I like Maya Jama and dont blame her for taking the Adidas job because work is work and we are all trying to get our bags.

But this new collaboration under the pretence/guise of ‘body positivity’ is the very reason why body positivity is trash and benefits acceptable bodies.

Like a lot of us in the plus size community have said, the body positivity movement was a movement that was SUPPOSED to celebrate bodies that do not have societal privileges. Bodies that do not conform to standards of beauty.

. @adidasUK had an opportunity to use someone whose body falls outside the realms of what society considers beautiful, in the name of the movement but no.

The BoPo movement continues to marginalise bigger bodies in favour of whose sexy body can sell.

Hate to see it.

This isn’t a direct criticism of Maya at all; she seems lovely. It’s more geared towards brands, and the way the BoPo movement (which was created by fat, black women) has been warped to fit a narrative that completely excludes us.

The movement was never supposed to be about sexy, highly desired, privileged bodies telling us ‘all bodies are beautiful!’. It’s patronising and deeply condescending.

It’s hella tone deaf but thats just me. Maybe I’m not articulating myself properly idk.

Far be it for me to gatekeep. That’s not my intention at all, but watching a movement that helped a lot of us fats love ourselves being dragged out from under our feet for the sake of capitalism and reinforcing a toxic body shape hiararchy..watching it happen in REAL TIME...mad.

Because think about it; imagine growing up being constantly told you are unworthy and less-than because you have a much bigger body than others yeah.
Getting bullied, ostracised, being improperly treated at a systemic level, and underrepresented.

Feeling like you’re some kind of monster, self harming and constantly being told you’re ugly and disgusting. Then you hop online and see a community of women who look like you who have vouched to love themselves and live their best lives anyway.

It because a safe space for a lot of fat people. Our space. A tiny space on the Internet where we could help each other learn to love our bodies and feel confident.

Then imagine brands seeing this and being like ‘ooh how can we exploit this upcoming movement subtly?’

“Ooh we know! Let’s start talking about body positivity too, but only using bodies that people (MEN) still find desirable. We don’t want them *too* fat - they are still ugly”

And just like that, our space is taken away in favour of attractive bodies.

Like...that really is trash lmao.

Anyway I haven’t even had my coffee yet. Lemme shut up before I start being accused of being a ‘hater’.

Just seen that Chessie King is also a part of this campaign. Now it all makes sense lmao.

Oh @adidasUK - you had SUCH an opportunity to create a groundbreaking campaign, but went the safe route for the sake of sex appeal.

A shame.