The New Skinny Tyranny

After a short lived push for body positivity and size diversity, our collective obsession with thinness has returned with renewed intensity. Social media has been a fast-track for this new trend, reaching audiences that traditional tabloids couldn’t, with a cohort of skinny influencers profiting from body aesthetics. The first of many such figures to catch my eye is the now-infamous Liv Schmidt, who has cultivated a space for unfiltered discourse about physical appearance. Her content ranges from nutrition tips to pilates clips and inspirational advice for “living slim in the city.” At first I was intrigued-- her messaging was refreshingly honest and her approach to lifestyle appeared fundamentally sound. But as her videos and those of similarly positioned content creators began to dominate my feed, things took a concerning turn. Despite my relative immunity to body-centric content, the language and tone was so overtly shaming that even I was shocked. Unlike the body positivity movement, which sought to remove shame from conversations around weight, this new wave of content embraces it, using humiliation as motivation. Schmidt’s provocations, despite their shocking nature, are received surprisingly well. She dispenses advice on how to “enjoy vacation without looking like a whale by day 3” and shares preferred techniques for addressing when she sees her face “looking chubby (like Peppa Pig).” She often uses pig emojis to reference fatness, among other tactics, while consistently eliciting enthusiastic reactions from her audience. Liv Schmidt seems to have mastered the art of being so outrageous that she transcends criticism. Even I had to chuckle at a video of her inflating like a balloon and flying out of a window with the caption, “me bloating after one sip of alcohol.”

This shift in content reflects a broader cultural change, one that extends beyond just body image and seeps into how people are communicating and expressing themselves. Recent years have witnessed a discernable rejection of traditional social niceties—restraint, civility, and measured language are increasingly dismissed as performative and pretentious. In their place, bluntness, confrontation, and even outright rudeness have become markers of authenticity and authority. This attitude spreading in online spaces seems to be tied to its resurgence in politics.

The rise of Republicanism comes with a marked rejection of Democrat elitist political culture. Trump himself pioneered this change through his aggressive and unpolished approach to expression. Today, his methodologies have been accepted as politically viable, even at their most outrageous, as seen in reactions to his treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. In this environment, social capital no longer derives from intelligence or nuance but from dominance and the capacity to command attention—no matter the cost.

The conflation of bluntness and aggression to honesty and moral rectitude represents a fundamentally inverted approach to communication. With body-related content, this mindset facilitates advice that is not only subpar but has immense potential to harm viewers. While it can and should be argued that excessive attention has been given to individual sensitivities in recent years, restraint and moderation remains important for any movement to retain its quality and credibility. The current pendulum swing towards blunt, unfiltered messaging has produced a deluge of content devoid of thoughtful consideration beyond its capacity to attract attention. The result is that a potentially beneficial movement for higher standards of health and discipline is turning into a mean joke. In this climate, the conversation around health and wellness is no longer about genuine well-being but about performing superiority.