Fat Cyborgs: Body Positive Activism, Shifting Rhetorics and Identity Politics in the Fatosphere

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Fat Cyborgs: Body Positive Activism, Shifting Rhetorics and Identity Politics in the Fatosphere FAT CYBORGS: BODY POSITIVE ACTIVISM, SHIFTING RHETORICS AND IDENTITY POLITICS IN THE FATOSPHERE Aimee N. Taylor A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2016 Committee: Kristine Blair, Advisor Michael Arrigo Graduate Faculty Representative Lee Nickoson Sue Carter-Wood © 2016 Aimee N. Taylor All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Kristine Blair, Advisor. “Fat Cyborgs: Body Positive Activism, Shifting Rhetorics and Identity Politics in the Fatosphere” is a project that illuminates how activist groups intersect technology with their activism. I observe and investigate the ways that Fat Acceptance (FA) and Health at Every Size (HAES) supporters and allies build and sustain an activist community online. I do this in order to understand how fat activists negotiate identity and the body online, a space often considered sans corpus. This project involves examining and extrapolating activists' literate and rhetorical practices for creating and sharing knowledge. I am most interested in understanding the ways in which fat activists use the Fatosphere to develop alternatives to oppressive and discriminatory discourses. I explore the issues that are raised by the FA movement, particularly in how FA and HAES takes shape in a subversive way in an online environment. In doing so, I develop a critical skillset to talk about and negotiate the body and its relationship with technology, and in particular, the digital, personal/political heterotopias and affect more positive discourse. iv In loving memory of Jeanne Holbrook, my grandmother and biggest supporter. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation project could not have been completed without support and encouragement from my mother, Kim, and my amazing family, friends, and mentors. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION: CONTEXTS FOR DISCUSSING FAT BODIES ................................. 1 Concerning Fat(ness) ................................................................................................. 1 The Rise of Dominant Fat Rhetoric ........................................................................... 3 Fat Acceptance and Health at Every Size: Developing an Alternative Fat Rhetoric . 5 Fat Studies: Obesity Critique Enters the Academy .................................................... 7 Welcome to the Fatosphere: FA and HAES Online .................................................. 9 Rhetoric Online and the Call for Further Critique ..................................................... 11 Doing the Work of Fat Studies and Considering My Own Biases ............................ 13 (Cyber)Feminism in the Fatosphere ........................................................................... 15 Project Outline ........................................................................................................... 18 Toward More Positive Discourse ............................................................................... 20 ENGAGING WITH FAT RHETORICS: BODY-CENTERED SOCIAL, ACADEMIC, AND TECHNOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS ................................................................................... 22 Being Fat in the World ............................................................................................... 22 Defining Fat is a Sensitive Issue When You’re the Elephant in the Room ............... 23 Fat Studies: The Need for Continuing Critical Inquiry ............................................. 29 New Modes for Fat Studies: Exploring the Fatosphere ............................................. 39 The Fat Cyborgs are Coming ..................................................................................... 45 BUILDING A METHODOLOGY FOR EXPLORING THE FATOSPHERE ..................... 49 Being Lipoliterate: When Did You Know You Were Fat? ........................................ 49 Intervening Technologically ...................................................................................... 50 vii Entering the Fatosphere ............................................................................................. 53 Researching with Purpose in the Digital Realm ........................................................ 54 Adapting, Problematizing, and Questioning: Methodology as Bricolage ................. 56 Accepting Initial Big, Fat Failures ............................................................................. 58 Embracing Bricolaged and Hybrid Data .................................................................... 61 Reading the Web We Weave: Analyzing Social Networks and Hyperlinks ............. 63 Reflective Practices and Ethical Bricolaging ............................................................. 66 Journeying Forward into the Fatosphere .................................................................... 68 CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ACTIVIST PARTICIPATION IN THE FATOSPHERE……… 70 Tracing Ubiquitous Practice: Rhetorical Power in the Mundane .............................. 70 Making Noise on the Web: Cyberactivist Uses for the Internet ................................ 72 Digital Genres for Online Community-Building ....................................................... 81 #RealTalk with a (Former) Fierce Fatty .................................................................... 85 Fat Activists Go to Bed Angry ................................................................................... 89 ONLINE FAT ACTIVISM’S CONTINUING IMPACT ON BODY RHETORICS ………… 92 Changing the Way We See Fat Bodies ...................................................................... 92 Textual Markers of Online Fat Activism ................................................................... 94 Breaking the Internet: #EffYourBeautyStandards and the New Fatosphere ............. 97 All Bodies are Bikini Bodies: The Importance of Normalization ............................. 102 Beyond the Fatosphere: Body Positivity in Public Rhetorics and Pedagogies .......... 104 Changing the Way We See Ourselves ....................................................................... 106 WORKS CITED …………………………………………………………………………… 109 APPENDIX A: HSRB LETTER…………………………………………………………… 117 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 Activist Uses for the Web .......................................................................................... 74 2 Interaction Buttons on Facebook........................ ........................................................ 75 3 FFF after February 2015............. ................................................................................ 89 4 Wordle Representing Language of the Fatosphere..................................................... 92 5 Fatosphere's Common Language.................... ............................................................ 95 6 Holliday's Response to Facebook................................................................................ 101 7 Substantia Jones' The Adipositivity Project................................................................ 103 1 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXTS FOR DISCUSSING FAT BODIES "Everyone is talking about fat people" (Kirkland 398). Concerning Fat(ness) When I was a young girl, around six or seven, I was called into my bedroom by my granny for a talking to—she was “concerned” about my weight. I was active for an asthmatic child with terrible allergies, playing baseball and fishing like all the other village kids that I knew. “Suck in your stomach” and “never wear pants with elastic waistbands” were her favorite phrases to say as I passed by her. “Walk on your tippy toes, stomping makes you sound heavy,” as she puffed away on her cigarette. While she tanned in baby oil with a tri-fold, metallic reflector, I hopped in and out of a flimsy, plastic pool in a one-piece bathing suit that was entirely too short for my torso. I could not have a two-piece bathing suit because, she said, “bikinis ain’t made for your body shape.” At eighteen, she even encouraged me to smoke cigarettes to help curb my hunger. My granny’s concern grew into a years-long endeavor to keep me from gaining weight, which much to her dismay did not succeed. Before this time, though, I did not know that other people thought that I was unhealthy, other than, thanks to genetics, my weak lungs and itchy eyes and skin. I did not know that my body was ugly. I most certainly did not know that I was preparing for a lifetime of shame because I was, and am, fat. Fat is a word that comes fully loaded with meanings. Defining fat is a complicated task because of the deeply political, social, and personal influences on, and impacts of, the term, but fat is always in reference to how a body (either real or imagined) looks. Stemming from the social constructionist notion that language shapes our reality, fat often evokes countless images from media, as well as the imaginer’s own construction of fat. A Google Image search for fat will produce miserable, frowning people, unflattering tabloid snapshots, weight-loss 2 advertisement before-and-after photos, fast food chain customers (often eating), and stills from documentaries and reality television shows. Academic database searches for fat produce studies on the “obesity epidemic,” critical discussions about media and advertising, and, only recently, a handful of articles and book reviews related to Fat Acceptance (FA). Fat immediately implicates a body housing living cells, but with an apparent excess of them. It is a pejorative term for people with too much visible adipose tissue,
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