In an era dominated by social media and its pervasive influence on body image, Christine Sydelko's story offers a compelling narrative about navigating the complexities of weight, fat-shaming, and the journey toward self-acceptance. Sydelko, who initially gained fame through her humorous and often irreverent content on Vine and YouTube, has become a prominent voice in discussions surrounding body positivity and the harmful effects of online criticism.
The Double Standard Faced by Fat People
Our bodies are no one's business but our own, yet it can seem like the chorus of people weighing in on others' bodies is louder than ever. In a string of recent tweets, comedian and YouTuber Christine Sydelko pointed out that the constant chorus of people talking about your body is the worst part of being fat. Christine tweeted that fat people "can't ever win" because there's always a group of naysayers ready to tear you down. "The worst part about being fat is you can’t ever win with people: you wear sweats and people say you’re wearing it to hide your body, dress nicely and people say you can’t pull it off, eat unhealthy food and people call you a pig, eat healthy food and people say why do you bother," she wrote.
We've seen this so many times. In March, a woman said people yelled insults at her and fat shamed her as she was eating ice cream. When Nike finally released its plus size line of athletic clothing, people called it "promoting an unhealthy lifestyle." Just like Christine said, fat people can't win - and they shouldn't have to. Fat bodies are just as valid as skinny bodies and people shouldn't be made to feel like they can't enjoy their lives, eat how they want to, dress how they want to or anything else because of their body size.
The Infuriating Excuses for Fat-Shaming
And when fat people call out the fact that their bodies are being policed, Christine noted that the excuses people give for doing it are just as infuriating as the act itself. "The 2nd worst part about being fat is when people try to tell you they’re fat shaming you because they’re concerned for your health like yeah I’m sure you really care about my quality of life, guy with obscure anime character as profile picture," she wrote. Exactly. Feigning concern for someone's health while fat shaming them doesn't make it OK. But just as bad, according to Christine? When people tell her she's not fat as a way to be nice. "The 3rd worst thing about being fat is when people think they’re being nice by saying “you’re not fat!!!! 💕” yes I am and THAT’S OKAY." That's the whole point. There's nothing wrong with being fat, and anything fat people decide to do shouldn't be up for judgement or criticism.
Embracing Honesty and Addressing Fat-Shaming
Throughout her career on the internet, Sydelko has developed an especially honest reputation. Despite being overweight herself, Sydelko’s effort to articulate the hurtfulness behind fat-shaming is deeply important. She brings up an extremely valid point: It doesn’t matter what you or your body is like. Body-shaming is, and always will be, upsetting. Regardless if you’re overweight or underweight, it’s rare for anyone to want unsolicited comments online about their body. There’s simply no excuse. Beyond the technicalities of negative comments, Sydelko also brings attention to the fact that, no, body-shaming still isn’t OK even if the person is unhealthy or overweight. Not only has she experienced the detrimental effects of online body-shaming, but she’s also a victim that has come out the other side. The Iranian-American comedian isn’t afraid to be bluntly honest about how hurtful body-shaming is. In result, she’s simultaneously bringing awareness to it while also letting other individuals know they’re not alone. As a person with a large media following, she has a powerful voice and an impact great enough to make a difference.
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Sydelko’s Evolution and Stance on Weight Loss
Even after dealing with harsh trolls online for years, Sydelko has entered a healthier stage of her life. A year prior, she was nonchalantly defending her size by tweeting, “people really cannot stand seeing a fat girl that doesn’t hate herself for being fat.” Sure, call it character development, but through years of enduring constant body-shaming, she has made it clear that her weight loss journey is only for herself. For a long time, Sydelko was perfectly content with her body, and therefore didn’t see a need to lose any weight. In a case of complete body positivity, I can only commend her for upholding the confidence so many individuals lack. If anything, Sydelko’s bluntness regarding her weight is actually pretty inspiring. Despite being on the receiving end of constant body-shaming, she stuck to what she believed in. She didn’t make the ultimate decision to begin her weight loss journey until she was 100 percent ready.
Lessons from Sydelko's Journey
One: If you’re confident in your body, then that’s absolutely fantastic. Other people’s opinions should never matter. Two: Body-shaming is wrong. It will always be wrong. Regardless if the person is healthy, overweight, underweight or average, there is never an instance where body-shaming is warranted.
The Broader Context of Body Image and Pop Culture
In a web-obsessed culture where body-shaming content creators and social media influencers is the norm, Christine Sydelko is attempting to alter the weight-loss narrative. The 24-year-old Viner-turned-YouTuber initially captivated social media through the careless and, at times, reckless vibes she portrayed. Vlogs uploaded alongside her former sidekick Elijah Daniel typically depicted Sydelko as a wild character, with most of her appearances influenced by alcohol, drugs or an oddly intense passion for fast-food chains. As a result, Sydelko soon became the butt of body-shaming jokes galore. For a while, it seemed as though she embraced the persona in a possible effort to deflect the negative comments. In 2016, she released a parody song called “Fat Girl.” She even made an appearance in Katy Perry’s “Swish Swish” video, with her presence being used as one big controversial fat joke. Christine Sydelko and Elijah Daniel vlogged together from 2015 until early 2018. Recently, though, Sydelko has parted creatively with Daniel and has been posting videos of her own interests. In turn, she’s become frankly honest about the harsh effects of online fat-shaming as well as her own effort to lose weight and get healthy. It’s a well-warranted venture, especially for those who have had some hand in body-shaming.
The Perilous Path of Pop Stardom: A Parallel with Katy Perry
Photo illustration by Slate. Nothing unites everyone on the internet quite like a shared villain, but the woman who sang “I Kissed a Girl” certainly seemed like an unlikely candidate. No longer! It’s pretty easy to make fun of Katy Perry lately, so much so that even the Wendy’s X account has been dunking on her. “Can we send her back,” Wendy’s replied to a post in April about Perry’s participation in a Jeff Bezos-funded minuteslong trip to space. Consider, too, a typical scene from her new “Lifetimes” tour. Starting in Mexico, crisscrossing the United States, Canada, and Europe before finishing in Abu Dhabi, this is her first tour in seven years. stops, in Oklahoma City. The show was well attended and still undeniably awkward, like the part when Perry invited an 11-year-old onstage to perform with her. Perry presented the girl with her shoe, which looked as if it were trapped in a hurricane of cotton candy. “Want some?” she asked, pulling off a piece of what did seem to be real candy. The kid stared back at her, confused and overwhelmed, unsure if she was supposed to … eat this famous woman’s shoe? During the fan-choice portion of the show, a QR code flashed on the screen for audience members to pick which deep-cut track they wanted Perry to sing. The link didn’t work for me or for those around me. “Did you vote?” Perry asked the audience of thousands when she came back out onstage, her eyes wide with disappointment when we yelled back that we had not. “No? Why not? It was the Wi-Fi? It is a brutalizing thing to age as a pop star. For Britney Spears, it meant a public mental-health crisis and a rash of criticism about everything from her nails to her weight to her dancing. For Jennifer Lopez, it meant plenty of conjecture about her marriages, her plastic surgery, her authenticity. For Madonna, it meant years and years (ongoing) of scorn about her looks and sinewy arms and oversexualized stage performance. Her latest album, 143, is her worst-performing record except for her Katy Hudson debut in 2001. It debuted at just sixth on the Billboard charts and slid off the charts after just two weeks. (2010’s Teenage Dream, her greatest critical and commercial success, spent 400 weeks on the charts.) “The material here is so devoid of anything distinguishing that it makes one suspicious it’s a troll or cynical attempt,” noted a 4.5/10 Pitchfork review. Perry, now 40, is at a crossroads. Her albums have been mostly duds, her once ubiquitous videos are increasingly forgotten or just extremely regrettable (a fat girl eats a basketball in the “Swish Swish” video, Jesus Christ), and her time as an American Idol judge served only to make her less relevant. Well, except maybe her misguided venture into space. Even before the launch of her tour, she’s been the butt of an extended joke across the world and across the internet.
Navigating Contradictions and Evolving Humor
Her real trouble, however, started earlier. For her new album, Perry chose to team back up with Dr. Luke, the very same producer sued by Kesha more than a decade ago for sexual assault, battery, and harassment. (They settled out of court in 2023, with Dr. Luke still denying Kesha’s original claims.) He was the same writer-producer she worked with for Teenage Dream, so you could almost see the logic, but the reunion was a particularly poor choice for this album’s theme: Perry’s contemporary songs about female empowerment were in part created with a man who has been accused of disempowering Perry’s female co-workers in one of the worst ways possible. Her support of Kamala Harris’ girlboss political campaign (and Hillary Clinton’s too) felt desultory as a result. Some pop stars live in dualities. Perry lives in contradictions. Lately, people are noticing. To be a pop star is to accept your position as too sincere, too sexy, too silly, too young, too old, just too much. For a while, Perry was able to sidestep this mortification with a deceptively simple trait: a sense of humor. What set 2010 Perry apart wasn’t her big blue eyes or her breasts or her voice, though they were all helpful in launching her into the stratosphere. What made her unique was her ability to make a joke-about herself, about the absurd world around all of us, and even about her audience. Her music was ironic, a jab in the side of men who wanted a pinup doll instead of a real woman, and a friendly wink to girls who knew that they could always be cute but wanted a little bit more than just that. We used to laugh with Perry, with her whipped cream-filled tits, her who, me? Betty Boop sexuality, her loose disdain for men in songs like “Ur So Gay,” a track that has otherwise aged horrendously. There have always been criticisms about whether Perry is a good singer or a good performer, but for a long time, she was undoubtedly a good pop star. The rub is that over time, that sense of humor has been misdirected, misfired, and, eventually, lost entirely. It’s all amounted to a world where there is no room-or need-for a star like Perry. Three years ago at her Las Vegas residency, Perry performed “California Gurls” while perched on man-sized toilet paper rolls as an anthropomorphic turd danced inside a pool-sized orange toilet. It was so, so stupid, but it was still funny, bizarre, and compelling enough to keep watching. These days, Perry is holding a flower in space and crying about it. Katy Perry used to be the one making the joke. Now?
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From Gospel Beginnings to Pop Crossroads
Born to Pentecostal pastors in Santa Barbara, Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was carted around the country as a kid while her parents set up churches. The couple were notoriously strict, allowing the kids to watch only the Trinity Broadcasting Network or conservative news. According to their daughter, her parents’ religiosity bordered on the paranoid: “I was never allowed to call deviled eggs ‘deviled eggs,’ ” Perry told NPR in 2013. She started singing in her family’s church at 13, before releasing her debut as Katy Hudson with a self-titled gospel album. At 17, she moved to L.A. When Perry started out, she was more like Alanis Morissette than Madonna. Footage of Perry’s contemporaneous show in her 2012 documentary Part of Me looks like a Kidz Bop concert rather than a show for grown-ups. Indeed, a lot of Perry’s audience has always been young girls, and so her performance always spoke to them first. Her clothes were candy-coated, her stage was splashed in neons, and she mastered adorkable when that meant something. This year’s “Lifetimes” tour is slightly more mature as a public performance, but only by virtue of being more choreographed, more controlled, and more expensive. Perry plays a futuristic warrior who has to battle through different levels of a video game to defeat an evil technological creature who’s trying to destroy the world. “She’s not a good dancer. She’s not a good singer,” said Levi Taylor, a 32-year-old Katy Kat. “It’s amazing she’s created a career out of not being either of those things because she’s just been herself. I heard Taylor wax poetic about Perry on the sidewalk outside the Paycom Center, in Oklahoma City, an hour before the show. He was giving his friend an impassioned speech about why Perry had brought a flower with her into space: “People don’t get it. It was for her daughter. Her daughter is named Daisy. Taylor, a local clad in psychedelic mushroom earrings and a T-shirt from Perry’s much-maligned and mostly forgotten Smile era (big stan behavior), thinks Perry has just become an easy target. “Katy’s been an artist for 25-plus years. It’s going to be messy,” Taylor told me. At her peak, her songs were perfect summer earworms or propulsive, satisfying ballads. But what also made Perry so fun to watch back during her “I Kissed a Girl” era was how well she seemed to understand the internet outrage machine. She leaned into the agita around her queerbaiting with her lyrics, her music videos, and with her broader persona. In recent Trump-dominated years, the idea of “bimbofication” has gained traction, a kind of intersectional feminism itself in which women and girls reserve the right to be sexy, misandrist, and clever. Back in 2008, Perry’s success was a kind of response to the Paris Hiltons and Heidi Montags of the world, who were bimbo-influencers before it was widely embraced-Perry could be hot and sly. She wasn’t going full #GirlBoss, nor was she burning her bras and demanding equal pay. Not full bimbo, and not quite an intellectual, Perry occupied a complex third position of a guy’s girl and a girl’s girl. Later, her feud with Taylor Swift would obfuscate just how friendly she was to other women, but even they famously made up in a Swift music video while dressed up as a burger and fries.
The Pitfalls of "Purposeful Pop"
The mistake Perry made was when she started trying to teach us a lesson. After a few years playing a ditzy but winking brunette, Perry started to pivot into message-first pop music. 2013’s Prism was still fun and flashy, but with an undertone of needless import. The debut single, “Roar,” was a fight anthem for girls who thought Sara Bareilles’ “Brave” was too aggressive. While still reviewed favorably by critics, Prism was also when fans started to notice some of Perry’s more offensive stunts, like how she shows up in cornrows in her video for “This Is How We Do” while smacking gum. Eventually, she embarked on a mini-apology tour: “I won’t ever understand some of those things because of who I am,” she told DeRay McKesson in 2017. “But I can educate myself, and that’s what I’m trying to do along the way.” It was another in a litany of Perry misfires, including when she dressed up as a geisha for the American Music Awards. Pop music with intention is a fine pursuit, but it falls flat if your history is riddled with myopia. By 2017-during Trump’s first term-Perry tried again, with Witness. When she released “Chained to the Rhythm,” a dance-pop anthem that semi-chastises its audience for seeking distractions from modern-day pain, she dubbed it “purposeful pop.” Most people who listened to it deemed it merely condescending. Witness’ cover says it all: Perry, covering her eyes, her mouth open to reveal a bright blue eyeball in her mouth. Perry said that the record was inspired in part by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss. “There was a lot of noise about me taking a stand because I was a neutral girl for a while,” Perry said of Witness. Perry wanted to still be the funny girl, but she also wanted to be profound. While “Bigger Than Me” was a song supposedly inspired by one of the most devastating political losses in American history (until, well, you know), she was also yukking it up in her visuals. In “Bon Appétit,” Perry is placed in front of a bunch of pastry chefs kneading her ass and showering her in mirepoix. Meanwhile, the video for “Swish Swish” betrays someone who has lost the upper hand in her comedy: Perry and a host of D-list internet celebrities play basketball against a team of burly men, the video periodically interrupted by references to memes and celebrity cameos from Molly Shannon, Rob Gronkowski, and Terry Crews (as well as Nicki Minaj, seemingly green-screened in). The song sucks and the video is perplexing, but worse, it’s routinely cruel toward fat people-in 2017 Perry was still making the kinds of jokes you’d have rolled your eyes at in 2007. It’s not that being a pop-star scold doesn’t work. (Perry’s earlier influence Alanis Morissette did it very well for a while there in the ’90s.) It’s also clear that Perry hasn’t totally lost her grip on what’s funny and campy. It’s that combining the two postures-funny girl, big thinker-means she alienated audiences seeking more substantial art and audiences who just want to laugh and dance. As the culture turned toward something more serious and heady, she wanted to make that pivot too. In hindsight, everything from 2017 seems so heavy and earnest and, frankly, pointless. In the “Eterniti” pit at the “Lifetimes” show in Oklahoma City, the crowd seemed evenly split between 11-year-old girls with their very game parents and 45-year-old men with “Blue Lives Matter” hats. The disparity was confusing until you asked around: At this particular stop, the foundation Vet Tix had gifted more than 1,000 veterans discounted tickets to the show-around $4 a pop for many of them. “That usually means it’s not selling well,” a Vet Tix beneficiary serenely told me after Rebecca Black, Perry’s opener, left the stage. (He called her “discount Sabrina Carpenter,” which his wife evidently did not like. The venue expected 10,000 attendees in its 15,000-person arena, and even though many of the concertgoers were adult men with no knowledge of the Perry catalog, the thousands of preteen and teenage girls in the crowd made for an earsplitting audience. Throughout the Paycom Center, girls were dressed up either in Taylor Swift runoff clothes (white cowboy boots, bedazzled dresses, denim jackets, and friendship bracelets-I’m sure Perry would love that) or in Perry cosplay. But even those showing up in their Friday-night best couldn’t quite muster up much enthusiasm for Perry when asked. A group of eight work friends had come to the show together in matching “Lifetimes” shirts. They still wouldn’t admit to being big fans. “We just thought it was fun,” one of them told me while waiting in line to take a photo in front of a 6-foot-tall illuminated Katy Perry installation. Several attendees had gotten their tickets that day, citing the cheap price. A 17-year-old had come with her mom and sister, seemingly dressed up for the occasion in a sequin skirt and a sweep of blush. Despite being on her way to a Katy Perry concert, she rolled her eyes into oblivion at my idiotic questions about why she liked Katy Perry. “I don’t really,” she said. “It’s just, like, something to do.” Her mom had gotten their tickets that day, for around $60 each, up in the nosebleeds. No one here, for example, was especially enamored of Perry’s space expedition. “My husband is a pilot, and I know how much work that takes,” one woman told me, walking toward the merch line for a $50 tank top. “She’s not an astronaut.” Two 11-year-old girls with front-row seats, vibrating with excitement over their first concert, were still unimpressed about the jaunt to space. “It was stupid,” one said, adjusting her baby-pink iridescent T-shirt. It’s worth comparing the Perry we got in interviews from a decade ago with the Perry we got in her post-space exploration interview earlier this spring. Perry in 2015, when interviewed about her forthcoming Super Bowl appearance, cutely quoted Marshawn Lynch, saying, “I’m just here so I don’t get fined.” Meanwhile, postspace Perry was speaking in a word salad so impossible to understand that you have to read the whole thing to even wrap your head around its meaninglessness: “I feel super connected to love. This experience has shown me you never know how much love is inside of you, how much love you have to give, and how loved you are until the day you launch.” She…
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