VLOG: That time I Invaded a Weight Loss Casting

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On June 18th I went to a weight loss casting to show not only the casting directors but the other participants that weight loss is not the only option to being fat. You can be fat and happy. Fat and healthy.

11 thoughts on “VLOG: That time I Invaded a Weight Loss Casting”

  1. Great video!! I’m so curious-did those two girls say anything to you after you all left the room? What happened after??

    • Oh! I tried to give them pamphlets that LYBD passes out at events and they walked by ignoring me. When I said “But I thought you wanted to be healthy and love your body!?” They said they didn’t want to look like me and kept walking, they were really angry but not confrontational. The one girl who said she couldn’t go outside because she was fat actually talked to me afterward for about 10 minutes and took a pamphlet. She recognized the body shame that she had but also knew that the other people in the room were full of shit for being so mad at me. Which was great!

      • Oh, I am so so glad one of them took a pamphlet! I remember feeling like that (unable to go outside because of being fat)….it is not a nice way to feel, and I hope this is a step towards self-acceptance for her.

  2. So what you’re saying is it’s OK for you to go into a casting meant to attract the participation of people interested in losing weight and wasting everyone’s time with unsolicited advice (including that classic “I did it, so can you!” argument that fat activists hate)?

    Lovely.

    • Yeah, I can. I can go into a weight loss casting and let people know that their only option isn’t a life filled with self loathing and shame. I’m showing them a different option, I’m giving them a different path. So yeah. It is pretty fucking lovely.

      BTW I don’t know any fat activists that hate the “I did it so can you!” argument, since I have never heard it unless you are talking about the whole I kept the weight off and it never came back. Science doesn’t back that argument. 95% of weight loss attempts fail within 5 years, every person that goes on that show has a 95% chance of that show failing them. Not them failing, that SHOW failing them.

      • Here’s the difference between “showing people a different opinion” and straight up concerned trolling: The troll makes a point of exposing his/her “concern” in a space/venue/forum explicitly created for those who do not share the troll’sl views. It is beyond obvious that the casting call was not directed at you, but at people who do not share _your_ views regarding _their_ bodies.

        So when you make a point of going there, knowing that your opinion is irrelevant to their interests and entirely contrary to the discussions that they go there to have, realize that you’re no better than the concerned trolls that regularly lurk around fat activism blogs to force-feed unsolicited advice.

        Just because you think you’re in the right does not mean you’re not trolling.

      • Yeah, you are pulling the term concern trolling way out of context from what it actually means if you are going to actually make that argument fly. There is a distinct difference between me going to a casting call for a weight loss show, and our community which is a mass of people that supports each other. One is being created by a production company whose main goal is to dehumanize every person who goes onto that show by selling lies and false hopes.

        You can use the term concern trolling all you want but you are using it incorrectly and not for its intended purpose. I went to prove a point and to see what it was like for myself.

        If you have a problem then you know where the door is, I hope it hits you really hard on the way out.

    • An accusation that she’s trolling is distinct from accusing her of “concern trolling”. Concern trolling necessarily comes from a place of privilege. One could suggest that ALL trolling is necessarily coming from a place of privileged entitlement, but concern trolling is very explicitly about exploiting the social dynamics of privilege and cultural power. Claiming that someone is concern trolling on behalf of a disenfranchised view-point is, thus, necessarily untrue.

      While I would object to fat activists staging the kinds of raids on weight-loss communities that weight loss communities actually HAVE staged on Fat Acceptance discussions, that is clearly not what is happening here. This is not a disruption of a community, but of commerce. This is not silencing voices through agitation, but a protest against those who seek to profit off selling a message of fat shame. If that is not a valid target for protest, then you suggest fat activists simply be forced into a effective silence. Protesting the monied and powerful is absolutely fair game for the disenfranchised. To be sure, the monied and powerful will like to set up rules to define such behavior as off limits, but any oppressed group would do well to ignore such attempts to rule us out of a voice.

  4. I’ve only just found your blog/vlog, and I’m already madly in love with you! A billion years ago I deliberately walked into a weightloss centre here in London, UK. They of course weighed me and asked me how much I wanted to lose. I blinked innocently and said: “Lose weight? Why on earth would i want to do that? I’m trying to gain. I’m a feedee.” It was wonderful just to see their synapses short-circuit and their brains implode. You go, girl. You’re great.

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