Thanks, Internet, for the Eating Disorder!
Content warning: eating disorders, body/facial dysmorphia, MLA 9 citations, Tumblr use
Hey beloved, happy Thursday—I like your shoelaces.
I was, unfortunately, an active Tumblr user in the early 2010s. Not really a Directioner or a Wholockian or a Supernatural-obsessed shipper1, but I did run some fan accounts for emo bands that I loved plus a few personal blogs. Tumblr was, at the time, the place to be a cool (and tragically misunderstood) girl, à la one of John Green’s leading ladies.
In the days of yore (Jesus Christ), Tumblr was somewhere between Twitter and Pinterest. There was this constant stream of updating and changing ideas coming from every direction—or, at the very least, from every direction you followed. At the same time, you were also curating a unique and independent aesthetic specific to you.
It’s pure coincidence that every Tumblr girl during that era happened to all love galaxy print, black-and-white photography, and memes about cats/pizza. Obviously.
But as a preteen, this online presence really did make me feel unique—it was so different from anything I saw in my Appalachian mountain hometown, and it made me feel connected to a bigger and (arguably) more exciting world. Even better—because you pledge to die by sword before revealing your Tumblr username to anyone you actually know in real life, you get to create a version of yourself that is free from the influence and (healthy!) criticism of the people you actually know. For once in your young life, you are in full control.
This is a deceptively powerful feeling, and it is also a lie.
It didn’t take long for blogs dedicated to pop-punk/emo bands to also begin featuring the aesthetic of the young girls who idolized them. Heavily-filtered edits of incredibly sad lyrics became heavily-filtered edits of incredibly sad girls. Their eyeliner is perfectly in place, and their ripped black skinny jeans are, without a doubt, a size 2 or smaller. These are the girls that the bands are singing about. These are the girls that you, alone in your pink bedroom, can only pretend to be through carefully-considered reblogs.
There was also a pop-culture idea around this time, both online and off, that the most beautiful thing a girl could be was insecure (helllllooooooo One Direction’s first radio hit, “What Makes You Beautiful”). There’s something to be said about how this cultural narrative encourages girls/women/femmes2 to be dependent on the male gaze/men to tell them of their own worth in lieu of recognizing it for themselves—and don’t worry! I’ll say those words soon!—but the effect that we’re focusing on here is the mainstream pop culture’s effect on online subculture.
So my developing brain was effectively steeped in both a broader-cultural narrative dictating that insecurity was the most attractive thing I could cultivate as well as in my chosen subculture’s glorification of sad girls who need a boy to kiss away her tears (or, at the very least, a cigarette3).
And, spoiler! This was bad for my psychological development! My self-curated Tumblr dashboard was absolutely flooded with images of ripped jeans that proudly flaunted thigh gaps and outright pro-eating disorder content. My digital peers were directly encouraging skipping meals (as well as other harmful behaviors) because it fit into the aesthetic.
I spent a lot (A LOT!!!) of time in my late-teens and early-twenties working to heal my deeply fractured relationship with food and my body. This was intentional work, and it’s also one of those work-in-progress things that, I assume, I’ll be maintaining for the rest of my life. In a digital culture that pushes the idea that you must constantly sell yourself as an aesthetic product to be consumed in order to be liked, it isn’t always easy to remember that our bodies aren’t decorative. They’re not the posed form we’re fashioning to a photo-grid.
But today’s digital climate is, seemingly, so much better for young girls than the one that I had. Now, certain words and phrases that used to link to pro-eating disorder content instead link to help messages and resource pages. It isn’t common or trendy (in most spaces) to post about how hard you’re working to stay skinny. We’ve experienced body acceptance, body tolerance, body positivity, body neutrality. Your average gen-Z internet user is familiar with terms like fatphobia and diet culture. Influencers build their livelihoods off off flexing their body’s “flaws”4 in the name of normalization.
And the radio doesn’t play as many boy bands singing to their insecure girlfriends about how sexy their insecurity is anymore! We’re all doing “hot girl shit” now. In the post hashtag-girlboss hashtag-feminist hashtag-the-future-is-female, we’re all free from the confines of pretending as though self-induced suffering is beautiful.
:)
:(
I used to genuinely think that things had gotten better for today’s teens, and in some ways, it has. But the digital trend for obsessive attention to one’s physical appearance hasn’t gone anywhere.
If the 2014 Tumblr girl was defined by her hipster/indie/counterculture sadness, what defines the 2024 TikTok girls?
Is she a #cleangirl? Does she drink green smoothies, walk you through her “what I eat in a day” videos full of portioned-out vegetables and green juices? How expensive is her skincare routine?
Give me a fucking break.
I think that the Internet was very honest with me in my teens: to pursue beauty is to suffer. The suffering is a part of the beauty. But now, to pursue beauty is #selfcare. It’s an expensive 12-step skin care routine. It’s never using a straw, starting on retinol creams before senior prom, rolling fake jade bead rollers over your skin. It’s women getting botox in their 20s! Middle schoolers worried about wrinkle prevention! God forbid, a woman be allowed to feel as though their body is anything but a construction zone.
It’s more pervasive than ever. There were no photo-filters in 2014 to give me a thigh gap, but you can see yourself post-nose job on TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat simply by clicking the beauty filter.
We’re seeing a rise in young women going under the knife5 at younger and younger ages.6 Doctors reporting that, instead of bringing celebrity or model reference photos, people are attending plastic surgery consultations with their own filtered selfies.7 What makes me angry is that we are being sold the narrative that these expensive/dangerous/invasive procedures aren’t reflective of market demands that continue to play to our insecurities, but instead are a form of empowerment. Take control of your body!
We also are less direct about the messages we send regarding bodies, weight loss, and fatphobia. You might not say you’re restricting your diet anymore, but you will show off your #girldinner—a single babybel cheese and a handful of fruit. So quirky and relatable. Us girls simply don’t have the time, energy, or need to eat more than a toddler-sized portion. It’s, again, part of the digital cultural identity. I can’t imagine how many girls and women have developed harmful habits without even knowing it due to the implicit nature of aesthetic marketing and algorithmic influence.
We’ve aestheticized the food again, and in turn, our relationship to nutrition. Where do carbs fit into you dark-academia/cottagecore/vanilla girl moodboard? What does that girl eat for lunch? If you are what you eat, is your plate making you prettier?
I am tired of femininity being dependent on smallness. On being less, on reflecting as to how we can constantly improve inward instead of taking this incredible brain and body and focusing its attention outward. Appreciating our lives instead of trying to be the thing to be appreciated. And I am tired of the digital culture continuing to convince us that we are the product to be viewed, revised, repackaged, rebranded. I can’t imagine the pressure that today’s teens feel to adhere to sanitized and filtered standards of beauty—especially when they are told that these ideas are reflective of self-respect.
Beloved, respect yourself by enjoying your life. Eat the food you love. Move your body in a way that makes you happy. Wear sunscreen, not for wrinkle prevention, but for the long-term health of your skin (and also because we damaged the ozone layer so badly that the sun’s UV rays are literally harsher now lol).
If I could take a soft-bristled toothbrush and scrub the parts of our brains that have been affected by beautysick digital culture, I would. In the meantime, enjoy a picture of the coffee Sol bought me on Monday—it was delicious and full of sugar and I got a free usable cup with it :)
Eat something yummy for me today! Kisses ❤️
If these terms mean nothing to you, go ahead and write that down in your gratitude journal for the day. “Never subjected to Tumblr fandom culture.” I envy you.
I’m playing a little fast and loose with gender/gendered language here, forgive me.
Did Lana write any songs about kissing cigarettes? It feels like the answer is yes. Idk—I was never a Lana girlie.
Enough!!! Enough with this!!!!!! I don’t “love my flaws” because my body fat/hair/appearance is not a flaw! It’s not a fault or a problem!!! I want to think about stretch marks and cellulite and whatever else the way we think about eyelashes or toenails. It’s just a part of the costume.
To clarify: I am not anti-plastic surgery as a rule. I think anyone should be able to make any decision they want about their own body simply because they want to. But do we want this? Or are we being told that we do? The difference is significant.
“Facial Procedures Are on the Rise among Young Women - Dr. Torerson.” Toronto Facial Plastic Surgery and Laser Centre | Dr. Torgerson, 22 Aug. 2022, drtorgerson.com/non-surgical-procedures/why-facial-cosmetic-procedures-are-on-the-rise-among-young-women-these-days/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20the%20American%20Society,have%20increased%20by%20almost%2010%25.
admidraji14. “Snapchat Dysmorphia - Plastic Surgery Houston: Cosmetic Surgeon & Dermatologist.” Plastic Surgery Houston | Cosmetic Surgeon & Dermatologist, 23 Dec. 2019, dramjadi.com/snapchat-dysmorphia/.
This was a long one! If you made it this far, thank you. I’m exploring new formats/focuses for this space—less blog and more essay. There will probably be an announcement post to share new plans for post type, frequency, and other things soon :)