When I was little, I used to have this recurring dream. Well, nightmare. And in this nightmare, I was standing at the top of the stairs to a basement. Below me was a very old wooden door, cracked and covered with cobwebs. I was terrified at the thought of opening this door and seeing the horrors that lived behind it. Nothing more ever happened in the dream. I just stood at the top of those stairs, staring at that door, paralyzed with fear. In all the times I had that dream, I never opened that door.
Yesterday, the fine folks over at the Fat Logic section on Reddit found out about BFD. Fat Logic is basically about mocking, shaming, and bullying fat people and the things we write about on the internet. I’ve visited the site a few times. It’s full of people who seem seriously and disturbingly dedicated to being mean to fat people. They spend a lot of time “debunking” the things fat people say. For example, they call fat people out as liars if we say that we work out X amount or eat X amount. If we were being truthful, they claim, then we’d be thin.
I didn’t go over to Reddit to read what they were saying about me, but some friends were kind enough to visit. And sure enough, the Fat Logic folks said I must be lying about what I do with my body. I’m not sure what they get out of what they do. They don’t know me. They certainly aren’t concerned about my health. They just, for some reason, really enjoy calling out fatties and telling us we’re bit fat (heh) liars.
The reason I didn’t go over there myself, didn’t defend myself? Because I don’t want to open that door. Just like in my cellar door dream, I know that there is some scary stuff behind it. Why would I want to expose myself to that? The people at Reddit don’t know me, and yet for some reason they want to hurt me. Life is too short to willingly bring that kind of negativity into my life.
Two good things happened after Reddit found me: First, they clicked over here. A lot. Previously, my top-rated post garnered 499 clicks. Yesterday’s post? A whopping 1,384 clicks. Holy cow! That was pretty exciting. The other great thing? They kept their comments over on Reddit. Despite the hundreds and hundreds of people who visited BFD yesterday, not a single one of them tried to post a nasty comment over here. Phew!
I don’t think I’ll ever understand what people get out of fat shaming others. I don’t know why they spend so much time and energy hating on someone like me. Why it matters to them what I say, why they must try to prove me wrong. They haven’t lived my life, they don’t know what I do or how I do it, and yet it is very important to them that they tell me I’m living life wrong, and lying about everything. That’s a pretty sad way to spend your time.
I’ll just go ahead and keep that cellar door closed, and let them moan and wail behind it.
