The Internet can be a brutal place. While I think that people who choose to have a presence on the Web typically have an unrealistic and unreasonable expectation of privacy and approval, there is still no other place where a person can feel so naked, so alone, and so unprepared to deal with a cruel and constant onslaught of insults from faceless strangers. The relatively recent phenomenon of “fat shaming” has taken root across social media and viral content websites alike, and has left many victims in tears, or worse, and has hoards of others crying foul. Fat shaming takes place when a woman (most of the time, as it has become clear in our society that men are not held up to the same scrutiny and standards when it comes to body type and overall physical appearance) who has more than 0% body fat posts a picture of herself revealing something other than the perfect vision of the female form that we have adopted. When and if said picture makes it somewhere beyond the eyes of friends, it becomes subject to a barrage of comments and insults that can leave the victim more or less defenseless. Now, what’s pleasing to the eye surely differs from person to person, as does everyone’s definition of “fat” when it comes to body mass. It takes a special kind of abandon to blindly insult a stranger from behind a keyboard. Maybe the perpetrator is just mean-spirited. Continue reading →