The new "IT' girl is here.

Earlier than expected.

I cannot tell you how many drafts I have written, of pithy, passive aggressive, little eulogies, from the funeral of Body Positivity. A short lived manic episode of sense, autonomy and peace for women especially. A really weird blip where we relaxed about beauty ideals set for us by men who want to shag teenagers, but don’t want to admit it, so instead set a standard for everyone, to try to emulate that aesthetic forever (rail thin, hairless, no lines on our faces whatsoever). Women were going to beaches without anxiety, foregoing heels, eating properly without guilt, and having loads of fun…and it was really, really dangerous… for the owners of multi billion dollar diet companies. So it had to be stopped immediately, so that order, control and obedience could be resumed.

The aggressive return of the thigh gap, the “ballerina” arm, the hip bone, the gaunt, exhausted face, and the exposed rib cage… has metastasized across our culture faster than ever before. The term “Super Skinny” is back in our lexicon as inspiration. Body Positivity icons are shrinking faster than the economy, and promoting extreme weightloss methods to their audiences. Influencers are making their name off of shaming themselves and others for being anything above a US size 2. A particularly obnoxious influencer. has gone viral for coining the phrase “stay skinny, stay safe.” Absurd for many reasons, not only because the road to extreme thinness, is rarely paved with full nutrition, energy, and a sturdy bone density… but also… you literally become much easier to kidnap.

(When I was 19, two men drugged my drink in a bar, and then shortly after, tried to lift me off my bar seat, at my heaviest, and failed for so long, that they eventually gave up and left me there. I got to watch this with the police, as I was played the CCTV of the bar the next day, after I was discharged from the hospital. It was awkward, and a crazy sign of the times, and my age, that I was slightly embarrassed to not have been able to have been kidnapped! (I know.) But sense has since prevailed and the objective truth, aside from the fact that men are largely terrifying, is that had I been skinny on that day… I might not be here now. #STAYSTURDYSTAYSAFE)

Anyway… the weight loss injection craze has paved a path forward, for eating disorder culture to have its mainstream renaissance. Discourse has disintegrated, and fat shaming is back to being a national sport. With it, has come back a hyper normalized ageism, where facelifts, pretty risky procedures that cost upwards of 150,000 dollars…are becoming commonplace on people’s wish lists… among women in their LATE FUCKING THIRTIES. Women I know are saving up for this, instead of houses, holidays or retirement. And they only last about five to ten years! Total Chaos. Women are flying abroad to get weight loss, and rejuvenation procedures on the cheap, and some are flying home not knowing that while they went in for a mummy make over, a cheeky kidney was also taken! Some women just die. All part of the fun of the unregulated beauty black market.

We have been slipping and sliding backwards so fast I have whiplash.

Men are learning about crypto currency and investment, and securing themselves, while we are wildly researching who is responsibly for Lindsay Lohan’s new face.

But alas, a new quiet rebellion is on the horizon…

I think we are collectively getting a little queasy at how similar everyone is starting to look. Same eyes, nose, chin, cheeks, lips, waist, hips, thighs, hair… it’s getting harder and harder to tell humans from AI online. We are losing great actresses, due to the rise of the frozen face. We are losing individuality.

Suddenly pandering to a monolithic image is starting to look a little… lame?

In the past few months, I have noticed the internet’s gaze and attention swarming towards a specific type of woman. Women who we can tell are actually exhibiting autonomy. They aren’t built like supermodels, and yet their identity is not centered around existing in a bigger body, they’re not talking about it, they aren’t on a crusade. It does not occur to them to notice or care. They wear what they want. They aren’t trying to minimize themselves. They do their hair and make up in a way that excites them, and doesn’t match the criteria for men’s approval. These women are comfortable.

Let me say that again.

These women are… comfortable.

They have no point to prove. No flag to fly. They are simply rejecting obedience.

Because that’s all pandering to body trends is. Especially ones that can hurt you, or even kill you. That can rob your time and joy. That can cost you being present in your life or having fun with your loved ones. (Before anyone chooses ignorant violence and starts projectile vomiting on me how it’s “ok to be healthy” let us be clear… I’m not talking about health. I’m talking about an extreme. And NO extreme, either way is healthy.) I’m talking about the journey to taking dangerous methods to malnourish yourself to achieve a thinness that is frail, designed whether you consciously realize it or not, to make men look and feel bigger and stronger. To make you look like you could be picked up like a feather and carried away with or without your consent. To make you look like a little innocent girl.

My algorithm has suddenly burst with women like Lola Young, a delicious, curvy, wild twenty three year old, who sings sexually confident and empowered music, and chooses provocatively unusual, “unfashionable” attire. (She looks fucking cool.) Men in the comments, have tried their best to shame her into submission, and watching that, has made girls and women across the planet, rise up to her defense, and in her image. Dressing like her, cutting their hair into mullets, and letting their skin see the sun on a hot summer’s day, without abs or bones on display. She does not address the commentary on her body, and just continues to shine, glow and… win. She stands out. She has that “fuck off” Bowie energy, daring the world to try and force her into a box.

Lola Young headlining another massive festival

After a decade of every pop star who blows up having to lose 3 dress sizes and then wear the same glittery fucking leotard or swimsuit on stage, with thigh high boots, we are fatigued. We want that 90s energy of a woman who would rather die than look like a good little girl, looking for a little pat on the head from the patriarchy. Women are subconsciously aching for revolution. Lola Young does not give a flying fuck. She is the woman the world has been waiting for. Multiple songs topping the charts and a viral Glastonbury set has secured her as a national treasure in the making.

In Hollywood, it’s Meg Stalter. An actor and Comedian who is starring in the biggest show of the summer/year? It’s Lena Dunham’s long anticipated return. Megan is the desire of many (attractive) men in the show, and is scantily clad in a wealth of sex scenes, where we are repeatedly shown her being the focus of the pleasure. Five years ago a show like this could not have been allowed without making her size the main focus of the entire show. It would have to be punchlines, plot lines and a hurdle to overcome. In Too Much, her weight is not a factor. The word “fat” is said once in passing, with no emphasis behind it when quoting a pathetic internet troll. She is not a fat woman in love, in life, in pursuit. She is just a woman, alive. Imagine that.

Notably, in all her press, she is also not being asked about her weight. It’s hardly been mentioned while she has been on the world stage relentlessly for the past month. Nobody cares. It’s by far the least interesting thing about her. She’s beloved, hilarious, dynamic, confident and hot.

In sports, it’s Olympian Ilona Maher rising the ranks of popularity. Bringing with her an even more rebellious body than a fat one. A more threatening shape. A tall, muscular, strong body. The only men crying over her body online are predictably… not athletic at all. The rest of the men and women in her comments are slobbering all over themselves. Landing her a spot on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and setting her apart from everyone else. She has met the body shaming she has received with a defiant promise to women that there is nothing cooler and hotter than being strong. She makes it look amazing, and her continued excellence in sports is a reminder of the lie that a number on a scale determines health. Her BMI is probably off the charts, because the BMI is fucking nonsense, designed by someone with no medical background, and doesn’t account for muscle and bone density, which is considerably heavier than fat.

Olympian Ilona Maher.

Also rising up the pop charts and taking over social media, is Renee Rapp. Curvaceous, hardly wears make up, sports an image rarely aligned with the male gaze, but she’s unbelievably and undeniably sexy. She has this vitality to her. You can tell she is amused that anyone would think she should care about how she looks. It feels important to say, she’s a lesbian. So even more immune, or repulsed even, by the male gaze. And yet women of all sexualities, are flocking towards her, in no small part because they love the way she looks, moves, dresses, and the energy she puts forth.

Drew Afuolo has amassed a GINORMOUS online following, and now has a best selling book, with a tall, muscular and curvy Samoan build. Her presence is so far into defiance, I daresay it is spiteful. She rejects every single element of performing the stereotype of femininity. She’s a straight woman, with a boyfriend, who has broken up with misogyny and is setting women free online. No filters. No cute angles. No apology. She blazes through the screen and people are suddenly gathering in the millions.

Drew Afuolo with her widely adored book, Loud.

Chappell Roan dresses like a drag queen and makes songs about being a lesbian, and is despised by many straight men… which again has made her popularity sky rocket even amongst straight women. She may have had the most explosive rise in pop history.

Chappell Roan winning her thousandth award this year.

Billie Eillish, briefly caved to a tsunami of male online bullying around her body, and understandably altered her no fucks given appearance to the epitome of all of the possible fucks given, by losing a lot of weight at speed and posing in lingerie, dressed as Marilyn Monroe for Vogue. It was a blip. She has since, quietly slipped back to her comfortable stage attire, and looks happy and confident again. A light had gone out in her eyes before. You could see the self subjugation was taking its toll… upon her return a power and autonomy emanated from her unlike anything we had seen before.

billie then and now

Emma Thompson, Jennifer Coolidge, Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep remain our favourite actresses.

The thread that connects all these women is not their body fat percentage. It’s their defiance. Their sheer dedication to their craft. Their bodies are not a gimmick, or a talking point. Their bodies are not trends or talking points. Their bodies are vessels of pleasure, energy and vitality. They know they are all too good at what they do, to have to pander to an insecure patriarchal beauty standard set by men, who do not themselves live up to such standards. They are better at what they do FOR that decision to not allow their bodily “perfection” to be the focus. They are spending those hours, weeks, months and years putting in their 10,000 hours to outlast these callous, dangerous trends.

IMAGINE HOW MUCH BETTER WE WOULD ALL BE AT LITERALLY EVERYTHING, INCLUDING FIGHTING FOR OUR FUCKING FREEDOM IF WE WEREN’T CONSTANTLY THINKING ABOUT OUR BODIES AND FACES?!

We are robbing ourselves for people who want to steal our energy, light, innovation, joy and spirit. We are flushing it all down the toilet. We are standing next to each other normalizing and encouraging this behavior in each other. We are turning it into casual banter. We are cosigning this obsession, even though we all know how ridiculous, destructive and unfair it is. We are participating in generational gaslighting that this is ok. We are passing it onto our daughters and nieces. We are WORST OF ALL offering men the permission to hold us to such standards.

We are willfully standing in line to all be homogenized into the same face and body. All of our uniqueness stripped away to look like dollies.

Subconsciously, we can spiritually feel, once the compliments plateau, that this is a little off. That’s why we are gravitating en masse to women who look FREE.

Body Positivity was tricky for some, because while a brilliant movement in theory, it still kept us locked into thinking about our motherfucking bodies. “I love my thighs” is all well and good, but why are you thinking about your thighs at all, when there is this big brilliant world out there to experience and conquer? Orgasms to have? Memories to make? It was navel gazing, and sanctimonious and disingenuous to many women, and I think it pushed people away.

It covered the symptom, it didn’t address the CAUSE, which was “why do we have to love our hate our bodies at all?” There is nothing funnier or more meaningless than bodies. Genitals are hilarious. Elbows and toes are ridiculous. How did we allow ourselves and each other to care this much?

They knew we had bigger fish to fry, so they took away our strength to carry the apparatus. We have been distracted, diverted and drained. How have we become such active participants in this.

The new cool is neutrality. It’s comfort. It’s fun.

Simping for the patriarchy is out. Energetic rebellion and individuality is back in.

NO MORE UNIFORMS FOR WOMEN. NO MORE UNIFORMS FOR WOMEN.

We the people, have the power to overthrow the media, and turn this trend into the norm.

We tell ourselves that we must follow the rules or we will become invisible. But CMAT, Billie, Lola Young, Lizzo, Ilona Maher, Renee Rapp, Meg Stalter, Lena Dunham, Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson etc.. are being plastered all over the world. They’ve never been more visible. More celebrated. More championed.

Maybe just maybe, we love these women so much because they have exposed the lie once and for all.

Women are standing at a crossroads in history right now. Our rights being stripped. Our vote on the chopping block next. Our safety diminishing in front of our eyes. The Suffragettes went on hunger strike for us to have the things we are losing, while women are busy voluntarily starving themselves out of obedience. I wonder often what they would think if they knew.

Will we ever be free?