Positively Toxic: the Pressure to be Joyous in the Body Positive Movement
Weeks or maybe months ago — I’m not sure, time is much less precise during Stay at Home — my thumb led me to an Instagram post that showed acne in a fresh, unashamed, unfiltered light. At least it was all these things to me. These photos highlighted acne and the picture-perfect imperfections of real skin on all genders, ages, and colors. I live with the ever-present bumps on my skin, but rarely have I seen acne so clearly displayed on social media and even rarer yet seen acne as something that just is rather than something to be cured.
The post was just acne — inflamed white heads and the hills and valleys of skin that’s suffered and healed from cysts. There was no ad nestled in the carousel of pictures. No fake positivity or coded language that implied shame. This post was simply dedicated to acne de-stigmatization and body neutrality — a new movement that I hadn’t heard of before. True, I had heard of body positivity. And, true, I had considered myself a part of it; on the bleachers, but still close enough to cheer on those leading the cause. The first body positive post I came across was in 2015 and, to an insecure college sophomore, it seemed revolutionary. It had pastels and cuteness and stretch marks and inspirational quotes. Not every post was surface level either. The main purpose of the body positivity movement, its community, and my interest in it was what it offered. Each post gave me the chance to grow while disconnecting external influences from internal notions of self-worth — in short, to love myself. Being a part of this online community felt like I was helping to create a happier, united future — a future where our bodies don’t dictate how others perceive us. I guess that’s the whole point of ‘movements’, though.
Excuse this less than graceful, although necessary simile: scrolling through the oversaturated Instagram feed is a lot like swimming at low tide when each wave entangles you further into the inescapable slimy seaweed. While at first you aren’t mindful of the seaweed, eventually you subconsciously adjust your stroke to slide as much seaweed off of you as possible. Except your feed is the waves and the seaweed is the posts of people trying their hardest to present a version of themselves that is trendy, aesthetically pleasing, and their best possible self. The more curated and edited posts I saw the more (self-imposed) pressure I felt to have my own feed full of ‘Instagramable’ pictures. This involved staging my photos and sometimes going to certain events, like a gallery or a movie premier, because I thought they’d look nicer on the ‘gram. On some level I knew that these posts I saw weren’t an accurate representation of the posters’ real life, yet I still felt an internalized lacking or want. I wanted my life to resemble what I saw online, but I lacked the ability to successfully replicate what I saw.
This is why the body positive movement and community meant so much to me and others like me. It rejected such notions and fought to combat that less-than feeling that social media aided. Every time a body positive post came up in my feed it breathed a much needed and much welcomed air of normality into the pre-scheduled programming. It served as a reminder to me and the thousands of others involved that what you see in the media isn’t real, but a heavily filtered and curated semi-reality. In the body positive hashtag, people shared counter-Instagram culture content like text posts that asserted ‘your worth is not determined by your size’, or an unfiltered selfie with cellulite on full view, or an always fun ‘sometimes I look like this (insert glamor shot), but mostly I look like this (insert messy bun, sweats, and Cheeto stained fingers selfie)’. Generally with such posts came a caption that illuminated a growth in the posters thought process, a ‘I would never have worn this before, but now I realize I don’t need a thin cloth covering my arms — let the jiggle free’. While now these posts seem silly now, they served a purpose at the time.
More than a reminder to not be ashamed of yourself, these posts opened a discussion around the unrealistic standards placed on women by society and media. Amid the constant ads for weight loss teas by influencers and the constant scrutiny women are under for their appearance, this movement was a voice of reason. To see a jelly roll after stumbling across celebrities who had their waists photoshopped so narrow that the laws of physics left the chat was like seeing a pool in the middle of a dessert. This over-edited presence didn’t just exist in the celebrity world, it’s permeated into our collective consciousness, too. The constant barrage of artificial perfection and ways to achieve it in the short term only heightens feelings of inadequacy; often to the point where we’ve become so accustomed to seeing perfection that we’re uncomfortable with the humanness of our own humanity.
The hundreds of filters on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are as addictive as they are fun. Who wouldn’t want to temporarily transform their features into a button-nosed, doe-eyed, big-lipped IG baddie, or a smooth-skinned freckled hippie with monarchs orbiting their head, or a Dave Cameron-esque alien? And at first glance, they’re harmless fun. However, upon further inspection, they have a serious impact on the way we view ourselves. This over-saturation of filters has made posting a totally filter-free picture feel as exposed as posting a lewd photo. On top of this, we’re beginning to prefer the filtered versions over our real selves. In recent years, plastic surgeons have been reporting upticks in surgeries that make people match their selfies. Getting plastic surgery isn’t inherently problematic. What is problematic is getting plastic surgery to follow trends or to fit recent beauty conventions. On TikTok there’s been concerning threads that normalize plastic surgery such as the ‘nose job check’ or the ‘Don’t Do It Girl, It’s Not Worth It’ that’s included users getting nose jobs and lip injections in between videos of others dying or cutting their hair.
This pressure to be perfect and fit in is exactly what the body positive movement fought against. For those involved, it felt like a noble crusade. Despite all its good, the body positive movement had its own toxicity. Most notably that it, whether intentionally or not, disenfranchised the founders of the movement — Disabled, Queer, Black, and Brown bodies — and as it moved away from its origins new leaders began to prioritize toxic positivity over actual growth.
The concept of body positivity is powerful. But, in practice it proved unrealistic. Even people who have the healthiest of self-esteems don’t view their bodies positively 24/7. Yes, it’s hyperbole to say ‘body positivity’ by definition means ‘be body positive all the time’. It seems ridiculous to think that, but many in the movement had been pushing for just that. The posts and the tone in them shifted from ‘you are worthy’ to ‘my body brings me joy’. On a surface level, this shift is minute and still motivational. Fundamentally, however, tone shifts like this stunted the entire dialogue. Instead of viewing your body as a vessel that doesn’t impact your worth, the movement focused on the relationship between your body and your emotional health. A relationship that should not only be positive, but also brings happiness. Aside from being a big ask for most, it’s also where toxic positivity entered the body positivity movement.
Toxic positivity “is the idea that we should focus only on positive emotions and the positive aspects of life… It’s the belief that if we ignore difficult emotions and the parts of our life that aren’t working as well, we’ll be much happier.” In body positivity, toxic positivity showed itself by invalidating the feelings of those who voiced their struggles with viewing their body positively, and encouraging others to remain silent about their struggles. The result of this was that it often limited those who could engage in the movement. Most people, especially marginalized bodies, cannot simplify this complex relationship into a relationship that’s one-dimensionally happy. Nor should they. Ignoring emotions doesn’t make them disappear, it only hides them where they can grow in the dark. Additionally, for many, separating worth from how their body functions is more of an uphill battle than separating how it looks from worth.
The initial goal of the body positive movement to not value yourself based on your body was in and of itself a monumental task. The later reshaping of the movement to be eternally positive simplifies the complexity of life and emotional well-being into a toxic movement that needed a complete overhaul. This is why body neutrality started. Rather than having the goal of viewing your body in a positive light, body neutrality is about accepting your body without having to love or hate it. It sought to eliminate the pressures from all sides, including body positivity.
The post that started this examination, the one about unfiltered acne, brought about a well-rounded change in my way of thinking that could not have happened without the initial progress that came from the body positive era. Over the past two years, I have been going through a change as internal as external. Before 2018, I had such painful, persistent cystic acne that I wore a thick layer of full coverage foundation everyday to cover the inflamed bumps. With the help of topical acne medicine, by 2018, I no longer had to wear makeup for everything — as a dog walker, this growth I loved the most. I was still ashamed of my acne scars and whatever new zit popped up, but for the first time I didn’t feel I had to hide behind a thick layer of full coverage foundation. When I scrolled through the body positive tags on Instagram, I saw people proclaiming their love for the skin they’re in — they were beautiful, smiley posts. The posts that I had thought served a purpose left me feeling jealous and saddened. Why couldn’t I show that same love for my acne and scarred skin? I felt like I had stalled my growth. As I read more into the body neutrality movement I realized that’s not the case. Body positivity helped me reach a point where I no longer felt ashamed for my appearance, and body neutrality taught me that my relationship with my appearance isn’t everything. Whether I’m actively proud of my skin or neutral doesn’t diminish the acceptance I have for myself.
Issues are present in any community. It takes us to recognize when these issues overwhelm the cause. And it takes us to acknowledge and work through what no longer serves us. At its best, the body positivity made thousands of people feel comfortable in their skin. At its worst, it was toxic and exclusionary. Body neutral is what body positive hoped to do and what it did in its early stages before its message got watered down into toxic positivity. Hopefully, body neutrality can continue to absorb the best of its predecessor without falling into its downfalls.
