Welcome to another episode of the Unapologetically Fat Podcast. In this episode, Tish chats about something that’s been bothering her (online fat shaming and body shaming) since her YouTube video Body Positivity: What It Is & Why It’s Important got caught in some algorithm hell where the fat shamers came out in full force.

Tish left Instagram and TikTok due to the relentless fat shaming and decided to focus on her YouTube channel instead and thought YT was a safer space… only to find that’s not the case.

(Note: I’m cooking dinner while recording so you’ll hear some pots and pans banging around & my dog decided to go bat shit crazy a few times so you’ll hear him barking… very loudly!)

Highlights:

[00:04:32] – Everybody is deserving of kindness & respect.

[00:06:12] – Consider if your comment is helpful or hurtful.

[00:07:58] – Shaming others' bodies is not ok!

And hey, before I forget – I would LOVE it if you would take a few minutes to leave a review of the show on your favorite podcast app. And of course, don’t forget to subscribe too, so you get notified when new episodes get published. 

Have you ever been fat shamed or body shamed? No, that's not a trick question and the reason I say it's not a trick question is because if I had to bet on it, I would say that you could probably answer yes to that question. Hey. Hey. Hey. I am Tish. You're fat and fabulous host of the unapologetically fat podcast. You can find me on any app that supports podcast like Apple, Apple, Amazon, Spotify, and more. I would love it if you would subscribe and leave me a review.

I have had so many conversations with women that have shared their stories of being fat shamed or body shamed. Today, I wanna talk about a recent thing that happened that I wasn't going to address, but it is still bothering me, so I decided I do want to address it. And as I chat with you I'm going to be cooking dinner. I am making turkey burger tacos. So one of the reasons that I left Instagram and TikTok is because I was kind of a chicken to continue posting content over there. And the reason being is because I was getting fat shamed and body shamed so bad that it was just it was ridiculous. I have been plus 5 my entire life, so fat shaming and body shaming is not anything new to me. But the the things that the trolls were saying to me, that was a whole new level of just but the, like, the level of things that were being said to me on Instagram and TikTok were so I don't even know the word to describe them.

To give you an example of what I was dealing with on a regular basis, I was being told that I should unalive myself because I'm a fat, disgusting human being, and that was a lot to take. Like, I just could not take it anymore. So that was, again, one of the reasons that I chose to leave, TikTok and Instagram. The other reason that I decided to leave them and focus on YouTube was because YouTube just has a bigger ROI, return on investment in the long run. So I naively thought that YouTube was a safe space and my doggy is barking because he hears people out there working. Because I hadn't seen the level of trolling on YouTube that I had seen on the other social media platforms. So I was so wrong. Last week, I posted a video, and I do not know what sort of algorithm I got caught up in.

But it was like, my comments was just full of fat shaming and fat phobia and just fat haters. And it caused me to go into this, just this place where I was like, I just don't even wanna do this anymore. It really hurt my feelings. Yes. I am 49 years old. Yes. I have dealt with this kind of stuff my entire life. It's nothing new, but it really bothered me.

It actually made me cry. I laid in bed. It was on a Friday night, and I laid in bed that Friday night crying why my man comforted me as I cried because of the things that were said to me. And, anyways, I that wasn't the only thing that had happened that led me to, like, have the emotional breakdown. There was other stuff going on. The fat shaming and the nastiness was kind of that straw that broke the camel's back. So what I decided I wanted to share today is some things that I wish the trolls would, think about before they comment. So the first thing is remember that the person that you're commenting on their content, they are a human being.

Human beings have feelings. Human beings deserve kindness and respect. End of story. I don't care if you don't like their body or the color of their skin or any other thing that you don't like about them. They are a human being. I am a human being. That means I'm deserving of kindness and respect as is every other human being. The other thing that I wish the trolls would think about is stop and just ask yourself, is my comet going to help or hurt? Now a lot of these fat shamers and body shamers that come into my, you know, comment section And then back on Instagram and TikTok, they would also come into my DMs.

They are concerned about my health, which is such a crock of shit. So they think that by fat shaming me and telling me how disgusting I am and how unhealthy I am, that they are helping me and that it's going to make me want to do something and to lose weight and to diet and all that blah blah blah. It does not help me. Again, I have been plus sized my entire freaking life. I have put up with this shit my entire life. Every single time somebody has fat shamed me, body shamed me, or food policed me, it has had the opposite effect. It has not helped me. It has hurt me and made me go into a deeper tailspin with the food issues and everything that I already have.

So think about if your comment is helpful or hurting because it's probably not helping even though you seem to think it is. I thought I was gonna have more than just that to say, and I probably could sit here and continue talking about some things but I really just wish that the fat shamers and the fat phobic people would just stay the hell out of my comments. I just wish that they would leave me alone. I want my space to be a safe space for other plus size women, I want other plus size women to feel seen and to feel heard and you ever have something that you want to talk about but you don't feel safe sharing it publicly, please email me, inbox me because I am so happy to have a conversation, you know, off of social media with you about it. I just I'll never understand why people think that it's okay to, you know, comment on other people's bodies, to leave the nasty comments that they do. You know, it's one thing when I'm out in public and I have to deal with somebody face to face that is fat shaming me or body shaming me or food policing me. But when it comes to trolls, I know that I try to remind myself that hurting people say hurtful things and, you know, these trolls are they don't even have, like, like, real profiles. They don't have any subscribers, like, they don't have pictures of themselves.

So why I let it get to me so much, I don't know, but the whole point of all of this is that it's not okay. I get it. I show up on public platforms like YouTube or, again, when I was active on Instagram and TikTok, and I put myself out there. I get that I'm publicly showing up, and you seem to think that that gives you permission to fat shame me and treat me with, you know, unkindness and disrespect, it does not, and the other thing that I wanna remind the trolls of is that there is absolutely no reason for you to be commenting on anybody's body, I don't care if it's another fat person or a thin person or somebody with a disability or somebody that has different colored skin than you are. There's just absolutely no reason to be commenting on anybody's body. So the whole point of all this to say is, trolls, just remember that we are human beings too, and we do have feelings. Yeah.