Comments on: Open thread: Other people are not on fluffcation

By: thegirlfrommarz

thegirlfrommarz — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:38:51 +0000

Meems – just wanted to second what Zenoodle said about your comments at WATRD making it readable. I am really glad someone is making the reasonable arguments over there.

By: Zenoodle

Zenoodle — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:07:18 +0000

Thanks for that link Darcy… I’m so upset that someone *stole* the dress at the end though! :-(

By: Darcy

Darcy — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:02:03 +0000

The uniform project is like a fashion-focused version of the Little Brown Dress project, a project I find more inspiring, but in different ways: http://www.littlebrowndress.com/

By: Meems

Meems — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:47:53 +0000

@Zenoodle, I always said it that way and then started to wonder if it was supposed to be “ze [the] noodle.”

Glad someone appreciates my comments :)

By: Zenoodle

Zenoodle — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:45:02 +0000

Meems, you’ve kind of hit on the inspiration behind my screen name. :-) Also, I guess we can probably discount a career in politics for me off the back of how particular posts and comments at WATRD have been affecting me – good to know though! And hats off to you for your patience – I think your comments there are really important and valuable… My frothing at the mouth there is probably less so!

By: Meems

Meems — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:57:37 +0000

@Zenoodle & MezzoSherri, I study religion and politics and plan to work in politics for a living, so I think I’m fairly inured to the kind of ridiculousness that gets posted on WATRD sometimes. I do think that mamaV has good intentions, but she’s very stuck in her own perceptions and outlook and has trouble seeing things from another angle. I’m also not totally sure she realizes how alienating her posts sound when she calls out moderated comments. The two new contributors, Marsha and Kim, have potential, though, and I hope they start participating in discussions more.

Oh, and Zenoodle, two things: I think your posts did go through; I’m pretty sure I saw them up. Also, for some reason I always read your name as Zen-noodle. Hmmm.

By: MezzoSherri

MezzoSherri — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:12:40 +0000

Zenoodle: Your comments inspired me to take another look at WATRD, which has caused me once again to feel depressed about humanity. Meems, you rock for continuing the conversation there but I am just too overwhelmed by 3D life to be able to take on that little piece of the interverse.

Anyhow, thanks for the baby hedgehog pics. I needed the pick me up.

By: Zenoodle

Zenoodle — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:15:37 +0000

‘if that’s pretty true’…??? Ye gads I need to sleep!

By: Zenoodle

Zenoodle — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:14:43 +0000

Hi Meems, I saw you over there fighting the good fight — it actually was probably the thing which prevented my head totally exploding! I#’m just not brave enough / haven’t saved enough sanity points. I tried a bit yesterday — probs gone into moderation or been deleted, haven’t checked yet because then I’ll inevitably read more there and can’t deal with it today. It feels like such a negative space to me. It seems like a good number of commenters over there are actually uncomfortable with some of the articles’ tones — thinking specifically of the one which was like ‘yet another FA activist’ etc. I just found it too galling to see MamaV saying she wants to create this great space, no us and them, etc, and then creates a big ‘us and them’ scenario by tarring a whole non-monolithic group with one brush. And that she seems, according to some commenters, to have *edited* their comments rather than moderated them to not show up… if that’s pretty true, it’s also pretty odd. I don’t know… some good stuff over there but it hurts my brain too much when I read a lot of the commentaries and (it seems) whenever I read anything from the ‘privilege=yawn already’ MamaV.

The funny thing is that, although here I waited a while to comment and was nervous at first, I actually appreciated that and the comments policy a lot more. I realised when I looked at things I’d commented elsewhere in the past that I was Not Getting some important stuff, and without that space to pause and think, I would just write them on down. Here, if I write something problematic I’ll get called on it, but in a fair and clear way… At WATRD it seems there is an atmosphere of people wondering ‘who’s next’ to get jumped on in just the way they’re making out happens here a lot (and I have been reading here for nearly a year now and have never seen someone get unreasonably jumped on — there’s always a reason which is well thought out and the person is given justification with reference to the comments policy. Wagh. The fact this space isn’t a ’101 over and over again’ space is good in my opinion — there are links to 101 spaces, there *are discussions of it, and the posts and commentaries here help to contextualise the 101 stuff and also raises the game — I think I learn more here by shushing and listening (with occasional comment splurges) than I have done in an awful lot of other places with less strict comments policies!

Agh that didn’t need to be so long winded. Accidentally stayed up til 6am reading on the internets and being upset at all the wrongness on it, so I only have myself to blame for shattered-ness now!

By: Meems

Meems — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:48:19 +0000

BTW, I just discovered this blog over at PsychCentral. I was a bit surprised to see it there, but it seems good so far: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/weightless/category/body-image/

And I do still post over at WATRD. I don’t claim to speak for anyone else in FA but myself, but I think it’s worth having a presence on a blog that wants to deal with body image issues…if you can deal with the accusations of lying (what, is it that hard to believe that I’m healthy?) and some very glaring ignorance about experiential differences between fat and thin women.