Lizzo Is Living Her Best Life. The Same Cannot Be Said of Her Haters
As readers of this blog are all too aware, I spend WAY too much time online. It’s a goddamn addiction, is what it is. I wish I could be less online and touch grass, as the young people, say, but I just can’t stay away from the world world web.
Being online as much as I am is inherently masochistic and self-destructive because I know that nothing good can come of it beyond getting subjects for blog posts like this.
One of my many deeply unhealthy online habits involves seeing checking out the comment sections for articles about the popular musician Lizzo.
I’m not sure why I do this. It’s not as if I need constant reminders that people are mean and ugly and vicious and that we, as a species, might be doomed.
Today, for example, I made the stupid, easily avoidable mistake of reading the comments on a glowing review of a Lizzo concert in the British newspaper The Independent.
About fifteen percent of the comments were positive. A small percentage of the people who responded to, again, an EXTREMELY POSITIVE review of a Lizzo live show, were nice and kind and praised Lizzo for being talented and beautiful and fearless.
The other eighty-five percent, on the other hand, were exactly what you would expect. I suspect that a lot of the people did not read the review before commenting.
It did not matter to these folks that Lizzo was praised extensively in the article for her catchy songs, charisma and appealing personality/stage presence.
All that mattered to these ghouls, clearly, is that in the photograph that accompanied the article Lizzo was wearing a sexy outfit despite not conforming to society’s impossible beauty standards.
This was enough to unleash the cruelty, sadism and bigotry in the commentariat. A bewildering number of people respond to every post about Lizzo by insisting that they have no idea who this person is or why she’s famous but that she’s way too large to wearing an outfit that skimpy and revealing.
I’m not sure why people think that not being familiar with Lizzo, a world famous pop star with lots of huge hits, is something to be proud of but this sentiment is relatively harmless compared to many of the uglier sentiments expressed.
Lizzo’s willingness to wear sexy costumes in public unsurprisingly brings out the nutritionist and doctor in folks who are extremely online.
Folks who wouldn’t say a goddamn word about Katy Perry wearing a skimpy stage costume suddenly feel the need to public assert that Lizzo must be desperately unhealthy and will die young of a heart attack unless she loses weight.
Ah, but these “good samaritans” aren’t just concerned about Lizzo’s health and mortality. They’re also deeply worried that if LITERALLY one female pop star is heavier than we angrily demand female celebrities be then that will somehow lead to an epidemic of obesity among impressionable fans.
Some of the commenters casting stern judgment on Lizzo and her choices pretend to be doing so out of concern for her, her health and the health of her fans.
But a lot of the haters in the comment sections of every article about Lizzo don’t even pretend to have Lizzo, or society’s, best interests in mind. They’re unapologetic in their cruelty.
Conservatives may like to pretend that the world has become so impossibly, oppressively “woke” that no one can say anything even theoretically offensive without being canceled by left-wing scolds.
But the truth is that people like the commenters in the Independent article can say whatever the hell they want about Lizzo’s body, and sexuality, and looks, and be aggressively cosigned by everyone else in the comment section who also feel strongly that Lizzo should exist in a state of perpetual shame and never leave the house in anything more revealing than a Mumu.
Racism, sexism, slut shaming and fat phobia are alive and well on the Internet. They rear their ugly head any time someone has the tenacity to say that Lizzo is beautiful and talented and sexy, and shouldn’t hide away in shame because she’s not skinny.
Lizzo is out there living her best life, being successful and confident and uninhibited. The same cannot be said of the trolls hating on her from a comfortable distance.
These sad fucks need to take a look in the mirror. They’re the ones who need to change, not Lizzo but I fear that as long as Lizzo is super famous and super successful she’ll remain a target for people who hate her for reasons that have nothing to do with her health or happiness and everything to do with their own inner ugliness.
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