Fat Shaming Week Was A Corpulent Success

The exposure that Fat Shaming Week received has exceeded our expectations. Here are some outlets that helped spread the word:

• Buzzfeed: Some Terrible People On Twitter Have Decided That It’s “Fat Shaming Week” (~210,000 views)
• Thought Catalog: It’s Fat Shaming Week
• Daily Dot: Fat Shaming Week is real, and it’s despicable
• Happy Place: 5 people who totally ruined this week for us
• College Candy: #FatShamingWeek Is Taking Over Twitter and Proves People Have No Souls
• Bliss Tree: 10 Of The Worst Tweets From #FatShamingWeek…So Far

Things really exploded with the #FatShamingWeek hashtag, where there was a nuclear war between fat shamers and fat enablers. Nearly 10,000 tweets were exchanged, including several from radio host Tom Leykis:

#FatShamingWeek what a great idea! If your girl looks like a human Cinnabon or a Butterball, make her feel like shit! http://t.co/cjbLvvNKeB

— Tom Leykis (@tomleykis) October 11, 2013

Credit for the hastag idea goes to ROK contributor and fat shaming innovator Ray Starke, whose article How To Control Your Woman’s Diet caused great outrage a couple weeks ago. Here are all 18 fat shaming posts that we published, in the order they appeared:

• Fat Shaming Week
• 3 Reasons Why American Can’t Afford Obesity
• Obesity Is A Bigger Thread Than Al-Qaeda
• Fat Woman Sucks At Yoga, Gets Rich Anyway
• Thin Privilege Doesn’t Exist
• 5 Ways To Bully Fat Sluts On A Date
• Always Take Photos Of Fat Women
• Larger Women Require Larger Game
• From Fit To Fat
• 5 Reasons Fat Girl Don’t Deserve Love
• Dealing With Dangerous Game: Fatty Edition
• How To Become A BBW Fast Using The Food Pyramid
• 10 Tell-Tale Signs She’s A Secret Internet Fatty
• Fat Single Mothers Are Child Abusers
• Atheists Are Fatties
• 5 Reasons Fat People Are Evil
• A Proposal To Enact A Federal Fat Tax
• Top 14 Tweets From Fat Shaming Week

I ask you, dear reader, what outlet has advanced fat shaming as much as we have? We promised you a buffet of fat shaming and I think we delivered. Most importantly, we’re still here. We have survived a week of rage and no fat shamer has lost his job. This fact alone suggests that fat acceptance has peaked. They no longer have the power to halt fat criticism.

FSW was a success because it helped create a safe space for men to shame obesity. In the past, fat apologists have silenced fat shamers under the guise of “hate” or “bigotry,” but this week we exercised our free speech right to air grievances and have a clear dialogue of all the negative societal and physical manifestations of fat.

I am a true believer in personal liberty where you should be able to make your own life choices. For that reason, there is no inherent crime in being a fat ass, but in the past five years, there has been a push to accept obesity as normal or even beautiful. Fat shaming is less about bullying individual fat people than re-affirming the fact that obesity culture is not okay in America, and attempts to brainwash people of that fiction must be immediately destroyed with logic, science, and schoolyard insults.

I believe FSW reached some people who were a bit confused on the mixed messages that society was sending them on beauty and health, especially millenials who have grown up thinking that any type of criticism—no matter how righteous—is “bullying.” It is our responsibility as citizens and lovers of beauty to shame any attempts at fat apologia. They have been getting away with promoting obesity for too long, and it’s time for that to stop.

On the behalf of the ROK staff, we thank you for your tweets and comments about this important cultural issue. God bless you and your shaming efforts.

Read Next: Top 14 Tweets From Fat Shaming Week