TW: Sexual assault

Take my phone away. Just take it. Because every time I lurk on social media, I see something that just irritates my soul. First it was people shamelessly salivating over leaked celebrity nudes, then it was people being ahistorical about beauty standards and body trends. The silver lining is that at least it gives me content to write about, but at what cost…?

On today’s installment of What’s Got Me Pissed Off, I’d like to discuss an uncomfortable (to put it generously) sentiment that I’ve seen creep up within a sector of the male population online in pertinence to dating in today’s cultural climate they’ve aptly named “The #MeToo Era.” It goes something like this, and my exaggeration is actually not that far off from the truth, sadly:

“dating in the #metoo era these days is literal HELL. i cant breathe, blink, or shit around a female without being afraid that she’s gonna think im a creep. and then falsely accuse me of rape or something even though i literally did not fuckin touch her. and then i get jumped by a rabid mob, lose my job, have all my friends and family hate me, get exiled by society, and then i GO TO JAIL FOR 2438295742032380 YEARSSSSS!!!! any of you fellas feel this way, too?”

– u/[deleted] via r/AskMen

TW: Body image, eating disorders mention, drug use mention

Every so often I come across a post on social media reminiscing about a past that never was: back in the 90s/early 2000s when “naturalness was celebrated” but now “every girl looks the same,” most likely referring to the current prevalence of extreme cosmetic surgery, high coverage, transformative makeup, and photoshop/Facetune of every feature on the body. Sigh. Not to be rude, but these people must be too young to remember reality, simply clueless, or suffering from amnesia. Of course you’re going to have nostalgia for what has already passed because you’re sick of being bombarded with an oversaturation of whatever’s currently trending – you’re desperate for something different to break up the monotony. But the truth is: no era has ever been been accepting of naturalness, but rather, each and every era tells us what we should specifically aspire for in that moment and how to obtain it. Of course some just already have It™ and don’t really have to do much to meet the standard, but as for those who don’t? You either have to a) kill yourself (figuratively and sometimes literally) to try your best to fit in with whatever’s en vogue, or b) wait it out until you’re back in trend…if you’ll ever be the trend.

Speaking on the 90s/early 2000s beauty trends specifically, it boggles my mind that a lot of people consider this to be the beacon era of natural beauty when I think of all the crazy shit that happened in retrospect. We still wore tons of makeup, it was just a different style. We still got cosmetic procedures done – a lot of them as a matter of fact (anyone remember the now fallen AwfulPlasticSurgery.com?), the procedures we wanted were just different. Dangerous diet fads were similarly pervasive, especially considering the fact that being rail thin from head to toe was all the rage. This also spurred our cultural hyperfixation on women with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, which usually just sensationalized them as jokes or subjects of horror as opposed to recognizing EDs as a legitimate concern that need legitimate help. And just as insidious, the “heroin chic” look glamorized and encouraged drug use in a way; it didn’t just stop at looking like you shoot up heroin, sometimes you actually shot up heroin to get and maintain that bony, angular figure.

It’s only a matter of time before mass media emerges out of the “IG Baddie” craze and rebounds back to crowning extremely thin bodies as superior. Now before The Skinnies start cheering, consider this: what if we could all just be left alone and not ever have to worry about when our bodies will go in and out of style? What makes me nervous is the possibility that counter-movements like body positivity (embracing and loving bodies as they are regardless of what they look like and not feeling pressured to change them) and body neutrality (not giving a fuck about what a body looks like and just simply existing) will also be trends within themselves, coming and going in waves as opposed to being mainstays. Hopefully we can work to grant these ideologies fixed positions within our culture that will eventually eclipse the trending of bodies, but only time will tell.

NOTE: Before I dig into the topic at hand, I would like to preface my blog post by asserting that in no way am I a celebrity sympathizer. I am very much critical of the concept of celebrity within itself; the vicious cult-like idol worship, the hoarding of disgusting amounts of wealth, and the arrogance and lack of self-awareness it breeds (see: the absolutely tone deaf – both literally and figuratively – COVID-19 Imagine cover) is truly no joke. However, celebrities are still People Like Us™ at the end of the day (some of which, depending on their identities, are more vulnerable to and disproportionately impacted by the ills of celebrity than others) and the ways in which we Average Joes engage with them should be critiqued because it says a lot about how we engage with each other as actors in society as a whole. So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, without further ado…

For as long as I can remember, there has been an odd fixation with seeing the naked bodies of celebrities that I could never wrap my head around to this day. One of my earliest recollections of this is the mass hysteria around the ever infamous Y2K pop culture event that was the “leak” of Ray J and Kim Kardashian’s sex tape, which catapulted the latter out of Paris Hilton’s (who also had a leaked sex tape) shoe closet and into stardom – and we unfortunately haven’t been able to rid ourselves of her and her Klan since. Succeeding 2007’s Kim Kardashian, Superstar we’ve experienced rapid technological advancements like the invention of easily hackable iCloud storage and real time social media like Twitter and Instagram. Now it’s become even easier to obtain, leak, and circulate celebrity sex media at neck break speeds to the point that it happens so often and to so many people that I can’t keep up with who has been a victim! Vanessa Hudgens, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, “The Fappening”/”Celebgate”…seriously, look up the many lists of celebrities this has happened to and I guarantee at some point you’ll think, “Them? When?!“

My main question is: Why are we so Mariah Carey – Obsessed.mp3 with seeing the nude bodies of celebrities in sexual contexts, and even more alarmingly, without their consent?

We could look at this from a few lenses, like how generally speaking since celebrities are individuals who are (for whatever reason *eyeroll*) positioned higher in society and perceived as more exclusive than the rest of us, we’re thirsty to see them in a vulnerable, subordinate state and have access to their bodies in the most dehumanizing manner possible when we want. This goes even more so for celebrities who are of marginalized identities, particularly women. It’s not enough to just simply consume Cardi B’s music and videos that she has sexed up at her own volition, we have to take advantage of her mistaken leak of nipples and bully her about how laaaaarge her areolas are for it to mean something. We have to think about how this obsession with leaks often makes us abandon our morals – that is, if we ever had them to begin with. Like how people actively sought out Lil Nas X’s nudes upon his rise to fame knowing that he was a minor in those pictures, thus, definitely making it child pornography. Or how when women who typically rally on the timeline against sexual objectification culture conveniently and expeditiously abandoned this energy when a video came out that was purported to be DaBaby, when in actuality it was that of a porn star (might I add, it’s quite ironic that people immediately lost interest in the video upon this discovery despite the fact that the porn star willingly filmed this video – as that is his job – and most likely did not receive any type of compensation in the form of money or notoriety for the mass reproduction of his work. The disrespect of sex workers and their labor is a whole ‘nother conversation.)

So, before we stampede to Twitter like the wildebeest colony from Lion King to ogle at the latest penis or set of nipples attached to a famous person, pick it apart and create a spectacle only to unceremoniously discard it, and moan then about which leak we’re looking forward to next, I’d like for people to think about these things first and reflect upon why we do it and why we think it’s okay. This is especially important with the rise of deepfake technology, which allows people’s likenesses to be fabricated in…less than desirable situations. Just sit in it. Marinade if you will.

As someone who has grappled with long term health complications since my youth, being confronted with the coronavirus pandemic has been…interesting, to say the least. A lot of things are familiar, albeit still scary: not knowing if and when I’m going to get devastatingly sick and trying to find ways to cope with this is a big one. But another major thing that has stuck with me, and yet, goes comparatively unaddressed is the unshakable feeling of isolation and outright invalidation that comes with living with invisible illnesses during these times.