in-universe, act like that trait is why they have to do the things they do.
Like, the villain acts like everyone hates them for being ugly, and refuses to accept that the backlash they face everywhere they go is because they keep killing people. And then the hero shows up with a similar appearance, or maybe a similar deformity or something, and shows that the villain is just an asshole.
Or the heroes are ugly and the villains are beautiful, but the in-universe public judge based on appearances so they can't tell the pretty ones are evil... until it's too late.
The amount of people who would go "The villain's switch to evil came out of nowhere and the narrative made him lose because the writer couldn't think of a better conflict" would be staggering.
Trust me, I've seen RWBY; people will defend a character who follows Hitler's playbook if he tickles their daddy issues.
I mean Shrek 2 did this 20 years ago. Prince Charming is the bad guy and Shrek and Fiona choosing to be ogres instead of humans because they liked the ogre lifestyle and didn’t care to be conventionally attractive was kind of powerful.
Reminds me of that Roald Dahl quote and illustration:
"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
This is very consistently used on Twitter to declare that bodyshaming isn’t actually wrong and that insulting people’s appearance is actually just insulting the content of their character. Can you guess why that might be a bad idea or habit?
What I took from that quote was "People can look lovely if they're lovely on the inside, despite physical characteristics."
I assume what they got out of the quote was "People who are ugly on the inside have ugly physical characteristics."
I don't think the first take is problematic, and I don't think people should stop believing it just because some bodyshamers are using it as an excuse. I don't really put much stock into what they have to say. I mean, bodyshamers aren't really the pinnacle of intelligence.
This is poor logic, you can look repulsive and have a good heart and vice versa. The truth is you can only judge people based on their actions. There are no shortcuts.
I don’t think it’s really any different from giving a character a red colour scheme if they’re supposed to be evil/angry, or a purple one if they’re supposed to give off the impression of royalty.
As a patient, I have heard nurses talk shit about other patients. It messed me up because I started worrying what they were saying about me when I wasn't there.
yeah there are a lot of nurses (and other allied health staff) who feel waaaaay too comfortable saying mean things about each other and/or patients. It's maddening.
There's a lot of truth to the clique-y mean girl stereotype to nurse pipeline, from my personal experience. I always wonder why such hateful people choose that line of work, cause it certainly ain't the pay.
Nurses and cops are either kind and self sacrificing people or absolute demons and narcissists who enjoy having power over vulnerable people.
The problem is that many good nurses and cops will just ignore their bad colleagues or do things to fit in or just not speak up to protect their job. Obviously the consequences for cops being evil are way worse because the consequence is wrongful death, but lots of patient abuse (especially in child and elder care) goes unnoticed and unreported simply because it isn’t visible to the public.
mostly, yeah, but people do still comment on his weight when a bad picture comes out. "mammoth ass" was a common phrase for a while regarding an unflattering picture of him from behind, it was... uncomfortable. lately it's the dementia symptoms and obvious failing health instead which, while still potentially problematic, at least make some sense along the lines of "someone who's about to die, gets lost in his house, and can't tell an elephant from a rhino maybe shouldn't be the president" lmao
I dunno what you mean by "often enough". Is there some kind of minimum threshold that a joke has to be told for it to become wrong? It's not offensive until the fifth or sixth time you hear it?
FWIW, I hear a comment about "lol Trump is fat" about once every month or two. The orange thing IS much more frequent, but we've been dealing with this fascist fuck for more than a decade now, and I'm also sick to death of the fat-shaming. (As if there's NOTHING else to criticize him for...)
Not sure what you're trying to make me say here, I'm not questioning how offensive it is to mock someone else's physique, but an attack that someone makes in one isolated context obviously doesn't have the same impact as an attack that is repetitive enough that it's normalized
There is quite a bit of irony in someone like Donald Trump telling poor people that they don’t eat healthy, when Donald Trump has the funding and time (considering half his presidency is naps or at the golf course) to get in shape with diet and exercise, and yet he chooses not to but still lectures others for their unhealthy lifestyles.
If you’re unhealthy and you’re poor, while there is definitely an element of choice still present, you were kind of fucked from the start.
If you’re unhealthy and rich, that’s a full on choice. If I could afford personal trainers, gourmet food, and high quality healthcare, there is no excuse barring extreme genetic conditions for that.
And then to have the gall to chastise poor people for being unhealthy…
Being fat is itself not a value judgement, and there are intrinsic factors, but there are also choices that are sometimes made that cause people to be overweight. People can be judged by their choices, especially when they are trying to present themselves as one way that is purely contradicted by their choices.
Trump tries to project this image of being a strongman. His, and his base’s, favorite AI generated propaganda is of him as a musclebound hunk beating the fuck out of liberals and immigrants. It is entirely valid to make fun of him for being an out of shape piece of shit despite having every opportunity to not be because he tries to act like he is not.
It is not the quality that makes it ok to mock, but rather how it is yet another way he is a vain, vicious, hypocritical liar.
I think there is some valid point there about mocking people specifically for their hypocrisy and that being much more about their personal character, but in my observation it inevitably slides into something indistinguishable from just mocking them for those actual traits.
Maybe partially because we have more experience with that. It sometimes feels like people just slide into these well-worn grooves of fat-shaming and misogyny and homophobia, even when they intend to attack hypocrisy.
That’s a pretty hard assertion to make as a blanket statement. I’ve said my piece on making fun of Trump for being out of shape, so I’ll move to the others.
Misogyny is one to be particularly careful when you look at other’s behavior. A common “feminist” refrain that rings through like this is making women who choose to present through one of the more criticized lenses: wearing revealing clothes, heavily made-up, chasing after a super thin physique, so-on. These criticisms end up just as misogynistic as the original behaviors the criticisms were levied against because they’re now trying to put women in another box: it’s just that this box is defined as “not the other box”. It was worded better elsewhere on the site over the weekend, but I hope that the point is made. But simultaneously, mocking people like Meagan Kelly for being “anti-woman women” is not misogynistic. While you can always criticize someone for being against women’s rights, there is something more to be said about it when the person championing that cause is themselves a woman. Being anti-prejudice doesn’t mean that you never discuss choices through the lens of identity, but rather that you never ignore choices in lieu of identity.
I was going to delve into gay MAGAs, but to be honest, I think my statement above states my point well enough. It’s both acceptable, and even prudent, to discuss identity/characteristics when discussing choices people make. Because not every situation is the same, and to not factor in everything out of fear of being prejudiced is itself an injustice. One must simply be cautious while doing so.
My assertion about what I’ve observed? Or my assertion that these are forms of mocking that most people are more familiar with than personality- or choice-based insults?
I guess I’ll have to come back and reread this when I have more time. I think I’m lacking some cultural context to make proper sense of all you had to say and how it connects to my comment, but you seem thoughtful on this subject.
I amended my initial statement, changing it to that it’s difficult to make it as a blanket statement. I agree that many will use the language of social progressivism to hide bigotry (willfully or no) and sneak it into discussions about “bad people”, but I also think that it’s more uncommon than genuine critiques, and that starting with that supposition tends to curtail a lot of meaningful discussion/criticism.
Fun fact: In ancient Greece, good looks were considered signs of moral superiority because it meant you were blessed by the gods (who the Greeks thought would punish people if they were displeased).
A well-known fourth-century BCE hetaira named Phryne was prosecuted for impiety (asebeia). Ancient authors tell that her defender, the orator Hypereides, (or in some versions Phryne herself) pulled aside her robe to show her naked body to the judges, and the spectacle persuaded them to acquit her.
This was also a huge part of white supremacist propaganda in the US (and some other parts of the world).
There were entire articles and pamphlets written about black men having penises so big that it would hurt and damage white women so only white men with the right sized penises were right for them (no I’m not making any of this up). There was an entire era where racist white men were willing to advertise having a medium dick as a superior thing.
It was never about size it was always about portraying people you don’t like as lesser human beings.
How funny this was the next post I saw - I was about to post something very similar on a comment mocking Kash Patel's lazy eye. ("I have a lazy eye, lazier than his - suppose you think I'm an ugly freak too?")
thought better of it tho, who cba arguing on the internet?
lmao same. I told someone that constantly calling Trump fat did nothing good for anyone and was flamed so fucking hard for it. he's a vile monster for many reasons, but ofc people go for the weight.
I got a trailered suit cheap enough that even the people working since 8th grade could afford one for graduation but the us president looks like he's got the discarded curtains dropped on him
Somone on here commented that they wouldn't be surprised if Trump directly had Rob Reiner murdered, and when I responded "Aren't there enough things he's actually done to not go around making up things he's done?" they replied "Keep worshipping him, buddy" and "Lick more boots."
If you’re not in tune with the tribe the tribe casts you out. It doesn’t matter if the tribe is doing something completely stupid and self defeating it’s all about listening to the tribe.
I don't have a small penis but I take offense at every "small penis means you're a jerk" because the first guy I ever had a gay encounter with was super embarrassed about his micro-unit and never stopped being down on himself. he ended up becoming an hero and I think the societal understanding that small pp = bad had a non zero influence on that decision.
This applies to evil people like Musk, Trump, and Putin, as well.
They’re evil and horrendous. But having a messed up dick, or being fat, or being gay, isn’t something to mock them for. They’re rapists, and pedophiles, and fascists. Target those.
Similarly, it's understandable if you don't like Taylor Swift or her music, but the memes getting passed around comparing her body during her eating disorder to Travis Kelce's ex with the "punchline" being there's no way he can be truly happy say nothing about her as a person. They just tell me you think women with small breasts or bottoms are repulsive and less deserving of love. Ditto anytime it becomes popular to dislike a short slender pop star and people start accusing them of "pandering to pedoes" for...being short/having small tits whilst singing about sex or posing in lingerie.
This reminds me of people criticizing depictions of grown adult women who are shorter or have flat chests, saying that they “look like children.”
Like dude, there are petite and flat chested women out there. How do you think they feel when you say that. Plus a lot of this media comes from countries where the average woman is much smaller, shorter, and tends to have lower breast size too, which makes this racist too.
They have an image of womanhood that they are smart enough to not say out loud but dumb enough to not recognize that it’s basically the same as the Sidney Sweeney “good (g)jeans” ad. Women have to fit a certain feminine look to be women to them.
You see this a lot with minorities too. Like Caitlin Jenner sucks shit but people often use that as an excuse to be transphobic and then claim they have no problem with "regular" trans people. All that tells me is I'm only safe with you until you feel like I've made a bad enough mistake
And if you MUST mock them for their appearance, use the law of polite compliments in reverse: talk about something they likely have absolute control over--clothes, hairdo, makeup, perfumes. If you MUST be a hater, be a hater--but don't be a dick.
When the horrible person who you insult by saying they have a small penis turns out to have a big penis so everything bad about them is null and void because their morality doesn't matter since we measure worth by cock size or something
making fun of bad peoples' looks is an unfortunately large proportion of the jokes on Last Week Tonight. There's tons of good comedy bits (and non comedy content) there but whenever John Oliver starts going on about that guy's head shape or whatever I just cringe.
That comic is top tier. In the sense that it stuck with me instantly upon first viewing, truly an internet classic. Simple, obvious visual design of the mirror. I wish I knew the origin.
i remember seeing this years ago, and thats when i decided that im never going to mock someone else - even someone i think is completely evil - over their looks again. we could say so many fucking things about trump's body or mental status, but there are so many MORE things you can say about just who he is as a person. the choices he's made. the effect he's had.
you mock people for who they are and choose to be, not shit they barely have control over. any time someone body shames an asshole i just say that - there are so many more things you could shit on them over, making fat jokes is lazy as all hell and doesn't do the job.
It doesn't work. The censors aren't looking for nipples of the wrong sex. They're looking for female looking breasts with exposed nipples. If you slap a pair of boobs on a male body they'll still be censored.
This happens with other stuff beyond body shaming, too. I can't tell you the number of times I've argued against bad takes or pointed out things that are directly harmful to me only to hear a response of "Why are you defending billion-dollar corporations? They're not your friends." But your conspiracy theories muddy the truth. Your gaming complaints hurt indie devs. Your unreasonable demands make it impossible to do reasonable things. And Jesus Fucking Christ, when you call someone "completely out of touch" because they decided to give a shit about me instead of you for once, I'm naturally going to be extremely hurt by that.
What do you mean "trend?" It's always been the natural way of things. Luckily some politicians are receiving minor pushback from it these days (lookin' at you AOC, no being morally virtuous is not a sign of being "spiritually tall" you wackjob), but not actually that many at all, in the grand scheme of things.
Not totally related to the post, but I think small dicks are awesome. They don’t get in the way, they do their job well, and they’re pretty attractive. Someones yuck is another persons yum, right?
I feel this also applies in the reverse. For example if someone takes off their glasses and wow suddenly they're so hot oh my god, then you (being the author) are implicitly agreeing that wearing glasses is ugly. Physical attractiveness is both personal and cultural (and to some degree natural because bad hygiene tends to be seen as gross across the board) but like, if you're producing media that frames attractiveness not in terms of how character A relates to character B, but instead as an objective truth, you're gonna run into this issue.
Cartoons in the early 90s would have me believe having freckles, red hair, braces, or hair put up in a bun were all unattractive given how often they were removed when a character needed to be 'more attractive' for the narrative. And maybe they are to a general population but woo, I can't imagine how bad my self esteem would be I happened to fit into any of those categories.
Before transitioning, I had this really visceral fear of going bald. I used to question if that was dysphoria or society’s weird shaming of bald men, until I reasoned that I felt just as bad for being tall and conventionally handsome.
Is it wrong to insult Trump for being a pedophile, or should I make sure to also go into the nuance of not all people who have an attraction to kids being offenders and not all offenders having an attraction to kids.
It's amazing how controversial "Bodyshaming is bad" can be on this website. People really, really, really want to be able to bodyshame the people they don't like.
You see it all the time with Trump, just all the jokes about his dick size and his fatness and whatever else. Which to me is lazy. The voluntary choices he makes about his appearance are so, so much worse than anything he was born with. The horrible hairstyle, the awful makeup, the fake tan, the clothes that don't fit, the weird faces he makes, the awkward gesturing he does.
But no, people must make fun of the man's penis. And any time I push back on it because it's bodyshaming, I get so many replies from people like, "Yeah, but Trump sucks" or "I'm not saying small dicks are bad! But it's what he thinks, so I'm using that insecurity to make fun of him!"
When AOC said that some guy is short I had so many people trying to convince me it's a good thing or even straight up try to insult me or imply I must be short for criticising obvious bodyshaming.
I will keep saying it: Too many people learned to not criticise certain demographics, but not why.
i fucking hate when somebody says a completely unwarrented insult and you try to say that it isnt ok and they just turn to "well if you are so sensitive it probably also means you are x"
When she apologised she still couldn't help herself from saying that being short was a bad thing. She tried to say that short guys who were cool appeared taller to her lmfao. It's a blind spot for sure.
So you're saying I don't have a shot with her? 🤔
The whole "leftist short men are valiant and good and 'spiritually tall'" thing was such a comical blunder that I half-suspected it was intentional. Seriously, it's about the shittiest possible way to have handled the whole thing, I couldn't have done any worse if I tried.
If someone called me 'spiritually tall' I would headbutt them right in the grundle
“Spiritually tall” is just about the worst way to phrase it I can come up with.
Even if we go with the absolute most generous interpretation of it, that short men who are good people can make up for their genetically unattractive trait with good actions and appear more attractive that’s still horrible. And mind you that the nice interpretation.
The other interpretation is that she doesn’t care and is just doing damage control.
This type of behavior reminds me a lot of Republicans being casually racist. It’s is so easy for them to condemn racism or not make a racist comment and they’d have way more supporters, yet they do. AOC would probably have way more male supporters if they didn’t feel like she secretly has contempt for them the way a Republican has contempt for their Latino constituents.
"Secretly" is certainly a nice way to put it, lol. Yeah, sometimes I wonder why the only party worth voting for at the moment has such a consistent habit of shooting themselves in the foot. Oh well, better than the alternative, at least.
There's a wealth of ways to make fun of someone that don't target things they can't control.
"He's got smelly-dick energy," is absolutely savage to me because it's so visceral
Best form of this I can think of that is actually used frequently is the whole unwashed ass thing.
go for the type of things that are more specific to the person in question, if somebody is noisy something like "is your ego so loud that it can only bear to listen to itself?" or "you are so full of yourself you are probably a matryoshka doll".
This type of insult will hurt way more than generic insults that would fit most people, be creative, hit things they know are true or that are sensitive to them but arent just inate aspects of them.
The unwashed ass thing is specifically aimed at men who think it is gay or feminine to clean their asshole. So saying someone looks like they would have an unwashed ass is basically saying they're an insecure idiot who would take it so far to refuse basic hygiene.
you need to actually frame it saying "you look like you have an unwashed ass" will go over the head of many, say "you probably dont wipe your ass because you are afraid you will enjoy it" its more creative and shows their fragile masculinity
i use that line a lot to bigots because im a femboy lmao
"You look like you would have an unwashed ass" is still going to attack people who look similar through no fault of their own.
That's still, to an extent, bodyshaming and attacking appearance.
I meant more based on looking at behavior, but fair point. Should have said "seem"
I go with deliberately unwavering asses
Any insult based on the word ‘smelly’ sounds to me like it’s coming from a kindergartner.
What would you replace it with? Odorous? Bearing a foul miasma?
He has a malodorous phallus. I'd wager he is lousy with smegmatic genitalia.
This has the energy of a FromSoft NPC dialogue.
Tumblr NPC dialogue
You have to describe why they smell so bad and what the smell is. It's too easy to call something "stinky" or "smelly" when it's not true
Bearing a foul miasma sounds like an insult you would use on a 12th century noble from England.
this one exudes a putrid aura, please Ælfflæd dispose of this swine for me
Fetid moppet
I mean, if we're going to insult people, maybe we shouldn't try to pretend it's an intellectual argument?
Tbf kids are the most savage with insults
The moment with Elon's kid telling Trump to "Shut up, you're not the president" was probably the most speaking truth to power moment in the last ten years.
i dont think there is any greater insult than a 4 year old calling someone ugly or just saying "ew" because you KNOW they mean it.
At least when an adult insults you, you can believe it's because they were jealous. Children are just being honest.
ye adults can insult you for a lot of reasons, because they dislike you, are jealous, dislike something you did or represent, kids are insulting you because YOU are ugly or directly bad in their eyes, and that hurts way more because you cant over rationalize it
Fortunately the word ‘smeggy’ will do here just fine.
Some people may be depressed and not keeping up with hygiene so it would be uncouth to make fun of someone for being smelly.
I'm depressed and have trouble with hygiene. Sometimes my body smells bad. That's still entirely within my control. If I subjected another person to being anywhere near my bits without first showering, that's a gross move and would be bad. Shameful, even.
I'm also not the leader of the free world.
Absolutely, and don't forget all the people clamoring to call him gay or womanly for the same reason. Trumps physicality doesn't contribute to or originate from his evil, but it's 100% fine to make fun of him for pretending he's some picture of health as if we can't see him
Confidence and honesty are choices that we can hold people accountable for. Physical appearance is the genetic lottery
Redditers loves to be so homophobic and misogynist and bigoted and to justify it by saying "oh but I still think gay/trans people should have rights," or "I'm only calling them gay/girly/fat/whatever as an insult because they think it's an insult so they're being hypocritical". No, it doesn't work that way. There are a million billion ways you can insult or criticize people without turning people's identities into an insult, and yet they choose to do it anyways.
dont forget misandrist, stuff like making fun of somebodies dick falls under this category
Yeah, there’s absolutely no shortage of things to legitimately criticize him for, like the whole being a wannabe dictator part, but instead people want to make dumb jokes.
And I’m fine with comedians making offensive jokes about him, they do that to everyone, but people who also want to be taken seriously making political statements about him, and especially people involved with social politics absolutely have no room to be making small dick jokes and then saying “the patriarchy hurts men too.” My brother in Christ you are the patriarchy that you criticize.
I'm with you. I could go on all day about his horrible taste in interior decorating. I'm not going to say anything about the size of his hands, the state of his neck, or even his alleged incontinence. We should not shame people for things they didn't choose.
its generally the same people who will lash out at anybody saying "gay" as if its an insult that usually do this in regards to trump in specific, i dont know how somebody can think "ye obviously we shouldnt use that as an insult because not only is it not reflective of a bad moral compass but its something inate to that person :)"
but then go "haha he is short and dick smal xD"
like ffs at least be consistent
I remember people desperately claiming Trump was short, and then when it got pointed out he's actually taller than most men (as is usual with American politicians), people straight-up said that it wasn't true. He wears lifts because he's already insecure on top of being tall, it's why he does that awful "shake your hand hard to make you look weak" crap or when he literally tried to loom over Clinton during the debates. He's a pathetic child, but he's taller than most.
exacly, saying he is insecure and overcompensates is a good thing to point out, and a very valid insult that is way more likely to get to him than "haha your pp small"
like if somebody insults another person for actions they take to show their character is flawed will get to them way more than simple generic insults, be creative if you are gonna be mean at least lmao
The amount of times people say "but that's supporting being unhealthy!" When I say that you shouldn't bully people for being fat is insane
Many such cases
My facial expressions are also weird. That's what happens when you're autistic.
I mean, even that stuff is still just superficial physical stuff. He's a prodigious criminal, rapist, child rapist, con artist, ect. Like if you want to trash someone, trash them for what they've done, especially that loser, god knows he's done enough.
Ultimately I think people go for physical stuff because of a combination of that whole "morality is reflected on the physical reality" thing so many people just love, because it both feels good, and is safe if you don't share whatever deviation from the norm.
Plus criticizing someone's actions ideally means you're reflecting on your own, and that's often uncomfortable for many folks.
Or "found someone else with a small dick lmaoooooo"
I have never not been downvoted for saying that mocking a dude for being in a wheelchair just because he's evil just makes you someone who makes fun of people for needing wheelchairs.
Like you can talk about it in the context of berating him for his selfishness or his hypocrisy re: that very thing, but if your insult could be applied to a normal person in a wheelchair, it is functionally just a dig at wheelchair users.
Same goes for any disability. Same goes for any body part. Same goes for pronouns and gender related insults. Can it apply to anyone with that circumstance? Then pick one that doesn't.
I've seen "Body shaming is bad unless it's someone I don't like, then it's perfectly fine" too many times and it never gets any less frustrating to see
Same with Elon Musk. People will post old images from when his hair was balding as some kinda gotcha, and if you defend it on principal, you just get a ton of replies saying shit like “How does that boot taste?” Really disheartening how many people are perfectly fit to fall back on such hateful beliefs just because it happens to be someone they don’t like
when I've seen people comment on Musk's hair plugs, it was usually to point out that it's hypocritical of him to then turn around and go against gender-affirming healthcare. not saying there aren't people just being shitty about his balding, but that's my experience
“I’m just doing what the republicans would do and shaming them for looks!” So you’re a Republican?
Honestly, even making fun of Trump’s fashion isn’t great. Plenty of other people have shitty tans or fake hair that they’re self-conscious about. Can’t we make fun of the fact that he’s literally an evil asshole?
see i don't think this is a very useful perspective. if it's alright to mock people for choices they make regarding their appearance, then anything can become a choice just to justify body shaming
I've recently found myself thinking the same thing. "if you need to, insult by their choices..." next thing is they're calling obesity a choice (so fatness is ok as insult), they're calling homosexuality a choice (so that's a valid insult) etc etc.
Have you found a solution more interesting than "dude's a steaming pile of shit"? Because I haven't and I'd like to.
I also don't think it's good to make fun of people for things they can control but aren't harmful, especially their appearance
I think some of it is that people want to hit Trump where he will feel it.
If we point out he is a bully, a grifter con-man or a rapist, he would smirk and agree and feel proud that he is untouchable for all of that. He will take our insults and turn it into a flex.
So you go after the things he has shown insecurity about. His hair. His hands. His penis.
Those people are complete idiots though, considering the fact that he'll never be reading or caring about their specific comments no matter what they write. Why would he? From his perspective, he already won.
👏 exactly!
Honestly, even if the guy you don’t like does care you still shouldn’t do it.
This is the tool of the enemy. We do not need it. We will not use it.
Since that photoshoot of the Trump flacks came out I have been seeing massive threads of people taking absolute glee in mocking their appearances because "hate ages you." And like, I get it. I do. But "hate shows in your skin" is literally just physiognomy, aka the belief that your character is worn in your outward appearance and so you can literally tell by somebody's face that they're a criminal or whatever, which is a thing people actually believed along with phrenology and other contributors to race science. And I know a good chunk of the people doing this are also willfully pretending not to understand lighting to make some of these comments, they're just having too much fun poisoning their own brains with 19th century eugenics instead of doing something useful.
Edit: Obviously "hate ages you" is a broader discourse that's been around longer, I can just really feel the joy people are getting out of choosing to interpret signs of aging as direct signs of bad character in this round. We will all get old and have crinkly undereyes and it won't be because we were all hateful, but if we have the idea that it looks that way, that sure does help create the market for cosmetic treatments.
"Trump wears adult nappies!" Yeah? So does my grandpa. Come on now.
Would you trust your grandpa to be in charge of a major world power
More than I trust a lot of world leaders. Grandpa has a palsy a lot like MS in that he's lost the ability to move his body; his mind, intelligence, and memory are unaffected. He's far smarter and a better person than Trump.
I’d vote for your gramps
The whole budget goes to nature reserves and bird sanctuaries.
I sort of wish hate aged people. I also wish people didn't trust beautiful people more, which is also a thing.
Several years ago, I was in a traffic accident, and lost some of my teeth. A couple of months later, I had a denture that, because the swelling had gone down, would sometimes come unstuck from my mouth slightly. I now have implants, but at the time, I was really self-conscious about my teeth. (COVID, and the related masks, were good for in public, but having meetings and things online meant I would occasionally see myself laughing out smiling and immediately feel bad(
Anyway, during this time, I was browsing Reddit and there was a video from some protest or other, and a woman was shouting about her views, and her denture became unstuck. Almost all the comments were taking the piss out of this woman.
I can't remember what the woman was arguing for. It was something I very much didn't agree with, I think she was pro-life or anti-mask or MAGA. Something that Reddit didn't usually have any trouble arguing with.
The woman probably never saw any of these comments, but I did. They made me feel like absolute shit. And they are all I really remember if the conversation.
I have larger hands, like King Charles but not as extreme, and I've learned not to open threads about him because of the horrible things people who dislike him will say about his hands. He will never see those comments, but I saw them. It's a horrible feeling and I totally empathise with you
i have large hands too, and i really appreciate this. not just cause i understand what you might go through (FUCKING MAKE GLOVES THAT DONT HURT WHEN I PUT THEM ON YOU ASSHOLES), but because now i can avoid this pitfall. thank you.
why are gloves so bad??
I have thin long and wide set fingers and large hands I have never found gloves that fit remotely well the best I hade were climbing/biking gloves that barely went to my first knuckle, I tried so many horse riding (did it for years before my health gotbad), ski gloves, full length biking gloves, just regular gloves for cold weather but nothing fits
I'm so fucking close to sewing my own gloves
I knit and eventually I'll get good enough to make my own fucking gloves with silver thread so I can use a touch screen and black jack and hookers
For what it’s worth, there’s lots of us who think big hands are sexy. My partner’s hands are massive, and it’s one of my favorite singular features about him.
Also less sexy, but my cat has large paws for his size and I find them incredibly adorable.
So are you sexy or adorable or both?
My cat also has disproportionately huge paws. A house cat with lynx proportions.
Huge Hands Hans was a step in the right direction for positive representation
Honestly this can even still apply to things that aren't traits people can't control
I once saw a post about some right wing influencer or other, and the comments were being absolutely vicious about the fact that he was wearing a beanie. According to them, it's an awful fashion choice, a hundred times worse than a fedora, clearly indicative of his poor fashion sense (and thus his poor moral fiber), and also he was probably only wearing it to hide a bald spot anyway
I wear a beanie all the time (temperature permitting). It's a really cool beanie, it has a time gear from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon on it, and my sister made it for me by hand. It's a choice for me to wear that beanie, but those comments still hurt to read
Those commenters need their heads examined because last I checked wearing a beanie was a thing that was heavily associated with liberal and progressive guys.
So to have the satisfaction of making fun of the one conservative guy that wears a beanie they’re willing to throw a lot of their male allies under the bus.
"Physical traits are not signs of morality".
Which is why in designing animated characters designing villains is kind of hard, because what physical traits you put onto them might indirectly end up as being associated with them being evil. Like when the villain is depicted as ugly, or fat, or bald, or deformed, or disabled, it sometimes gives off negative connotations to people with those traits. Especially if the heroes and protagonists mock the villains for those traits.
Solution: Give one of the heroes a similar trait, like maybe both characters lost a limb, and then make the villain, in-universe, act like that trait is why they have to do the things they do.
Like, the villain acts like everyone hates them for being ugly, and refuses to accept that the backlash they face everywhere they go is because they keep killing people. And then the hero shows up with a similar appearance, or maybe a similar deformity or something, and shows that the villain is just an asshole.
Or the heroes are ugly and the villains are beautiful, but the in-universe public judge based on appearances so they can't tell the pretty ones are evil... until it's too late.
Trust me, the readers would not be able to tell, either.
The amount of people who would go "The villain's switch to evil came out of nowhere and the narrative made him lose because the writer couldn't think of a better conflict" would be staggering.
Trust me, I've seen RWBY; people will defend a character who follows Hitler's playbook if he tickles their daddy issues.
You don't need to tell me that. I'm a Warhammer 40k fan.
Won't work, people won't cheer for uggos
Quasimodo shows that they will- they just need a supporting cast of conventionally attractive people.
Yeah, like those gargoyles. Whew, what a bunch of hotties!
I mean Shrek 2 did this 20 years ago. Prince Charming is the bad guy and Shrek and Fiona choosing to be ogres instead of humans because they liked the ogre lifestyle and didn’t care to be conventionally attractive was kind of powerful.
I just make all my villains hot for no ulterior reasons
Reminds me of that Roald Dahl quote and illustration:
"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
But that's not true. Some people won't look lovely and that's okay
Now ask him about the Japanese.
I tried but he’s a bit quiet these days
i imagine you holding a microphone to the back of the giving tree
This is very consistently used on Twitter to declare that bodyshaming isn’t actually wrong and that insulting people’s appearance is actually just insulting the content of their character. Can you guess why that might be a bad idea or habit?
What I took from that quote was "People can look lovely if they're lovely on the inside, despite physical characteristics."
I assume what they got out of the quote was "People who are ugly on the inside have ugly physical characteristics."
I don't think the first take is problematic, and I don't think people should stop believing it just because some bodyshamers are using it as an excuse. I don't really put much stock into what they have to say. I mean, bodyshamers aren't really the pinnacle of intelligence.
This is poor logic, you can look repulsive and have a good heart and vice versa. The truth is you can only judge people based on their actions. There are no shortcuts.
I don’t think it’s really any different from giving a character a red colour scheme if they’re supposed to be evil/angry, or a purple one if they’re supposed to give off the impression of royalty.
I'm a nurse. You would not believe the kind of stuff I hear from my fellow nurses about men/male bodies that make me feel insecure/worthless.
As a patient, I have heard nurses talk shit about other patients. It messed me up because I started worrying what they were saying about me when I wasn't there.
yeah there are a lot of nurses (and other allied health staff) who feel waaaaay too comfortable saying mean things about each other and/or patients. It's maddening.
There's a lot of truth to the clique-y mean girl stereotype to nurse pipeline, from my personal experience. I always wonder why such hateful people choose that line of work, cause it certainly ain't the pay.
It gives them power over people
Nurses and cops are either kind and self sacrificing people or absolute demons and narcissists who enjoy having power over vulnerable people.
The problem is that many good nurses and cops will just ignore their bad colleagues or do things to fit in or just not speak up to protect their job. Obviously the consequences for cops being evil are way worse because the consequence is wrongful death, but lots of patient abuse (especially in child and elder care) goes unnoticed and unreported simply because it isn’t visible to the public.
Your username is amazing lol, is it a reference to the band of a similar name?
Off topic, but... what is going on with your profile picture? Is it a plague doctor pulling a grenade pin?
sheeeeet maybe I should make a comic like that. Nah, it's a snippet of a piece of fanart I drew for The Owl House
Ohh I see lol
But how else am i supposed to vent my anger? Besides pointing out flaws, that people can't change?
I need to drag people down so I can hide my personal insecurities and issues. HOW else can I do that???
In fact, fuck you! I don't like the way you type your post. You must have weird fingers and you should feel ashamed of them.
Sorry, I type weird because of a bus accident I had when I was younger. My fingers on my left hand never were the same...
"hard" like the redacted penises?
I saw The Redacted Penises live last summer, they were pretty solid.
snake?
Snake!?
SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!
Kept you waiting, huh?
...god damnit.
Sometimes I love Reddit. Mostly I hate it, but sometimes it's just so darn funny...
I've said it before and I'll say it again: There are a million reasons to despise Donald Trump, but his weight isn't one of them.
Does his weight come up as a point of contention often enough tho? I'm not American, but I got the feeling that people mostly bring up his orange hue
mostly, yeah, but people do still comment on his weight when a bad picture comes out. "mammoth ass" was a common phrase for a while regarding an unflattering picture of him from behind, it was... uncomfortable. lately it's the dementia symptoms and obvious failing health instead which, while still potentially problematic, at least make some sense along the lines of "someone who's about to die, gets lost in his house, and can't tell an elephant from a rhino maybe shouldn't be the president" lmao
Expired grapefruit. He’s less orange nowadays
I dunno what you mean by "often enough". Is there some kind of minimum threshold that a joke has to be told for it to become wrong? It's not offensive until the fifth or sixth time you hear it?
FWIW, I hear a comment about "lol Trump is fat" about once every month or two. The orange thing IS much more frequent, but we've been dealing with this fascist fuck for more than a decade now, and I'm also sick to death of the fat-shaming. (As if there's NOTHING else to criticize him for...)
Not sure what you're trying to make me say here, I'm not questioning how offensive it is to mock someone else's physique, but an attack that someone makes in one isolated context obviously doesn't have the same impact as an attack that is repetitive enough that it's normalized
There is quite a bit of irony in someone like Donald Trump telling poor people that they don’t eat healthy, when Donald Trump has the funding and time (considering half his presidency is naps or at the golf course) to get in shape with diet and exercise, and yet he chooses not to but still lectures others for their unhealthy lifestyles.
If you’re unhealthy and you’re poor, while there is definitely an element of choice still present, you were kind of fucked from the start.
If you’re unhealthy and rich, that’s a full on choice. If I could afford personal trainers, gourmet food, and high quality healthcare, there is no excuse barring extreme genetic conditions for that.
And then to have the gall to chastise poor people for being unhealthy…
I mean, it is and it isn’t.
Being fat is itself not a value judgement, and there are intrinsic factors, but there are also choices that are sometimes made that cause people to be overweight. People can be judged by their choices, especially when they are trying to present themselves as one way that is purely contradicted by their choices.
Trump tries to project this image of being a strongman. His, and his base’s, favorite AI generated propaganda is of him as a musclebound hunk beating the fuck out of liberals and immigrants. It is entirely valid to make fun of him for being an out of shape piece of shit despite having every opportunity to not be because he tries to act like he is not.
It is not the quality that makes it ok to mock, but rather how it is yet another way he is a vain, vicious, hypocritical liar.
I think there is some valid point there about mocking people specifically for their hypocrisy and that being much more about their personal character, but in my observation it inevitably slides into something indistinguishable from just mocking them for those actual traits.
Maybe partially because we have more experience with that. It sometimes feels like people just slide into these well-worn grooves of fat-shaming and misogyny and homophobia, even when they intend to attack hypocrisy.
That’s a pretty hard assertion to make as a blanket statement. I’ve said my piece on making fun of Trump for being out of shape, so I’ll move to the others.
Misogyny is one to be particularly careful when you look at other’s behavior. A common “feminist” refrain that rings through like this is making women who choose to present through one of the more criticized lenses: wearing revealing clothes, heavily made-up, chasing after a super thin physique, so-on. These criticisms end up just as misogynistic as the original behaviors the criticisms were levied against because they’re now trying to put women in another box: it’s just that this box is defined as “not the other box”. It was worded better elsewhere on the site over the weekend, but I hope that the point is made. But simultaneously, mocking people like Meagan Kelly for being “anti-woman women” is not misogynistic. While you can always criticize someone for being against women’s rights, there is something more to be said about it when the person championing that cause is themselves a woman. Being anti-prejudice doesn’t mean that you never discuss choices through the lens of identity, but rather that you never ignore choices in lieu of identity.
I was going to delve into gay MAGAs, but to be honest, I think my statement above states my point well enough. It’s both acceptable, and even prudent, to discuss identity/characteristics when discussing choices people make. Because not every situation is the same, and to not factor in everything out of fear of being prejudiced is itself an injustice. One must simply be cautious while doing so.
My assertion about what I’ve observed? Or my assertion that these are forms of mocking that most people are more familiar with than personality- or choice-based insults?
I guess I’ll have to come back and reread this when I have more time. I think I’m lacking some cultural context to make proper sense of all you had to say and how it connects to my comment, but you seem thoughtful on this subject.
I amended my initial statement, changing it to that it’s difficult to make it as a blanket statement. I agree that many will use the language of social progressivism to hide bigotry (willfully or no) and sneak it into discussions about “bad people”, but I also think that it’s more uncommon than genuine critiques, and that starting with that supposition tends to curtail a lot of meaningful discussion/criticism.
Fun fact: In ancient Greece, good looks were considered signs of moral superiority because it meant you were blessed by the gods (who the Greeks thought would punish people if they were displeased).
A well-known fourth-century BCE hetaira named Phryne was prosecuted for impiety (asebeia). Ancient authors tell that her defender, the orator Hypereides, (or in some versions Phryne herself) pulled aside her robe to show her naked body to the judges, and the spectacle persuaded them to acquit her.
Coincidentally, the Greeks considered small penises to be more attractive.
Yes they thought people with big penises were vulgar and stupid people who only thought with their dicks.
A small penis showed the man had self control and intelligence.
I always knew I was a genius
This was also a huge part of white supremacist propaganda in the US (and some other parts of the world).
There were entire articles and pamphlets written about black men having penises so big that it would hurt and damage white women so only white men with the right sized penises were right for them (no I’m not making any of this up). There was an entire era where racist white men were willing to advertise having a medium dick as a superior thing.
It was never about size it was always about portraying people you don’t like as lesser human beings.
That explains the popularity of the big black dick porn category
well yeah, considering their version of attractive was an underaged twink.
How funny this was the next post I saw - I was about to post something very similar on a comment mocking Kash Patel's lazy eye. ("I have a lazy eye, lazier than his - suppose you think I'm an ugly freak too?")
thought better of it tho, who cba arguing on the internet?
I got called a Nazi supporter by twitter for saying we should criticize people's actions instead of their appearence
lmao same. I told someone that constantly calling Trump fat did nothing good for anyone and was flamed so fucking hard for it. he's a vile monster for many reasons, but ofc people go for the weight.
If you're going to criticize appearence at least go for his horrendous fake tan, that's 100% a choice that he could very easily not make
or his poorly tailored suits. he’s that rich and still doesn’t bother to properly tailor his suit????
I got a trailered suit cheap enough that even the people working since 8th grade could afford one for graduation but the us president looks like he's got the discarded curtains dropped on him
Somone on here commented that they wouldn't be surprised if Trump directly had Rob Reiner murdered, and when I responded "Aren't there enough things he's actually done to not go around making up things he's done?" they replied "Keep worshipping him, buddy" and "Lick more boots."
Some people are just unsalvagbly stupid.
If you’re not in tune with the tribe the tribe casts you out. It doesn’t matter if the tribe is doing something completely stupid and self defeating it’s all about listening to the tribe.
Because the Nazis famously didn't care about looks, right? Right?
I saw a version of this image where the bodyshaming beam was reflecting off of Charles Xavier's bald head
I don't have a small penis but I take offense at every "small penis means you're a jerk" because the first guy I ever had a gay encounter with was super embarrassed about his micro-unit and never stopped being down on himself. he ended up becoming an hero and I think the societal understanding that small pp = bad had a non zero influence on that decision.
This applies to evil people like Musk, Trump, and Putin, as well.
They’re evil and horrendous. But having a messed up dick, or being fat, or being gay, isn’t something to mock them for. They’re rapists, and pedophiles, and fascists. Target those.
Similarly, it's understandable if you don't like Taylor Swift or her music, but the memes getting passed around comparing her body during her eating disorder to Travis Kelce's ex with the "punchline" being there's no way he can be truly happy say nothing about her as a person. They just tell me you think women with small breasts or bottoms are repulsive and less deserving of love. Ditto anytime it becomes popular to dislike a short slender pop star and people start accusing them of "pandering to pedoes" for...being short/having small tits whilst singing about sex or posing in lingerie.
This reminds me of people criticizing depictions of grown adult women who are shorter or have flat chests, saying that they “look like children.”
Like dude, there are petite and flat chested women out there. How do you think they feel when you say that. Plus a lot of this media comes from countries where the average woman is much smaller, shorter, and tends to have lower breast size too, which makes this racist too.
They have an image of womanhood that they are smart enough to not say out loud but dumb enough to not recognize that it’s basically the same as the Sidney Sweeney “good (g)jeans” ad. Women have to fit a certain feminine look to be women to them.
People love reminding everyone how disgusting they think trans men & cis men who look like us or share some body traits are
Yup, and anyone who’s had a medical condition or disability too, in addition to anyone that is not conventionally attractive.
You see this a lot with minorities too. Like Caitlin Jenner sucks shit but people often use that as an excuse to be transphobic and then claim they have no problem with "regular" trans people. All that tells me is I'm only safe with you until you feel like I've made a bad enough mistake
And if you MUST mock them for their appearance, use the law of polite compliments in reverse: talk about something they likely have absolute control over--clothes, hairdo, makeup, perfumes. If you MUST be a hater, be a hater--but don't be a dick.
Plastic surgery. I mean... the MAGA barbie look. Gross
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_makeup
Funnily enough I swear the page was titled Mar-a-lago face earlier
When the horrible person who you insult by saying they have a small penis turns out to have a big penis so everything bad about them is null and void because their morality doesn't matter since we measure worth by cock size or something
Exactly this, but it also applies to race because people online 100% feel justified in making it about race for certain groups.
making fun of bad peoples' looks is an unfortunately large proportion of the jokes on Last Week Tonight. There's tons of good comedy bits (and non comedy content) there but whenever John Oliver starts going on about that guy's head shape or whatever I just cringe.
That comic is top tier. In the sense that it stuck with me instantly upon first viewing, truly an internet classic. Simple, obvious visual design of the mirror. I wish I knew the origin.
i remember seeing this years ago, and thats when i decided that im never going to mock someone else - even someone i think is completely evil - over their looks again. we could say so many fucking things about trump's body or mental status, but there are so many MORE things you can say about just who he is as a person. the choices he's made. the effect he's had.
you mock people for who they are and choose to be, not shit they barely have control over. any time someone body shames an asshole i just say that - there are so many more things you could shit on them over, making fat jokes is lazy as all hell and doesn't do the job.
Small penises arnt bad but the concept of penis is bad enough to censor. As long as it isnt specifically small ones
"Small penises aren't bad"
:)
"All penises are"
:(
The gun is good. The penis is evil.
Hear me out, if male nipples aren't censored, why don't we start censoring female nipples with male ones
Tumblr tried this back during the porn ban.
It doesn't work. The censors aren't looking for nipples of the wrong sex. They're looking for female looking breasts with exposed nipples. If you slap a pair of boobs on a male body they'll still be censored.
worked for twitter though
You're a fucking genius
You're joking but people had made that test in the old twitter to see which ones were automatically flagged 18+.
And male nipples on female breasts were not censored.
how the fu-
Everyone who attacks trump for his hands, hair, and dick should read this
Strong agree.
This happens with other stuff beyond body shaming, too. I can't tell you the number of times I've argued against bad takes or pointed out things that are directly harmful to me only to hear a response of "Why are you defending billion-dollar corporations? They're not your friends." But your conspiracy theories muddy the truth. Your gaming complaints hurt indie devs. Your unreasonable demands make it impossible to do reasonable things. And Jesus Fucking Christ, when you call someone "completely out of touch" because they decided to give a shit about me instead of you for once, I'm naturally going to be extremely hurt by that.
And the same with ableism.
These are all traits that the world's sexiest man, Stavros Halkias has, so we should probably retire the insults anyway.
If you haven’t seen Reddit hyping up the bald subreddit I highly recommend it! Wholesome and welcoming to all people
Bald and rigged
Body shaming is only ok if the victim sucks at 2d platformers and betrayed Washington state
Yes
Who betrayed WA?
Go to r/wehatedougdoug and find out
yummy
shit I misread that this was r/weatedougdoug
I thought the redaction mark was a piece of dirt on my screen 😂
The only shaming i subscribe to is calling Stephen Miller a dollar store Nosferatu
Yeah, this is such a gross trend
What do you mean "trend?" It's always been the natural way of things. Luckily some politicians are receiving minor pushback from it these days (lookin' at you AOC, no being morally virtuous is not a sign of being "spiritually tall" you wackjob), but not actually that many at all, in the grand scheme of things.
Not totally related to the post, but I think small dicks are awesome. They don’t get in the way, they do their job well, and they’re pretty attractive. Someones yuck is another persons yum, right?
I feel this also applies in the reverse. For example if someone takes off their glasses and wow suddenly they're so hot oh my god, then you (being the author) are implicitly agreeing that wearing glasses is ugly. Physical attractiveness is both personal and cultural (and to some degree natural because bad hygiene tends to be seen as gross across the board) but like, if you're producing media that frames attractiveness not in terms of how character A relates to character B, but instead as an objective truth, you're gonna run into this issue.
Cartoons in the early 90s would have me believe having freckles, red hair, braces, or hair put up in a bun were all unattractive given how often they were removed when a character needed to be 'more attractive' for the narrative. And maybe they are to a general population but woo, I can't imagine how bad my self esteem would be I happened to fit into any of those categories.
Before transitioning, I had this really visceral fear of going bald. I used to question if that was dysphoria or society’s weird shaming of bald men, until I reasoned that I felt just as bad for being tall and conventionally handsome.
On the other hand, i am 6 inches taller than all my friends so it is great to use then as arm rests.
Is it wrong to insult Trump for being a pedophile, or should I make sure to also go into the nuance of not all people who have an attraction to kids being offenders and not all offenders having an attraction to kids.