The 'Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels' Myth

Welcome to the world of Skinny Gossip, home of skinny bitches.

July 12, 2012, 8:00am

Hello, I’m Bertie. This column is basically a place for me to call bullshit on girl related stuff that I think is stupid. While I appreciate the importance of girl talk, I’m not about to braid your pubic hair or send you the results of my latest smear test. Instead, I will pass on any remotely useful knowledge I happen to discover re: being a FEMALE. Trust me: I’m not a doctor, but I do have a Ph.D in pretty girl bullshit.

PRETTY GIRL BULLSHIT #12: THE 'NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS' MYTH There are so many articles about the media's negative effect on female body image that it makes me wanna make myself puke. Honestly, the number of writers complaining about women being bullied into eating disorders and plastic surgery waaaay surpasses the amount of times per day I can rouse myself to give a shit.

As far as I can see, one of the only things justifying all the second-hand knuckle-gnawing is that websites like THIS still exist. Welcome to the world of Skinny Gossip, a website for skinny minnies so bored of their own shitty lives that obsessing over Lily Cole's shaky BMI is the only thing between them and an afternoon cocktail of prescription drugs. I assume if you're reading a column called Pretty Girl Bullshit, you already know what "thinspiration" or "thinspo" is. If you've ever read the Daily Mail (guilty) you may have heard it referred to in stories about SICK, TWISTED teen suicide pacts. For those of you lucky enough to have somehow avoided the term so far, it's essentially a bunch of people (girls, invariably) proudly spewing bile over anyone who dares to be heavier than them.

It seems that some teenage girls are no longer content making out with boys/teachers/each other or trying to *feel something* when inserting a tampon. Instead, due to numerous factors too tedious and depressing to get into (remember the first paragraph?), they spend their lunch breaks making collages of underage, underfed fashion models and writing things like "A DRIP MEANS IT'S WORKING", etc. Thin + inspiration = thinspiration. Duh. Weirdly, Skinny Gossip is so parochial and self-aware that, without fail, the articles read like parodies of themselves. They're all super short, really dull and hinge on stuff like, "I'm sorry, but she looks like she's going to eat me. LOL #whale".

What concerns me more, though, are the comments, which range from users' self-loathing critiques of their own flabby (ie FUCKING SKELETAL) bodies, to the championing of what can only be described as a kind of neo-Nazi NHS for America. Yoo-Ess-Ay! Anyway, here are some of my "favourites".

ARTICLE #1: BARBARA PALVIN HAS GAINED WEIGHT
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Skinny Gossip commenter Elizabeth says [discussing Barbara Palvin's apparent weight gain]:
"I have… [a guess] as to how she's gotten away with this… She’s hit a late stage in puberty and inherited some hips, legs and a tummy. She probably needs to work harder than she used to to keep off the inches since her biology seems to be working against her." PGB says:
Poor Barbara had the unfortunate luck of being scouted at the age of 13, when a woman's body is at its absolute prime. Anything she does now looks positively skanky in comparison, right Elizabeth? I mean, ew, puberty, who the hell goes through that any more? Maybe we should just kill everyone before they reach it and do all the world's mirrors a favour.

ARTICLE #2: FAT PRIDE BURNS MY HIDE
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Skinny Gossip commenter Naome says:
"I wish we all paid taxes and medical insurance per lb of body weight. I swear there would be no fat people in the world."

PGB says:

AREYOUSERIOUS?! Actually no, don't answer that. (PS – Naome, it's all relative.)

ARTICLE #3: CHRISTMAS THINSPO
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Context: an article about how to get back "in shape" after Christmas binge eating

Skinny Gossip commenter Skinny Gurl says:
"Stuffing your face like a hog just like the rest of them makes you just as gross as they are. I thought – just based on the fact that you were a Skinny Gossip reader – that you would be better than that? I’m really disappointed."

PGB says:
This is really disturbing. First of all, what does she mean by "the rest of them"? Sounds a little bit (an awful lot) like she means anyone who eats at Christmas ever. Fun! According to Skinny Gurl, eating is gross, bodies are disgusting and if you do that or have one then you are a hog. I'd be scared for the future of mankind, if it weren't for one universal truth: