The Internet Makes Me Feel Fat

WOW! What's with you people? Yea i said it; "you people...! Nothing else but Being fat would make me feel fat. Yes, there are "normal" or "ideal" sizes for humans based on their frames. Those stats are pretty LEANient too (ha ha)! But geez people....if you are fat THAT should be what makes you feel fat. If you are blaming it on sights or skinny people that you see on the internet or wherever, then it's YOU blaming it on whatever you wanna blame it on. I truly believe it would do you (the one who happens to be fat) VERY well to stop blaming anything other than YOUR eating too much and less-than-healthy lifestyle on your "fatness" or how you feel about your weight and/or size. If you dont like being fat, or feel that you are, get off your fat ass and fix it! Don't sit on your chair or lounge around on your sofa with your laptop surfing around the internet, looking for things to bitch about, while downing your bag of chips and a soda or two!

The Matrix does not let people change the way they look. They simply look the way their minds remember them looking before they "woke up". It's a residual self-image. So Neo has hair where in the real world he doesn't, because he expects himself to have hair; he's always had hair. He doesn't go into the Matrix with a mohawk or anything because that's not what his mind remembers him having. Clothes is one thing, changing what you believe you look like is quite another. Nobody can just convince their subconscious that they are really Tom Cruise or Halle Barry.

The rest of the article just adds more fuel to the fire of obsessing over weight and self image. This side of the issue or that, it tends to get talked about more and more and more. I get tired of listening to it- no matter what your point of view is.

The Matrix does not let people change the way they look. They simply look the way their minds remember them looking before they "woke up". It's a residual self-image. So Neo has hair where in the real world he doesn't, because he expects himself to have hair; he's always had hair. He doesn't go into the Matrix with a mohawk or anything because that's not what his mind remembers him having. Clothes is one thing, changing what you believe you look like is quite another. Nobody can just convince their subconscious that they are really Tom Cruise or Halle Barry.

The rest of the article just adds more fuel to the fire of obsessing over weight and self image. This side of the issue or that, it tends to get talked about more and more and more. I get tired of listening to it- no matter what your point of view is.

I believe the internet makes me feel fat too charlie

The internet makes ME feel skinny.
An example:
http://www.catsonmars.com/otaku/cosplay/shame_jan04.php

american's are the fatest people on the planet. if you feel fat, go workout, stop ordering extra large greasy mcdonalds food, and stop playing 2nd life.

Okay well..I dont know the value of debating Second Life (SL)& body image and how that might translate across the broader population, if you dont play it. As a person whos been in the game for over a year as well as a person battling weight gain in RL-thats real life...I have personal experience and will share depending how much space i have in this little box.

I started playing the 'stupid computer game' when I was still angry about not being able to lose the weight Id put on after getting married-almost got fired as a patient because of my visible frustration and I was already online looking up thyroid issues because no matter how much I over exercised or how little I ate~ nothing happened to the scale (nothing good anyway). Maybe I was escaping to peek at SL??

Anyway...I made a few friends...got that 'positive feedback' and my avatar wasnt that far from my RL shape or size. I was living an alternate lifestyle in a beach house, thinking of opening a gallery or designing kitchens as I do in RL, having flings with carpet salesman in Texas and a French pilot-gawd he was adorable.

The televsion was on one night (i dont turn it on myself) The hubby who had been invited to play video games was watching something (maybe Oprah) and Michael Thurman had an infomercial! I shut down the laptop in .3 seconds.

Suddenly realizing I could look and dress as well as my online personna... I ordered Michael Thurman's kit-you may have seen him on Extreme Makeovers...and a year later still 65 pounds lighter and I look better than when I was in high school...my avatar had a makeover recently to reflect my RL changes and shes a hottie.

In the game Second Life it doesnt matter how old you are in RL, your economic status is much less important-you can always get a job as a stripper for spending money. But be warned-you cant be anyone but yourself in that world because phonies are easy to spot. Who you are comes out no matter how well you follow a script and you meet people exactly like you /me smiling.

Yeah its unreal. Meeting people who end up knowing you better than anyone youve ever made RL love with and having your life change in six months or overnight-dont go there if your marriage is on shaky ground it will get worse. My husband said Id fall in love and move to Texas which turned out to be so funny when half the men I met live in Texas-and yeah, I love a bunch of them!

But for me...the projection thing works on him too. The man Im married to becomes the cute avatar I was dancing with in the afternoon and he gets credit for the fireworks display because I picked well-I chose a guy like me who believes in the value of fantasies and keeping it fresh (and hes kinda happy Im not a chubchub any more :)

Okay well..I dont know the value of debating Second Life (SL)& body image and how that might translate across the broader population, if you dont play it. As a person whos been in the game for over a year as well as a person battling weight gain in RL-thats real life...I have personal experience and will share depending how much space i have in this little box.

I started playing the 'stupid computer game' when I was still angry about not being able to lose the weight Id put on after getting married-almost got fired as a patient because of my visible frustration and I was already online looking up thyroid issues because no matter how much I over exercised or how little I ate~ nothing happened to the scale (nothing good anyway). Maybe I was escaping to peek at SL??

Anyway...I made a few friends...got that 'positive feedback' and my avatar wasnt that far from my RL shape or size. I was living an alternate lifestyle in a beach house, thinking of opening a gallery or designing kitchens as I do in RL, having flings with carpet salesman in Texas, and a young French pilot-gawd he was adorable.

The televsion was on one night (i dont turn it on myself) The hubby who had been invited to play video games was watching something (maybe Oprah) and Michael Thurman had an infomercial! I shut down the laptop in .3 seconds.

Suddenly realizing I could look and dress as well as my online personna... I ordered Michael Thurman's kit-you may have seen him on Extreme Makeovers...and a year later still 65 pounds lighter and I look better than when I was in high school...my avatar had a makeover recently to reflect my RL changes and shes a hottie.

In the game Second Life it doesnt matter how old you are in RL, your economic status is much less important-you can always get a job as a stripper for spending money. But be warned-you cant be anyone but yourself in that world because phonies are easy to spot. Who you are comes out no matter how well you follow a script and you meet people exactly like you /me smiling.

Yeah its unreal. Meeting people who end up knowing you better than anyone youve ever made RL love with and having your life change in six months or overnight-dont go there if your marriage is on shaky ground it will get worse. My husband said Id fall in love and move to Texas which turned out to be so funny when half the men I met live in Texas-and yeah, I love a bunch of them!

But for me...the projection thing works on him too. The man Im married to becomes the cute avatar I was dancing with in the afternoon and he gets credit for the fireworks display because I picked well-I chose a guy like me who believes in the value of fantasy and keeping it fresh (and hes kinda happy Im not a chubchub any more :)

I disagree I am thin. I got replaced by a girl heavier and older. I think the internet makes everyone more equal

Disagree I am thin and I got dumped for someone older and fatter. I feel everyone is more equal online

Now first off I agree with a lot of the principles here in the article, and there are certainly good points made with a sassy spin on the ideas of being ???weight conscious.??? However just for the record (and not to sound nerdy in the least), when you consider that the "self image" of the Matrix was a quote "mental projection of your digital self" that presumably occurred automatically whenever a person "uploaded," what a person believes is his or her image in real life will more than likely transcend into how you look in that virtual world. I mean if you see yourself as who you are every day when you look in the mirror, you start to associate that image of how you look as who you really are. It???s simply normal self-recognition. So having said that, why wouldn???t everyone look like his or her normal appearance when they popped into the Matrix? Yes I know, it might seem a bit lame to take a stand on a world of fiction that can only be filled with rules and laws that are impossible to actually validate, but really on a geeky/logical level, looking like how you think you look all the time just makes sense.

???I think I feel fat mostly because I'm not getting exercise sitting behind a computer. So that's step #1, people! GO OUTSIDE ; )
Other than that, I don't think internet alone creates that big of an effect on my psyche. At least online you can choose the sites you visit. Television feeds you commercial after commercial of "perfect body types", unrealistic standards, and countless other subliminal advertisements. All in all, I enjoyed this article.. but don't necessarily relate to this idea, I guess.

If the writing had been better, I would've read the entire article. Some witty parts, but wordy over-all. Just a little suggestive critism for the writer.

???I think I feel fat mostly because I'm not getting exercise sitting behind a computer. So that's step #1, people! GO OUTSIDE ; )

Other than that, I don't think internet alone creates that big of an effect on my psyche. At least online you can choose the sites you visit. Television feeds you commercial after commercial of "perfect body types", unrealistic standards, and countless other subliminal advertisements. All in all, I enjoyed this article.. but don't necessarily relate to this idea, I guess.

(If the writing was a bit better, i would've read the entire article. Some witty parts, but very wordy throughout.. just some helpful criticism to the writer.)

As someone who has been on Second Life since 2004, I can say that the avatars there are as diverse as they are in real life. There are fat ones, skinny ones, ugly ones, obviously cross-dressing ones, animals, robots, monsters, and things that defy description - both beautiful and horrifying. There are people straight out of Star Wars (humanoids, Hutts, and other aliens), Harry Potter (you should see some of the dark wizards!), Pern (not just riders, dragons too), and more. While there are plenty of people who make their avatars look like their idea of 'sexy', most of those folks just end up looking like clones because their lack of imagination leads them to take on the same pre-created avatars the last 20 people who wanted something 'sexy' bought, with no alterations. But those who stick around Second Life tend to have more creativity than that, and don't necessarily go for what's considered attractive in mainstream life.

America is the fattest country in the world. The internet is trying to tell you something. Listen to it.

Guess what? America is the fattest country in the world. We actually need to be more "body obsessed". The internet is speaking to you. Listen to it.

It should also be pointed out that the fact we consider body image important at all indicates our actual body is important - again physical health, well being and so on. Form is closely related to function, but of course a virtual or mental form doesn't have a lot to do with our physical body. Funny thing is, if you do work on the physical body you tend to feel better, but as far as I know positive thinking and guided imagery isn't very effective for getting in shape.

Funny how defensive people get, at the same time the basic point of the article isn't some earth shattering insight - even if it does point out the online/virtual world as a new way of being obsessed with self image.

Although I don't agree with the religiously inclined comment as far as making a simple(minded) value judgment is concerned, (it's bad, BAD!) the point about being obsessed with self does deserve closer inspection. It isn't that concern with self is bad, end of story, (would taking care of your health be wicked?) but rather most people don't really know themselves and instead grasp at straws by identifying with images as ideals psychologically. For example, when it comes to health rather than a one dimensional view of "weight" (ever heard of body composition? BMI is height-weight ratio - speaking in these simplistic terms will only reinforce a simplistic understanding that is unhelpful) or size, actual health will involve a lot of different metabolic functions. My coworker who weighs 350lbs can actually outhike some people that weighs significantly less than he does simply because he has some type of regular physical activity. (of course, we're not under the illusion that he's going to be healthier in every way) But the point is most people are basically ignorant or at the very least pay very little attention to their physical and psychological health, which can be used as pathways of self expression - just as much as artificial devices can. We are led to believe we're helpless, that "it's just genetics" and resort to these ways that are indirect, outside of ourselves - and it just so happens that someone has a nice package that we can buy at the right price.

So while I wouldn't write off the issue as a matter of environment (on or offline) or individual will power, it does have a lot to do with knowing yourself. The online environment can simply be used as ONE pathway of self expression, but it simply makes no sense to completely neglect your health even if you don't value it as much as others might. The problem is when you over identify with an image, you start taking it to be yourself and become concerned with sustaining that identity as if you're sustaining your life while naturally existing structures that IS necessary like your pancreas gets worn down, and pretty soon there's problem like diabetes or whatever - whereas it could have been prevented by some simple maintenance once in a while.