The radical act of being you.

 

Could I budget Mounjaro, monthly payments? How fast would I lose the weight? Side effects? Probably nothing bad, sickness? Going blind? At home botox replacements, de-puff your eyes. Are we ugly?

In the year 2025 it's a radical act to change, nothing. From Tiktok virality to mainstream media, self love is no longer on trend. My formative teen years were spent consuming social media content that praised and celebrated difference, that championed feminism, choice and diversity. Not just in social justice but in physicality and looks. There was a form of kindness in these posts, from older generations worried about the impacts of social media on the young; people took great efforts to post bodies of all shapes and sizes, to celebrate unique faces and deliberately go against the harmful 'diet culture' that existed in mainstream media. 

Maybe I'm on the wrong sides of the internet but this has disappeared. As a fat woman I still try ardently to follow fat creators, actors and influencers so I can see my body represented in a normal light. But with the recent rise of ozempic and other weight loss injections, some of these 'plus size influencers' became skinny overnight. And poof my representation, gone. 

Weight is a troublesome subject, one in which you're guaranteed to meet dozens of counter arguments on. But my 2010s ideology of acceptance without judgement feels outdated in a modern society that feels like it's returned right back to the 90s/00s 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' epidemic. Whilst many people can understand that this eras views on diet, exercise and general 'health' were problematic and led to millions of eating disorders, a new generation of body shaming and orthorexic eating habits have made their way back via the medium of Tiktok. 'Thinspo' and 'Skinnytok' are but a few of the examples currently circling many peoples FYPs. 

Video after video of girls telling me to think like a skinny girl, to drink water to kerb hunger, to put sour candy dusting on grapes or switch out carbs for coffee. Essentially to starve until your weight is acceptable. It feels insane that we've reverted back to a time that was so triggering and damaging for so many young people. And that this content is not only normalised on this platform but encouraged.

Alongside the problematic advice on weight loss, we're living in an overall epidemic of change. Nothing about yourself is good enough anymore. Change change change. Maybe 10, 15 years ago you could be fat and shamed for it but we'd be more accepting of imperfect skin, teeth, hair. Well not anymore. I can't go 2 videos without someone suggesting a way to change. I see before and after videos of nose jobs, gastric bypass surgeries, lip filler appointments, face lifts etc. Growing up these cases would have been used as examples on shows called EXTREME PLASTIC SURGERIES GONE WRONG! 

Now? Through the tunnel that is influencer content, ordinary people are watching rich celebrities and worshipping their lives, their faces, their bodies. People are becoming more pressured than ever to turn to plastic surgeries, fillers, procedures, fake tanning, acrylics, changing their hair, straightening and whitening their teeth and essentially morphing into an entirely new person because the internet told them to. 

My worry with this, aside from the basis of such extreme decisions being made on a trend, a whim, is not only that they might change their mind but that nobody is ever going to look like themselves. I think we forget how much of our looks, health and body are determined by genetics. It's in our DNA to carry features from our mother, father, grandmother, uncle, aunty. We're losing what it means not only to carry your heritage but what it means to be uniquely you. And because these pressures have become so immense, the actions are so widespread and the outcome is so normalised. We're entering a new era where everybody looks the same. There is no longer character from an uneven nose or crooked teeth, it's seen as morally reductive if your face has 'flaws' or doesn't match impossible mathematical symmetry. 

I wonder where we go from here as a society. I wonder if the words be yourself are watered down now. Do they have the same impact? Are we losing the connection with ourselves, with who we are and how we choose to express ourselves? Are there many people left who are willing and wanting to go against the grain, to embrace themselves as they come? Or are we all sleep walking into a conveyor belt of plastic dolls, waiting to be redone?