People find inspiration in the darndest places. Like these ads to inspire more women to breastfeed… by showing men doing it. Now, I’m not knocking these brave dudes but I’m just saying that as a lady with mammaries all these ads make think are “Yeah but you can’t… so why are you confusing that baby with a hairy nipple?”
We’ve all done it. Whether it’s sneaking a peek at the treadmill readout from the person next to us and upping our speed a bit to match theirs or seeing someone deadlift three times their body weight and deciding to give the DL another try or even seeing someone proudly wearing a bright, weird outfit and using that to craft our own bright, weird outfit, taking inspiration from what other people say and do is as normal as looking in the bowl after you go to the bathroom. Sometimes we don’t want to admit we do it but nevertheless we all do.
And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking inspiration from what’s around us. But the advent of social media has changed the rules a bit – upped the stakes – when it comes to talking about what inspires us. Three recent examples have really shown how publicly thanking people for being inspiring can go horribly awry.
Last Friday, Closer ran a Facebook message that someone had posted about a “fatty” they saw running. Closer posted it under “inspiration” – “We have to admit that, after reading that, we’re suddenly feeling a LOT more inclined to lace up our running shoes and give pounding those pavements a go!” – but many of their readers saw it as anything but.
“To the fatty running on the Westview track this afternoon:
You, whose feet barely lift off the ground as you trudge around the track. You, who keeps to the outside lane, footslogging in the wrong direction. You, who stops for water breaks every lap, and who would probably stop twice a lap if there were bleachers on both sides. You, whose gaze drops to your feet every time we pass. You, whose sweat drenches your body after you leave, completing only a single, 20-minute mile.
There’s something you should know: You f**ing rock.
“Every shallow step you take, you carry the weight of more than two of me, clinging to your bones, begging to be shaken off. Each lap you run, you’re paying off the debt of another midnight snack, another desser, another beer. It’s 20 degrees outside, but you haven’t let that stop your regimen. This isn’t your first day out here, and it certainly won’t be your last. You’ve started a journey that lasts a lifetime, and you’ve started it at least 12 days before your New Year’s resolution kicks in. You run without music, and I can only imagine the mantras running through your mind as you heave your ever-shrinking mass around the next lap. Let’s go, feet. Shut up, legs. F**k off, fat. If you’d only look up from your feet the next time we pass, you’d see my gaze has no condescension in it.
“I have nothing but respect for you. You’ve got this.”
The person was obviously trying to be encouraging but anything that starts with “to the fatty” is bound to be problematic. But the real issue – that this person was essentially writing the runner an entire story line that had nothing to do with who the person really was and everything to do with who the writer wanted them to be – became starkly apparent when the “inspiration” caught wind of the post and wrote back.
“To the man who judged me on the Westview track,
I see that you wrote a Facebook status about my journey and me. It described me on the track and from what I gather it was supposed to inspire after a little insult. It went viral.
So let me tell you what I think of your post…
First off I would suggest you not judge me at all. You have my journey all messed up. My journey did not start twelve days ago. It started over a year ago. You see me at 300 pounds but what you do not know is I was over 400 pounds. You did not know this because I was embarrassed to run in front of other people. So I would come to this track when no one else was around. Sometimes I would go for a couple of minutes. Sometimes I would go for four minutes. It all started when I went for 48 seconds my first time running. Yes, I timed it. Yes I was upset. And yes, I promised it would never happen again.
When I was over 400 pounds and decided to make the commitment to change my life I would wake up and look in the mirror. I would find at least 100 negative things about my body. All the descriptions you made about me…I was even harder on myself.
Then after losing a few pounds I looked in the mirror again. I did not look at my body. I looked in my eyes. I saw determination and character. I saw a man who did not want to be an inspiration for others but one for himself. I was that man.
Your whole post insults me like no end. I do not eat midnight snacks or drink beer. You probably think all “fat” people do this. Well, we do not. I ate better than most at 300 pounds. In fact, I have not had a drink in well over 20 years.
I look down because I see you stare at me all the time. I do not want to give you the satisfaction of looking into my eyes. There are people who were supporting me all along. Not people who made up fictional parts of my life.
I also do not listen to music because I hear everything. I hear the laughter and I hear the snickers. They are never about me except they always are. I have been overweight my whole life. I have not had my blinders on for some time.
There are no mantras going through my head. When I run it is clear. I have no anger or happiness. I am there to complete a task. I am good at that.
You fooled people on Facebook but you have not fooled me. You do not have respect for my journey because you do not know it. I have told my story to thousands of people. I have been told that I have inspired many as well. Not because of the way I run but because of the person I am. Not because of my 200 pound weight loss but because of the words that I have had inside for years.
Many of us have been that person being judged and then twirled into some weird inspirational story. I was judged at the gym at 400 pounds. I was laughed at in Panera at 350 pounds. I was embarrassed at 300 pounds and honestly I was the same person at 195 pounds as I was at 420 pounds.
I tell people now that weight loss should not make you love yourself more. That is the mistake I made.
So next time you look at me on that track do yourself a favor. Look away. I do not look like I once did. I do not want to be your inspiration or your motivation.
I am a runner. I was a runner at 420 pounds and I am a runner today.
And runners do one thing.
They run. Not write about other runners.
Regards,
Tony Posnanski”
(Note: I have known Tony Posnanski from blog land for several years now and love his site The Anti-Jared! But I’m actually not sure if he’s responding to this as the actual person called out in the Facebook post or just what he would have said to that person had it been him. And maybe it doesn’t matter. Either way it’s awesome.)
A second example of this issue blew up XOJane a couple of weeks ago when a self-described “skinny white girl” wrote about taking a yoga class with a “heavyset black woman” called “IT HAPPENED TO ME: THERE ARE NO BLACK PEOPLE IN MY YOGA CLASSES AND I’M SUDDENLY FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE WITH IT”:
“Because I was directly in front of her, I had no choice but to look straight at her every time my head was upside down (roughly once a minute). I’ve seen people freeze or give up in yoga classes many times, and it’s a sad thing, but as a student there’s nothing you can do about it. At that moment, though, I found it impossible to stop thinking about this woman. Even when I wasn’t positioned to stare directly at her, I knew she was still staring directly at me. Over the course of the next hour, I watched as her despair turned into resentment and then contempt. I felt it all directed toward me and my body.
I was completely unable to focus on my practice, instead feeling hyper-aware of my high-waisted bike shorts, my tastefully tacky sports bra, my well-versedness in these poses that I have been in hundreds of times. My skinny white girl body. Surely this woman was noticing all of these things and judging me for them, stereotyping me, resenting me—or so I imagined.”
I thought about how that must feel: to be a heavyset black woman entering for the first time a system that by all accounts seems unable to accommodate her body. What could I do to help her? If I were her, I thought, I would want as little attention to be drawn to my despair as possible—I would not want anyone to look at me or notice me. And so I tried to very deliberately avoid looking in her direction each time I was in downward dog, but I could feel her hostility just the same. Trying to ignore it only made it worse.
I got home from that class and promptly broke down crying.”
Your essay about your emotional crisis triggered by the presence of a “heavyset black woman” in your yoga class was pretty tough for me to read. You may not even be aware of the level to which you dehumanized the Unnamed Black Woman behind you. You see, unless you are an FBI profiler trained in reading facial expressions, there’s a chance you imagined her “panic and despair.”
You crossed every line from describing your experience into assuming hers, despite having had absolutely no direct contact with her. Unless you have some sort of futuristic closed-captioning software in your brain, you took every liberty in identifying her thought process and went above and beyond by declaring yourself the victim of her obvious-in-your-mind “resentment and contempt.”
You see, I don’t think either of you have anything but good intentions, and yet you are using them to pave the road to hell. Further enacting a societal ill in your efforts to call it out is the worst kind of white privilege. It is why we need messages of progress but the messenger matters. Otherwise, we’re left with something like this:
Hey, Oppressed Person, I feel bad for you but what’s most important right now is that we make it all about Me, even though it is your time of need. How do I know it is your time of need? Why, because you’re not me, of course! You’re you and that is Less Than Me. But I’m thinking of you! So let’s get back to Me and My Thoughts now…
On one hand, I can definitely sympathize with the need to make everything about Me as that’s basically what I do here, right? Me, me, me, research, me, depression, you, me, me, me, fitness, me. But Glenn’s point was very well made. Especially when it comes to using other people as motivation for us to do something.
All of this made me think of the time some dude wrote about the Gym Buddies and I being “inspirational” to him at the gym on the Missed Connections section of Craigslist. He basically thanked us for being good wank material and called us “fun” “scenery”. It was nowhere near as bad as either of the two examples mentioned above but it still made us feel like crap and had the added bonus of making us look over our shoulders constantly for the next few weeks. I try really hard to choose not to take offense at things, especially where none is meant, but in this instance we definitely didn’t feel inspirational. We felt used, and in the worst way.
As someone who loveLOVEloves giving compliments to strangers – and having stuck my foot in my mouth more than once doing so – I know I am NOT the authority in this area. But as I thought about this, I came up with a few questions to ask myself before posting about someone else being inspiring. And if any of you find these useful, even better!
Questions to ask yourself before posting something “inspiring”
1. Have you had more than a passing conversation with this person? And if so, did you ask them if you could use their story and/or tell them you find them inspiring? So many of these little slights and confusions and I-meant-well’s could be straightened out with 5-minutes of getting to know the person.
2. Are they a celebrity/public figure? You get a pass on the “talking to them” part and also, many celebs craft careful public images with the help of stylists, PR reps, agents etc with the intent it be put out into the public sphere for discussion.
3. Is it kind? No, really, if there is any “backhand” to your compliment then keep it to yourself.
4. Are you humblebragging? Are you using the person’s “inspirational story” to point out a flaw in them that makes your strengths look better by comparison? Don’t.
If all your answers are “yes” (except for #4) then praise away! People ARE inspirational. They are brave and beautiful and kind and generous, often in the most surprising ways. In the end I think it’s important to remember that you can think whatever you want – and be inspired by whatever moves you! – but that doesn’t mean you need to say it.
Where do you guys typically draw your inspiration from? When’s the last time you were inspired by someone in real life? How would you have responded to the “fatty” letter or the yoga letter? Any q’s to add to my list?
Love this post. I wrote a post years ago about my BFF finishing her first marathon (with her permission). It was inspiring to me but I dont think that necessarily came across as well as it could have in what I wrote.
I have had opportunity to be involved in civic/provincial political issues. In a committee discussion about treading carefully regarding opposing an aboriginal economic strategy, I pointed out that if a member country petitioned to include “blind-folded, one-handed javelin catching” as an Olympic event it would not matter which nationality proposed it, it would still be a bad idea. And as the plan we were opposing was a bad idea, race really was not the issue.
Only the merits of the plan were at issue.
A white pull rank-take charge committee member slapped me on the back and said: “Darwin, you may well be an Indian but you think like a white man.”
He really did mean that as an enthusiastic compliment, with a dual purpose of putting me in my place, so the whole demeaning thing was also intended.
I smiled and said: “Qualities of character are neither race nor gender specific. They are simply qualities of character available to all.”
I believe that I tend to compliment qualities of character, hopefully appropriately.
My consistent inspirations are my parents and family…my children.
I also like stories, images, of courage and determination and endurance in the face of overwhelming circumstance, be it in nature or people.
I like to get to know people’s stories…and to take time to do so. It takes time for people to share what they want…and it takes time for them to want to share also.
I read that skinny-white-yoga-chick thing when it came out, and I thought it was one of the most outrageously twisted things I’ve ever read on the internet, and that’s saying a lot.
I don’t think (hope) I’ve ever done that.
I had the same reaction to the top photo Charlotte, except it also seemed a little patronizing.
And yeah, that was all cringe inducing. The last one… Yikes. What did the woman’s race have to do with her ability to do yoga at all? Her body not being made for it? That’s silly. Just yikes.
I don’t know-maybe just let people you don’t know be the ones to start the conversation of how you should encourage them, if at all? And keep it to yourself when you draw motivation from being better than someone else, which is really what these come down to. (Not saying competition is a bad thing… But gloating can be. Especially if you just decided to make the track or yoga class a contest, without these people consenting to the contest experience.)
I think the problem with these sorts of “inspirational” stories is that they are dehumanizing and de-individualizing (is that a word? probably not) the subjects of the stories. The authors assume for whatever reason that they know enough, have enough information to tell the story of the person so “inspires them” (and in their heads I guess they do since they make it all about them.) One of the things that drives me the most nuts about existing in a larger body in the yoga and fitness world is that many people insist on defining my experience for me – at times to such an extreme where I can’t get a word in to talk about what it’s actually like or even more infuriatingly being told that I’m wrong about my own experience! Both the author of the xo jane article and the guy at the track are guilty of imposing a simplistic story on these two complex human beings with complex stories and making them a stereotype that may or may not have anything to do with reality. When you impose an experience on others you take away their agency to tell it themselves and that’s such a violation. Ugh.
Being told your wrong about your own experience! YEP! I’m also really really uncomfortable being told I am an ambassador for fat people or I speak for fat people whether I like it or not. NOOO!! I’m just a crazy mixed up gal trying to figure things out for herself. I know it’s cool right now to be unique, but I really am and I suspect everybody else is too.
Oh my gosh, those posts were so cringe worthy, I can’t imagine writing them let alone posting them for all to see. I tend to get my inspiration randomly… when I go to the gym before the sun is even out, I look at all the people who are leaving and think, “Look, they got up an hour before me at LEAST and they got their butts to the gym. You can DO this.”
The problem with assuming yourself “better” (as the authors of these two posts have done) is that there will always be people who are stronger/faster/fitter who can look at them with the condescending “good for you!” that they’ve doled out to others.
My journey is my journey and your journey is yours–seems we should just appreciate the miracles our bodies perform for us every day.
Plus, calling someone a “fatty” is horrible. Name calling is just mean. We’re to believe he has nothing but respect for him???
Ugh. Both of those posts those people wrote are awful. I think anytime you claim to know or understand something about someone you are setting yourself up for trouble. Plus, those assumptions by themselves are disrespectful. You haven’t taken the time to know anything about the person but are instead imposing your own suppositions on them.
A few years ago we got a new principal at my son’s school. He told the parents of the special needs students that he wanted to meet with us. We all thought it nice he wanted to introduce himself to our small segment of the school but he immediately lost all that goodwill when he stood up and started the meeting by telling us he knew exactly how it felt to have a child with special needs because his son is gifted. The air literally went out of the room. He earnestly thought he was relating to us somehow and instead he angered the entire room.
Assuming things is never a good thing.
As I read Tonys response, I knew it was him before you said his name! Teresa Tapp inspires me! So do you, frankly.
I don’t usually use profanity, but WTF are these people thinking?
For any aspiring yogis who get the impression from their studio that yoga is for “skinny white women,” my advice is to find a studio you feel comfortable in! Yoga is for EVERYONE. One studio near my house is filled with young, hip, thin women who are concerned with their image and look askance at anyone who doesn’t have the ‘yoga look.’ The studio I attend is a few hundred yards away, but attracts people of all ages, genders, shapes, and races. The studio focuses on the human aspects of yoga that we all experience, and celebrates each student bring themselves to practice with whatever body, skills, and experience they have. This is the kind of nurturing practice I want to be a part of. And as a ‘skinny white woman’ I can tell you I have just as many issues with my practice as anyone else.
Wow. Those have to be 2 of the most offensive things I’ve read on internet in a while. That’s gross. The kind of gross that makes me feel kind of dirty after reading. It’s made even worse in that I guess they think they’re being… helpful? Insightful?
What about just going up to people and asking, “Hey, have you been to this yoga class before?” It’s really not hard and I say that as someone who has a really hard time talking to strangers.
The cynical side of me really thinks those cringe worthy blog posts aren’t just oversights on the authors’ parts. They are calculated. What will get you views? Use the word “fatty” in your title. Or write something that brings up race (when it’s not necessary) and when the backlash hits play the “woe is me” card when you have to change your moniker.
I saw the “fatty” thing before (or another version of it) and my eyes had barely stopped rolling from it when you brought the “yoga story” to my attention. WOW. Just WOW! Yoga post author really needs to be reminded that in yoga, you focus on what’s going on on YOUR mat and forget the rest. Even if there is the perfect trifecta (newbie, fat, minority) in your entitled presence.
As an obese person I have found that I had to learn to remind myself that the person saying something offensive to me, or trying to do an intervention with me even though they don’t know me, are the ones with a problem and it isn’t my job to try to counsel them.
What I find very hard to deal with is when you do reveal yourself to a person and give them all sorts of personal information and they still come back and suggest you spend all your time sitting on a couch eating junk food. Some people are just so resistant to any evidence that does not support their theories. I really hate when I find I have wasted my time and energy this way and often you just can’t ditch these people afterward without being harsh.
“Inspiring” articles is another achilles heel as I sometimes find myself drinking the Kool-Aid being sold to me and some of the messages are very harmful.
Amen! Words of wisdom.
Thinking like this makes working out/ acitve living exclusively the realm of skinny people and people trying to become skinny. It ignores the idea that a person of bigger size may want to be active for any number of reasons. None of them having anything to do with fitting in, losing weight, “Increasing self esteem” as code for getting skinny.
We can all be active regardless of size.
I’m pretty sure the XOJane post was supposed to be satire. Very poorly executed, tasteless satire. Some of the comments suggest that, anyway.
Hoo boy, this is such a thorny issue! Because if someone inspires you, it IS partly about you. But then it’s very easy to make a whole lot of assumptions about the other person. I recently wrote a letter to someone because something they did was not only a huge inspiration to me (and to a whole bunch of others) but because they are someone who has inspired me for nearly 2 decades and I wanted to say thank you. I HOPE that’s what I did; I tried really hard not to make any assumptions about them or their life. But you never know.
However…having said that, reading the above posts about the runner and the yogi made me want to crawl out of my skin. Because it’s not ALWAYS about us. I think the thing to remember is that, yes, we are each of us the main character in our own lives, but that doesn’t make anyone else the supporting character in theirs.
Were I to make an assumptive leap myself…I would guess your letter was to Peter Capaldi.
Because you have mentioned him before with un-hidden admiration.
But much like myself I would also guess that you have many such inspiring people who speak to you on a personal level, touches you in a way that…moves you…(is that last bit a line from a song?)
The way I see it, we all play the main character in our own lives AND we play supporting characters in the lives of others.
Peter Capaldi (or whomever) should be very honored to have played a supporting role in your life.
You are correct, Sir! It is indeed PC. 🙂
And yes, there are many. I am indeed fortunate.
I absolutely agree that we are also supporting players.
And thank you!!!!!!
Only speaking the truth in regards to you, milady.
(And I first noted the supporting player aspect as a kid, reading Tom Sawyer with Huck Finn as a supporting player, then reading Huckleberry Finn with Tom Sawyer as a supporting player.)
VERY cool!
The “Fatty” post was so gross–it was basically “lulz fat people exercising”? The level of arrogance in assuming someone else’s story is just sickening. It was circulating on tumblr for a while, and the more I thought about it, the more horrible the it seemed.
“Each lap you run, you’re paying off the debt of another midnight snack, another desser, another beer.” — Since when do all fat people have poor eating habits? Believe it or not, there are many people who are larger despite dining on healthy whole foods, and there are tons of thin people who eat junk all day but have naturally high metabolisms.
Just grrr.
Thank you for this Charlotte!
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I totally agree with the humblebrag sentiment. Notice none of these people ever pick someone they consider a peer or equal to them to use as an example.
Charlotte’s advice was gentle but effective. A lot nicer than I’d be.
In regards to present day fashion, the fitness world has created a craze of certain items such as gym tank tops and yoga pants that are worn as casual wear by many people on a daily basis, whether they attend a gym or not.workout clothes.
I’ve had ‘fat prejudice’ in mind all day today and it was great to find your blog and read everyone’s responses after reading the Closer article. Joy! Especially after seeing that it had 465k likes on facebook!!! The start of my on-line journey tonight was happily researching information on the best way for me (labelled as morbidly obese) to start running when the Closer article caught my eye at the top of the search list (ignoring the possibly offensive/humorous you tube videos at the very top) so I read… After questioning my own thinking I asked my other half to check if I was just being paranoid or in some way in denial about myself. Thankfully, he agreed that it was patronising. I admit I would have frantically searched for another on-line point of view similar to mine, but there you all were, a couple more search options down the list!
Other people can be motivational when they tell their own story, like others have said, when someone is motivated by speculation and their own perceptions about another person, it does seem that they tell more about themselves.
This has inspired me to look more into motivation to exercise, I’ve had recent conversations with a friend who has realised how much easier it is for her to work towards exercise goals for others (charity, competition) rather than it being intrinsic, because they need to or want to. Something I need to explore myself.
Sorry for waffling on – thanks all
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