Going on the internet without being visually accosted by a Kardashian is like leaving a New York City apartment without spending any money. Nearly impossible.
There are some (many) who have no issue being bombarded with images of the cat-suit clad women who are becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between. Others who wish to avoid them at all costs.
I fall into a grayer, third party. Curious enough to click, not quite curious enough to read all the way through. Online enough (too online) to have capitalized repeatedly on their popularity when it has served me, My HuffPost author page from a certain era devoted mostly to their collective collection of sheer shirts. A bit later, as my own body image improved, I lamented their toxicity to a body positivity movement I’m no longer too convinced of. We grow. We evolve.
But I find myself these days less worried about the young, impressionable people who idolize the famous family and more worried about them. Not that I'm not worried about the impact a self-congratulatory tone over dropping 16 pounds to fit into an occasion dress has on a fan’s psyche. Nor the affinity to repeatedly, unabashedly use skinny as a – or rather the ultimate – compliment.
My redirected concern was brought on by a(nother) Khloe photoshop scandal – this time an image posted by someone, somewhere, in which her body appears warped beyond what’s even physically, biologically possible. The did-she-or-didn’t-she of it all doesn’t matter (she later refuted the claim that she posted the altered image) as much as the familiar reminder of the dire state of our collective body image, regardless of status, income or access.
The runways at fashion month did little to quell the sense of dread. With very few exceptions, the shows this season were devoid of the inclusive body types we’d almost gotten used to in recent seasons past. “Here’s hoping this isn’t just a passing fad,” I ended many articles at that time. The issue is much deeper than fashion or reality television, it’s about rewiring an entire structure with deep, wormy roots in our society and our brains.
That this is coming up during Yom Kippur, when I’m A) too hungry to be nice and B) acutely aware of the ways I may have, in the past, used this day as some sort of sick test of willpower (so far from the point). These women, with their money and their resources to distort your body so far from its natural shape — still dissatisfied.
I cannot recall meeting a single person who is not, in some way, dealing with body image issues. My most confident friends scrutinize over an arm, a leg, a chin in a photo. When does it end?
I don’t know. I’ll tell you that I worked out nearly every single day in the before COVID times and still stood in the mirror every morning sucking in my stomach just to see what could be. As though there was some moral failing in being able to see the possibilities but unable to get there. I was never satisfied.
I have a pretty hefty sum of credit card debt (you may have heard me talk about it incessantly both on the internet and or in real life or both). Now, it feels like the real work that needed to be done could only happen when I confronted the ways, both financial and otherwise, that I had not taken care of myself more broadly. You can’t 7:00 AM HIIT class in a sweaty SoHo basement away a history of self-loathe.
Recently, I started swimming. It’s a much gentler, simpler, more meditative form of movement. I don’t complain about how I don’t want to go or how I just “have to get through it so I feel better at the end.” I get up and go gladly each morning and I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about it in any other way. The mental health benefits feel just as good if not better as they did from the exercise I used to punish myself with.
I don’t believe any of the Kardashians have any financial debt. So maybe this specific observation is not applicable. And, of course, I am not forced to see my image constantly reflected back at me on a global scale in a way that I'm sure has psychological implications far beyond what I felt one time when people were briefly angry that I got my nails done on TikTok.
But I think on a day like today, even if it isn’t your new year, that now is as good a time as any to reevaluate and reconsider the things you’re doing that are for you. Really for you. And not for the person or the body or the image you think you’re supposed to have or be.
Anyway, time to eat some bagels. If any of this doesn’t make sense, remember it was WWF (written while fasting). XO
Jamie AF
I love you so very much for who you are but more than that for what you enlighten me with every time you write something!!
YF#1F
I am SO at my end wits with this horrible body image stuff. Seeing the Kardashians everywhere is exhausting and so unhelpful. Where is reality?