I just read She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, [the reporters who broke the explosive report about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment allegations], and it was insanely good. Spectacular. It’s detail-oriented, specific, biting, and smart. And it really champions the truth and highlights the crucial role journalism can play in our world, especially when it’s done correctly and not encumbered by the systems in place to protect those who are abusing positions of power. When [those systems] are challenged or circumnavigated and truth can come out, what a difference it makes.
Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill is also equally good—a page-turner like no other. Frankly, I’m a little sad that I finished them. But I just started Sally Rooney’s book Conversation with Friends, and it’s such a good read. I think we need more women to speak from our generation and through our perspectives. Not by politicians, but by activists and thought leaders. I want to see more of our presence in the fiction world and in creative spaces too.
You’re stranded on a desert island. What are the three products you want with you?
Sunblock, sunblock, and sunblock. I mean, look at my skin. I’m going to bring sunblock and reading material. That’s it. Abandon the constraints of a bathing suit, I just need something for my brain and for my skin.
What’s your go-to getting ready music?
It changes a lot, but these days I’m into “dad music,” as they call it. So the old classics. I listen to them loud volume, no shame.
You’ve got $20 and free roam of a drugstore. What do you buy?
I’d definitely buy some lipstick. I love a red L’Oréal Paris Colour Riche. There’s a reason they say lipstick is recession proof. It’s one product that can dramatically change how you look and how you express yourself. And then for the rest: sunblock, an eye mask, and I don’t know how much more my $20 will get me, but maybe bath salts?
Selena Gomez has been in a very sharing place lately. First, she released back-to-back singles—“Love You to Lose Me” and “Look at Her Now”—that many fans interpreted as a commentary on her past relationship with Justin Bieber.
Now, she’s opening up about how comments about her weight on social media really made her feel. During an interview on the Giving Back Generation podcast, Gomez said (per Entertainment Tonight), “I experienced [body-shaming] with my weight fluctuation for the first time. I have lupus and deal with kidney issues and high blood pressure, so I deal with a lot of health issues, and for me that’s when I really started noticing more of the body image stuff.”
Gomez went on to explain how a combination of her health issues causes her weight to go up and down. “It’s the medication I have to take for the rest of my life—it depends on even the month, to be honest. So for me, I really noticed when people started attacking me for that,” she said. “In reality, that’s just my truth. I fluctuate. It depends what’s happening in my life.” And she added, those harsh words on social media during that time “got to me big time” and “really messed me up for a bit.”
Famous or not, nobody should have to hear strangers (or friends, for that matter) critiquing their body. Ever. But not to fear, Selena Gomez said she is “very happy with living my life” and she’s trying not to hold ill will against her critics. The singer said the “biggest lesson” she had to learn is that “[when it comes to] the people that have hurt me the most, to forgive them. And to continue to understand and have compassion for people.”
But she’s still not going to let her over 160 million followers on Instagram in on every part of her life.
“I don’t care to expose myself to everyone and hear what they have to say about it.” That seems like a healthy and sound strategy to us.
The Supreme Court has announced that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was treated for pancreatic cancer this summer, spending three weeks at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for radiation.
In a statement crafted to calm the hearts and minds of frantic progressives, the court was explicit: “The tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body.”
Still, fans of the icon, who is 86 and sometimes known as #NotoriousRBG, did not appear soothed on social media. Within minutes of the release, Twitter exploded with well-wishes, appeals to various deities, and a not insignificant number of offers to donate organs.
This is after all Justice Ginsburg’s fourth cancer diagnosis. In 1999, she was operated on to treat colon cancer. In 2009, she was treated for pancreatic cancer, still in its earliest stages. And last December, two cancerous nodules were removed from her left lung.
In its statement, the court explained that Justice Ginsburg started her out-patient treatment for a localized cancerous tumor on her pancreas on August 5. But this is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose workout routines are the stuff of legends and who, it was reported, continued to work on her caseload from her hospital bed last winter, so she does not appeared to have much slowed down. In its announcement, the court noted that “the Justice tolerated treatment well. She cancelled her annual summer visit to Santa Fe, but has otherwise maintained an active schedule.” The court also assured nervous citizens that “Justice Ginsburg will continue to have periodic blood tests and scans. No further treatment is needed at this time.”
Below, read the full statement from the Supreme Court and then the much less even-keeled reactions from RBG stans, who are prepared to go under the knife for a legend.
What is going on with Britney Spears? This is a question some fans have been asking since early January, when news broke that her second Las Vegas residency, Domination, was canceled. At the time the pop icon wrote in an Instagram caption that her father Jamie’s illness is what caused her to call off the show. “A couple of months ago, my father was hospitalized and almost died,” she wrote alongside a childhood photo of herself, Jamie, and her mother, Lynne. “We’re all so grateful that he came out of it alive, but he still has a long road ahead of him. I had to make the difficult decision to put my full focus and energy on my family at this time.”
What’s transpired since this announcement has been confusing, to say the least. Spears‘ Instagram—which was buzzing with selfies, memes, and fashion-show videos—went silent. Then, on April 3, TMZ reported that she had checked into a mental health facility in late March because she was “distraught” over her dad’s health. A source told E! it was Spears’ decision.
For context: In January, People reported that Jamie was expected to make a full recovery after his colon ruptured. This contradicts the TMZ story, which claimed his condition is “quite serious” and “not getting better.” In short, there have been inconsistencies in the reports. Then Spears posted this Instagram on the day TMZ ran its story:
“We all need to take time for a little ‘me time,'” Spears wrote, alongside a smiley face she styled as “:)” instead of using an emoji. Anyone who frequently looks at Spears’ Instagram feed knows she often uses emojis, which led to speculation that she didn’t write this “me time” post.
InstagramInstagram
On April 16, a voicemail was sent to Britney’s Gram, a podcast hosted by comedians Tess Barker and Barbara Gray, that speculated all was not well. It came from a paralegal who claims he worked for one of Spears’ lawyers.
But before we get into this voicemail, it’s important to understand Spears’ current legal situation as we know it: She’s under what’s known as a conservatorship, which essentially means she does not have full legal control of her affairs. In 2008, shortly after Spears’ well-documented breakdown, Jamie was appointed as a conservator of his daughter’s estate. The exact nuances and minutia of Spears’ conservatorship aren’t widely available, but the fact that Jamie is her conservator—and has been for over a decade—is common knowledge. Attorney Andrew Wallet has also served as Spears’ co-conservator for 10 years, specifically looking over her finances, but that ended in March 2019.
What the paralegal claims is going on with Spears in the voicemail speaks to this conservatorship and the (alleged) lack of control she has in her decisions. Here is the transcript:
“Hi there. I cannot disclose who I am. I just heard the latest
episode. You guys are on to something. I used to be a paralegal for an
attorney that worked with Britney’s conservatorship. I’m no longer
with them. And what is happening is disturbing, to say the least.
Basically, Britney was in rehearsals for Domination. It came to
Jamie’s attention—Jamie Spears—that Britney was not taking her
medication as prescribed. She was missing a lot of doses and just
full-on not taking them. So they got her to the doctor. The doctor
said, ‘OK, if you don’t want these medications, let’s get you on a new
one.’ She refused to take the new one. So Jamie said, ‘Either you take
this medication or the show’s off and I’m pulling my support and you
can’t do it.’ Britney did not follow Jamie’s instructions, and so he
was true to his word: He pulled the show. He, verbatim, said, ‘Blame
it on my illness.’ That’s when we get the early January Instagram.
Fast-forward a couple of days, Britney’s still not following through
with her medications, and as you guys have mentioned, she is seen with
Sam [Asghari, her boyfriend] driving. It’s a big rule that she broke. Britney has been in the
mental facility since mid-January. Of course, the statement yesterday
said she entered last week. That is not true. She’s been in there
since mid-January, and there is no timeline. Granted, I haven’t worked
at the firm for a little over two weeks now, but there is no end,
particularly in sight, for this stay at this mental facility to end.
She did not want to go. I, of course, am just a paralegal and haven’t
had any contact with her. But from what I understand this was not a
decision she made. At all.”
None of this information has been confirmed, of course. Gray and Barker say in the podcast they vetted this paralegal and believe him to be a credible source—but that’s still not a definitive answer about Britney Spears‘ situation. Everything is speculative right now, which is why you should take all of this with a grain of salt.
That being said, since Gray and Barker posted the voicemail, several things have happened that some fans claim speak to its validity. A hashtag is now all over both Twitter and Instagram, #FreeBritney, accompanied by messages from fans demanding answers.
Paris Hilton, who hung out with Spears in the early aughts, has even used this hashtag:
Luann de Lesseps, from The Real Housewives New York City, also posted about #FreeBritney, though it’s unclear how or if she knows the singer.
The Talk dedicated an entire segment to the movement:
She also posted this message about having faith, which fans claim is tied to #FreeBritney:
The movement has moved beyond social media too. A real-life #FreeBritney rally went down on Monday, April 22, at the West Hollywood City Council:
Entertainment Tonight sent a reporter to cover it:
On April 22, Spears’ younger sister, Jamie Lynn, posted on Twitter defending herself against people accusing her of being silent on the #FreeBritney front. She embedded a video of herself protecting Spears from a heckler back in 2008 and wrote, “10 years ago, who was there?? I have been here long before anyone else and I’ll be here long after. I love my sister with everything I have. So anyone or anything that speaks to the contrary can GTFOH with all the comments about what you don’t understand. Don’t come for me or the ones I love anymore.”
The British royal family is always about rules and protocols, both formal and informal. And ever since Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton joined the family, information about things like who has to curtsy to who and whether or not they’re allowed to close their own car doors have become subjects of fascination. Now, in a joint message from Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, Prince William and Kate Middleton, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the royals are laying down the rules for commenters on their respective social media channels: @RoyalFamily, @ClarenceHouse, and @KensingtonRoyal..
The new social media community guidelines are likely a response to the increasingly negative interactions in the comments section, most prominently around commentary about Middleton and Markle. Even a casual glance at comments on posts about the two show some rather heated exchanges that can often become nasty and defamatory. This new announcement would seem to be an attempt to reign in the trolls.
“The aim of our social media channels is to create an environment where our community can engage safely in debate and is free to make comments, questions and suggestions,” the guidelines read. “We ask that anyone engaging with our social media channels shows courtesy, kindness and respect for all other members of our social media communities.” Basically, they’re looking for a common sense of decorum that is often lost on the Internet by laying out specific rules—and consequences.
They say that comments must not:
Contain spam, be defamatory of any person, deceive others, be obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful, inflammatory or promote sexually explicit material or violence.
Promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.
Breach any of the terms of any of the social media platforms themselves.
Be off-topic, irrelevant or unintelligible.
Contain any advertising or promote any services.
If you break any of the above, they can hide or delete your comments or block you altogether. On a more serious note, obviously related to the safety of members of the family, they “reserve the right to send any comments we deem appropriate to law enforcement authorities for investigation as we feel necessary or is required by law.”
Hopefully this will squelch some of the nasty commentary happening around the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex. And it seems a perfect time to remind everyone that you can indeed have a preference for one woman without “hating” or demonizing the other—or just love them both, like we do.
My first brush with the “pro-ED” blog on LiveJournal was only the tip of the thinspiration iceberg—there were dozens more pages like it, many of which are still live today, despite other platforms taking a stand against content glorifying eating disorders. (Glamour reached out to LiveJournal for comment on the pro-ED content on the platform but did not receive a reply.)
In this social media era, pro-ED content has mutated to keep up with the rapid evolution of technology. After LiveJournal, there was Tumblr, another haven for communities promoting unhealthy behaviors. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have all similarly developed their own pockets of “thinspo.”
Yet alongside the growth of social media there was also a growth of knowledge: We know more about eating disorders today than we did in the early 2000s. We’re equipped with language to discuss them in more productive ways. Body positivity has reframed the way we talk about our bodies both online and off. Most of all, with so many people (Instagram influencers and “regular” folk alike) going viral every day for embracing—and celebrating—their body’s flaws, social media has rapidly turned into a place where every body can and should be considered beautiful.
Banning thinspo content is kind of like playing Whack-a-Mole—as soon as a site bans a certain hashtag, another pops up in its place.
That movement has helped fuel a crackdown on pro-ED material online. In 2012, after I had been in recovery for several years, Tumblr, a notorious hub for thinspo, banned all “pro-ED” content. Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest all have similar policies.
Instagram has also been censoring. In December 2018 the platform announced they were upping their game, making it even harder for users to search for hashtags promoting eating disorders. Now, if you search for pro-ED terms, Instagram flags you with a warning: “Can we help? Posts with words or tags you’re searching for often encourage behavior that can cause harm and even lead to death. If you’re going through something difficult, we’d like to help.” They offer you the option to “get support” or “see posts anyway.”
This is part of Instagram’s “holistic” approach, a spokesperson for Instagram said in a statement provided to Glamour. The platform has partnered with the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), to create an eating disorders help page and guide for parents. “Experts we work with tell us that communication is key in order to create awareness, and that coming together for support and facilitating recovery is important,” Instagram’s spokesperson said.
Instagram
This is great. But banning thinspo content is kind of like playing Whack-a-Mole—as soon as a site bans a certain hashtag, another pops up in its place. “Unfortunately, far too many accounts—celebrities, companies, and everyday people—share ‘thinspiration,’ and more recently ‘fitspiration,’ images,” says Claire Mysko, CEO of NEDA. I’m not seeking these images out anymore but when I come across seemingly “perfect” photos of models and celebrities, it’s like they are speaking directly to the ghost of my eating disorder. It’s hard not to be haunted.
The Internet to the Rescue
The internet was an unmistakable accomplice in my destructive behavior for more than three years. After stepping into the pro-ED corner of the internet, I couldn’t look away. All I could think about was how much I weighed, and how much more I wanted to lose. I became obsessed with numbers, assigning calorie limits to each day. And I continued to consume pro-ED content hungrily, staring at pictures of tiny wrists and pointy collarbones with desire and envy. I didn’t idolize the people in the pictures so much as I admired their parts; I saw everyone, including myself, in jagged fragments.
Anyone in their right mind would have told me to just step away. But paradoxically, the internet was where I found my hope of recovery. During my senior year of college, when I was admittedly at my sickest, I found an online community (ironically, also via LiveJournal) of women and girls going through the same thing. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone.
That’s one of the most important things you can hear when you’re struggling with recovery, Mysko says. From my own experience as a survivor, I know she’s right: finding a place where I could be myself, sharing the struggles and fears I was often too afraid to say out loud to friends, was powerful.
“I was often afraid other girls there would get sicker or die—while at the same time fearing that people would recover and leave me there.”
This is what makes the internet so complicated when you have an eating disorder—it’s an enabler and a life preserver. LiveJournal fed my dangerous appetite for thinness. But it’s also where I finally found my safe haven, when not even my closest friends knew what I was going through.
Jenny, the founder of the eating disorder recovery group I found on LiveJournal, had that goal in mind when she created it in 2005. “I started it at the age of 16 in the hopes of creating a closed online community where people could make honest connections without anonymity,” the now 30-year-old says. “I wanted to create something that was nuanced, something that accepted the realities of mental health issues—such as relapse and chronic behaviors or thought patterns—without judgement, while also genuinely caring about the well-being of the person behind the story.”
Like many other eating disorder survivors, Jenny, who has struggled with restricting and binging/purging behaviors on and off since she was 12, was also enticed by the pro-ED content quietly spreading across the internet. “I was a pre-teen and I wanted to lose weight and suddenly these online communities were…offering advice on how to be ‘successful,’” she says. “The experience was intoxicating for a young girl.” In part, this is what led her to create an antidote: a place on the internet where recovery was an option, where we could freely admit we were sick.
Olivia*, 32, was part of the same LiveJournal group. Unlike in-person therapy groups she attended for her eating disorder, she never felt judged by her online network. “I felt connected to what felt like a group of other whip-smart, sad, sick girls who were also still figuring out how to live, how to want to keep living,” Olivia says. “I also remember having really strong feelings about wanting everyone else in the group to be okay—I was often afraid other girls there would get sicker or die—while at the same time fearing that people would recover and leave me there.”
Eating disorders are visceral and detail-oriented; so much of the illness involves numbers and rituals—it can be difficult to speak candidly about them without triggering someone else. Even social media communities where people find recovery and support can be filled with pro-ED landmines. “Any sort of ED group talk is always going to be a mess,” Olivia says. That’s especially true without the presence of a trained therapist guiding the conversation like you’d typically find offline. (“When sharing your story with other survivors, the best and most helpful thing you can do is to avoid mentioning any specific behaviors you engaged in,” Mysko advises.) And online groups may not be curated based on where people are in their recovery. “Not everyone was interested in getting better,” Melissa, another member of the LiveJournal group, says. “We all fluctuated in our recoveries over the years.”
Living With an Eating Disorder In the Age of Social Media
Today, I tend to avoid prominent Instagram influencers who post “fitspiration” or pictures of transformational weight loss, knowing my own triggers. Jessica, 30, an anorexia survivor, employs the same strategy. “I try to follow women on Instagram who I admire for reasons other than their bodies: inspirational women like Jane Goodall, funny women like Jameela Jamil or Julia Louis-Dreyfus,” she says. “But the content about thigh gaps and hip bones showing will always get through, regardless of whether I seek it out or not.”
That’s the simple truth of living with an eating disorder and living with social media. There will always be triggering content that keeps the specter of an eating disorder close at all times. There will always be people with EDs who aren’t ready to get better, who are convincing themselves they’re choosing an illness, rather than the other way around. And yet there will also always be posts steeped in body positivity that provide inspiration of another kind. There will always be communities of women wrestling with their illness, ready to offer support, encouragement, and the knowledge that we are not alone.
Even in recovery, I feel the fingerprints of my eating disorder everywhere. The knee-jerk feeling of “I’ll do better tomorrow” still shows up after meals; I still see some foods by their calorie counts. And social media is always there, adding fuel to the fire with fitness-oriented posts that mention calories and weight loss. But at least I know now that my eating disorder wasn’t a choice; it’s an illness that women all over the world are struggling with too. When I remember that, I can find the strength to unfollow, block, and delete. And I can choose to tap “get support.”
*Some names have been changed for privacy.
De Elizabeth is a writer and editor specializing in pop culture, mental health, and anything related to Pretty Little Liars. You can follow her on Twitter @deelizabeth_.
