If the above girl can eat like that and stay slim, don’t worry about eating a celery stick.
Not a lot disturbs me. I can watch the movie ‘Kids’ with a bowl of popcorn and a smoke without batting a lash. But when I saw a Bon Iver lyric “Come on skinny love, what happened here? Come on skinny love, just last the year,” under a picture of Miranda Kerr, I was stuck in a limbo between wanting to laugh about it but being so fucked over I couldn’t. The most disturbing things in life often stem from concepts that have totally naturalised themselves. We don’t even realise that there’s something seriously strange or wrong about these facets of life. For me, I feel the need to start with thinspiration blogs.
Thinspiration blogs are getting harder and harder to define. They’re no longer a secluded website with pictures of ribbed girls and explicit pro-anorexic quotes. They’ve trickled down into that place where it’s sort of weird to approach or accuse. The thinspiration blogs are hybridising in a way that is normal, through pictures of Chanel clad models or artistic photography of shoulder bones and spines in the morning light. They’re on my Tumblr dashboard in the form of a pale girl in black skinny jeans. They’re on my Instagram with comments saying ‘wish I had a box gap’. They’re on Pinterest in an album titled ‘diets’, riddled with 
pictures of savvy looking lemon juice. Search #thinspo (thinspiration) on Instagram and you’ll receive over 40,000 photos. The depth and scope of the thinspo community seems unprecedented now more than ever because the community isn’t as unequivocal as it were previously. There’s more blogs who forgo the title of thinspiration blog and rather prefer to be categorised as a fashion blog, or a fitness blog or just generally pictures of pretty (and very skinny) people blog. It’s Pro-ana 2.0, but no-one’s realised, or perhaps they’re just okay with it.
Often the subjects of photographs are blamed for the thinspiration phenomena, giving out bad social image by being that thin. In truth, the sentiments associated with an image lies with the viewer. Framing increasingly skinny models as ‘inspiration’ is where the problem lies. The type of inspiration is of course the viewer’s perception; it could indeed be fashion, it could be hair colour, but in all honesty it seems the majority of the inspiration associated with these pictures stems from major weight loss. A strive for society’s ‘perfect body’.
When your friend’s Tumblr is covered in pictures of extremely thin models, who are you to say there’s anything wrong with that? Who are you to question their focus in life? Well firstly, it’s goddamn annoying to have something so unchanging blocking your dash, but it gets kind of eery when every single photo turns into a bikini clad, stick thin model. When they’re suddenly obsessed with their own bodies becoming 20 kilograms lighter, you can’t help but worry. You don’t see any other sources of ‘inspiration’; there’s no art outside that of the body. It becomes saddening to watch someone’s term of beauty become so narrowed. I think of the women who are comfortable in their skin and who are made to re-consider when they come across these endless pictures. I think of the girls on Tumblr re-blogging picture after picture of tall European models who continually lack satisfaction. It’s your choice what your inspiration is, but to delve deeper than skin deep is a talent we can all benefit from.
Inspiration should fill you up and make you more vigilant, more passionate, in everything you do. It shouldn’t make you re-consider your health. It shouldn’t let doubt slip in somewhere between trying on size 8 jeans and eating too much cake and simply stop at that. Rather than be inspired by having a gap between your thighs, separate the connotations from the image. You can be fashionable without being stick thin. You can be healthy without being able to fit your hand around your thigh. You can be smart and style savvy without protruding collarbones. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels is a huge and blatant lie. Self-love is delicious, so take a fucking bite and get off my dash.
Very well put.
Great article!
Currently trying to reach toe gap status (have a noticeable gap between each of my toes). It’s amazingly hard losing fat off your toes. Sort of ruining my life…
omg totally same boat. been trying to lose eyelid fat for the past eight months. no matter how many sauna seshies I do I can’t FMFL (fuck my fatty life) :(
dont say tht i bet ur very pretty
omg i congratulate the person that wrote this article but to the girls that use those photos as inspiration you need to get a life i am a big girl 116kgs so seeing girls that are already their perfect size strive to be thinner when there is no need…. i am at the other end of the scale i have been told by every doctor i need to loose weight for my healths sake and some of these girls need to put weight on for the good of their health i know their is a happy medium and i think the media needs to be blamed for this tainted view of the “perfect”body that is far from “perfect”
I may sound like a major rookie here but what is a ‘box gap’?
Although you have a good point, this article won’t change anything and your story is a bit boring. You could have done a lot more with it and used better examples that instagram… seriously!
You couldn’t even write a two sentence comment without fucking up words. I hardly think you’re in a position to give advice you annoying tween. Good article author, I liked it.
What words did I fuck up? I’m not a tween, I’m in my mid-twenties, but nice try.
“used better examples THAT instagram” <- Derp.
meh – you didn’t use a comma when you should have. But I’m not trying to be a writer. This is a pretty dull piece of writing (from someone who actually does this for a living). The subject matter is interesting, but she used poor examples to illustrate her points. There are many better examples that could have been used. For example Kate Moss actually being quoted saying the pro-anorexia mantra “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”
Hey Becky, thanks for the advice. I guess the point of this article is to highlight the Tumblr trends (as Tumblr is driven by its users), not to draw from mainstream media. Looking at the comments you’ve left us over time (using various names and the email with ‘fuck off’ in it, how mature), you seem to enjoy complaining. The internet is a pretty big place, perhaps go somewhere else :) All the best. Oh, and pop us a link to some of your writing, we’d love to see it.
So much for the line “Your email is never shared.” I believe you are breaching some sort of privacy laws there.
As previously mentioned, I don’t claim to be a writer – but I am good at my job and no one calls my work dull. I’m not sure what you’re talking about calling me a complainer, as I have actually given compliments when due and have read a lot of interesting and funny articles on this website.
Perhaps you should toughen up a bit and realise that not everyone is going to praise everything you do. As I previously said, you do have a good point and I admit that you’re a better writer than I am, but I stick to my opinion that you could have made this article a lot more interesting. You don’t have to agree, but as you said – the internet is a big place and there’s no point in allowing people to share their thoughts if only positive feedback was welcomed.
shut up becky :)
love skinny hoes! they easy to root.
I had a massive rant on tumblr about just this the other day. Turns out I’d subliminally become a victim of thinspiration purely by it occasionally showing up on my dashboard with captions like “perfection” and “I wish I looked like her”. I’d been starving myself, and subsequently losing weight, but then it hit me what was happening. I never followed explicit thinspo blogs, but decided to unfollow everyone who endorsed it by posting it (even just once). After my little spree I ended up only following 113 out of an original 260. Amazing.
I hadn’t purposely seeked them out, but they made there way onto my dash and into my evidently impressionable mind.
Young people really need to made more aware of the effects picture blogs can have.
Pardon the pun – but I’d still ‘bone’ her … Hahaha
Awesome article!