People in North America are constantly bombarded with the ideology that they should be fitter, smaller, and sexier. There are many media sources that display idealized versions of what women and men should aspire to be, in regards to both their health and body shape. This is taken to the extreme in a section on the blogging site Tumblr.
The site utilizes tags, which are attached to photos, quotes, and other material, and allow the content to be categorized and filtered. While browsing through the main page of the website, I came across a disturbing set of tags on a photo of an extremely thin young woman: “pro-ana” and “pro-mia.”
“Ana” is a short and innocent-sounding version of anorexia nervosa; while “mia” is a shortened version of bulimia nervosa. Out of sheer curiosity, I clicked on one of the tags to see what would be displayed. Tumblr did warn, “If you or someone you know is dealing with an eating disorder, self harm issues, or suicidal thoughts, please visit our Counseling & Prevention Resources page for a list of services that may be able to help.” But this didn’t adequately prepare me for what I was about to see.
To my horror, a click on the tag took me to a section of the website plastered in photos of people with absolutely emaciated figures, and a frightening number of phrases such as “Keep Calm and Stop Eating,” and “I hate every inch of my body.”
I am still repulsed by what I saw. I’m not repulsed by the shapes of the people themselves, but by the fact that these people promote a mental illness, they idolize eating disorders.
I came across a video from a sufferer of anorexia nervosa under the “pro-ana” tag. In it, she detailed the true realities of the disease, and her most recent trip to the hospital at a mere 98 pounds. In it, she tries to reason with those posting glamorized photos of ribcages and thigh gaps, saying that these images are encouraging little girls to kill themselves, and that she wouldn’t wish this upon her worst enemy. She attacks the tags by saying, “I’m not ‘thinspo.’ I’m not ‘thinspiration,’ I’m ‘deathspo,’” hitting home the idiocy of these tags that romanticize diseases that claim lives.
It’s disgusting that the website allows for the existence of such a section, and yet, if they were to take it away, it’d potentially encroach upon the freedom of users to post whatever they wanted. This prompts the equally important, yet enormous question: where do we draw the line?
Our society must begin to tackle the tough issues of regulating speech like this, and deciding whether or not it has a place. Perhaps we won’t be able to reach a decision immediately, but the discussion is important.
Personally, I find it sickly ironic that this subculture of Tumblr seems to be thriving, while many suffering from these disorders certainly are not.
