Tuesday, February 18, 2014

People of Walmart: Fat Hatred and Classism Rolled Into One






Some language and partial nudity warnings on the videos above! Have any of you seen that People of Walmart website or associated videos like I have posted above? The People of Walmart website has endless viruses on it now. My browser just blocked it. Google the term "People of Walmart" if you want to see it, but be wary of your computer's security. I wonder if some outraged objects of rude photographs hacked the place? The first video has pictures from them, but the second two are one's I believe were inspired by the "People of Walmart" website.

I hate Walmart and do not shop there. The food is gross and an MSG laden mess. The produce rots after three days. Ever since I moved away from my rural area I stopped shopping at Walmart but trust me there is empathy for those who have few other choices for their shopping. In my old rural town if you refused Walmart and needed a plastic trash can or even a package of underwear, you'd be driving two and half hours to find other options. Walmart famous for lower prices though that could be argued a bit, is dominant in rural and poorer urban areas. The crowd that can't afford Whole Foods or Trader Joes or even your regular smaller grocery store is flocking to Walmart.

How on earth did taking pictures of people who have less money and less lithe bodies at Walmart become so in vogue?. The videos above disturb me, the one with the lady that is around my weight 500lbs being called 1200lbs, there was some conflict for me even posting it, but 8,000 people have already seen it. Maybe if she sees it, she can get it taken down. This tells me if I was on a scooter at Walmart in my 500lb or near 500lb glory, someone could take a video of me and let the rude comments begin. She is a person in my position getting endless assumptions and judgment!

Young people flock to these websites to laugh at the clothes, the fat people and many people who really are mentally ill.  The mentally ill in some of these pictures look to have dementia in the case of some of the elderly or even schizophrenia. They should not be mocked but helped. There are pictures of people who have soiled themselves, and that really upsets me because there endless medical complaints that can cause that to happen such as Chrohn's Disease. It's horrifying enough when it happens even if someone is not there to take your picture and plaster you across the internet.

To me these videos are a sign of an increased narcissistic culture where if people don't match the skinny and healthy bodies of the top 15% elite on our TV screens that they are to mocked and made fun of. Yes, there is the crowd who dress half naked and need some lessons on modesty, who cling to promiscuous ways and desiring to show off.  There isn't much excuse for wearing dirty T-shirts with the F word on it, or wearing shorts where the bottom of your butt is displayed to the world, but there are many people who are simply POOR.

When you are poor clothes are often ILL-FITTING and if you gain weight, you can't buy new ones. Even thrift stores if you wear over size 14 for a woman, there is very little choice for a bigger woman to get cheaper clothes. There were times when I was so poor, and this was during my weight gain, where I had to wear skirts with ripped out hems. Even today those memories of not having good enough clothes to wear are not one good ones and yes it did affect my job getting abilities. Thrift stores and volunteer places weren't stacking up the clothes for the over 400lb set.

  Also in the land of the thin, many clothes now being produced look horrible on fat people! They really do. The fashion designers are not coming up with fat friendly clothing, but styles that look ugly on fatter or even plump people. In other words them designing all the clothes for anorexic models means they look bad even on normal people.  I special order all my clothes from one plus sized company because I refuse to wear tight uncomfortable clothes that do not cover anything.  I once had some pants split open in my 20s where I had to run for the hills. Sadly some of those more innocent folks get their pictures put online too.

There are many people who do get their pictures taken on these websites who aren't doing anything that outrageous except being too poor or too fat in the wrong place. Poorer American people have very poor health, the misshapened bodies are an outcome of a toxic environment, poisoned people who are under extreme stress and strain. In other words many of these people with odd shapes aren't choosing how their bodies look. The obesity and odd weight displacement, skin problems, and flesh that is anything but smooth is occurring due to the very environment they exist in.  Ironically the photos are being taken in the very place helping move that along, with all the bad and processed food. 

America is a very sick place now, and it's showing in the health of the most poor and vulnerable. One can see the moral, spiritual and health decline of Americans. Some surely are making bad choices, but others look like people just beaten down who are barely functioning despite all their effort. Others are fat people probably like me wondering why their body has turned against them so viciously? Others are sick, or severely mentally ill.

I have been considering the sheer numbers of people in American society are marginalized. What is it now 80-70% of the population? Anyone not thin and connected enough to get a good corporate job? If you think about it, if all people see as normal on their television sets is the marble counters and under 120lbs crowd for the women and under 180lbs for the men? I suppose some lesser minds may consider them fodder for abuse and mocking. Maybe there is an agenda behind why the only time any of us get to see any working class or poor people now [outside of ourselves in my case] is as objections of derision, ridicule or when they are getting marched off to jail on our TV screens. Maybe some of the folks in these pictures need to reject materialistic or overly sexual American cultural messages and regain some of their self-respect and show it in their dress.  I am old enough to remember where DIGNITY was an important facet of life. People of Walmart for all it's shaming techniques though is part of the problem scooping up both innocent and guilty into one toxic web. 

Sure even I will worry about the moral degradation and lack of self respect that occurs in some of these photos but consider the fat hatred shown, the meanness to the old or anyone who is DIFFERENT. Sometimes when I look at that website outside of the willful degenerates or ones brainwashed about what looks "sexy", my thought is well at least someone is dressing a bit differently!

The fact that "People of Walmart" videos and websites even exist is upsetting, that now if you are poor or fat, it's open season for you to be abused on the internet. The websites and videos to me show the fat hatred and also the CLASS issues that are prevalent when it comes to obesity.

Monday, February 17, 2014

The Creative



This definitely resonated with me, as art served as a sanctuary for me for many, many years! [still does!]

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Learning to Be Happy


I liked this little sign. Lately I have been having some strange dreams lately, I've woke up with thoughts in my head, of "You don't have to hang out with people who don't like you anymore!".  In some ways these have been freedom dreams.

Some of my guilt over going no contact has lifted. It was strange that I even put up with so much, but then you are told, "hey it's your mother, it's your sister!, you can't walk away!" Today one thing I am seeing change about me is I am having more standing in what I think and feel, I'm done questioning myself or second guessing myself so much. There were serious things to be concerned about. One way narcissists will mess with your mind, is all the gaslighting, "acting nice" but not really BEING NICE. 

For years  I felt bad because they didn't like me, at most tolerated me with a flash of disgust in their eyes, but what about my side of things?  I realized there were many things about them, I did not like. Why did I try so hard to be liked and accepted? By the time of my thirties, numbness ruled, while I focused on my own life, but too much was still being accepted. I needed to pull the plug.

Number one, they weren't very nice to people, number two they looked down on those of lesser means--trust me I wasn't the only one who gained the ire and number three, all the "withholding", people like this you really cannot know. They do not share themselves with you, or probably anyone else for that matter, you stay strangers? Why pour energy into it all?

One thing I am thinking about lately is how does one find happiness? Whatever years I have left, I'd rather spend some time doing things I like and which have meaning. One is far happier if they get away from people who always tell them what is wrong with them, rather then what is right. Another thing too one can find people in their life who have light and life to them and around them you will light up.
Pull the plug from those who darken the room.


Monday, February 10, 2014

Butter, Can You Imagine?


Can you imagine? Wow times have changed. Don't eat butter even if the Paleos tell you it's okay, well maybe as a treat, I ate butter at a fancy restaurant years ago, and the cholesterol scores the next day were off the chart. Butter was rare even then due to my lactose intolerance. I'm more an olive oil person and use some kind of vegan smart heart stuff for the occasional toast.

Housebound Winter




I have only been outside 4 days since Thanksgiving...

Imagine that..

I can walk and use a walker and just got a push wheelchair for long distances--thanks to a kind nurse.
however due to my bad lungs, if it is too cold I cannot breath...

and this has been the winter that only snow miser could have come up with...

So many days where the temperature has been in the teens or below.

Usually most winters there is a warm-up day to the 30s where I can get out a bit, scattered here and there, but not this one...no thaws for us. There have been so many snow storms, I figure the clouds are going to be out of water for spring and summer.



Some of my friends say, "Can't you come up with a bubble suit like the guy in the Boy in the Bubble movie but this time with some heat or air conditioning for the summer?"  Hey I looked for inventions on line and considered the heated mittens, have tried the giant mug of coffee for steam below my lungs but my body and cold don't mesh together well. It goes even beyond the wheezing and lungs that suddenly start slamming shut should a temperature too cold get past the scarf but like my body shuts down inside, and the bottom falls out. It's hard to explain. I am guessing this is some mix of circulatory problems mixing with the endocrine. Yes, I have even gotten "sleepy". Don't they say people go to sleep before they are about to freeze to death?

A few ER visits and throwing up even a few times I wheezed so hard and was so cold, taught me to live the way I do. One day around 2005 fed up with being enclosed inside, I said, "Im done being a wimp!" then had my husband drive me outside. Walking then made me sick.  I started shivering, and wheezing, and it was not a good thing. It was time almost to go to the emergency room.  One thing when your body is not getting enough oxygen, panic attacks ensue. The adrenaline kicks out like gangbusters. Trust me on that one. Enough times of this happening and as I got older, I didn't fool anymore or push the envelope.

I've tried standing outside on cold days for very short periods of time, trying to toughen myself up, but the lungs are unforgiving task master. Yes those wind chills the Weather Channel loves to put up mean something.

When my physical therapist was here in the fall, and working on exercise programs with me, he noticed the bronchial spasms that happened a few times even as I went out into 40s on days that were more damp. Just so everyone knows I never have smoked. I wrote elsewhere about how my lungs went bad even before the serious weight gain came. 

Other climates have been considered but heat is no good too. Heat also affects the lymphedema and brings more swelling.. Washington State probably would be an ideal climate, but then not everyone can afford a move and considering how poor I am, I'd never see one friend ever again and Seattle rents for me would mean a cardboard box in an alley.

If anyone has any ideas to fix this, I am open to them. Yes, we warm up the car, I dress warm etc, that is what makes going out in the [hopefully mid] 30s possible though not ideal. Also not walking on snow or ice is pretty important for someone like me.

When I hit the 3 month mark, one starts feeling strange. Friends who have visited have helped me keep my sanity as well as my poor husband having to march through 3 feet of snow and -10 temperatures to get everything from medicine to groceries.

Spring can't come fast enough.

This many years housebound I have my little world set up, making cards, old movies, books, stamp collection, computer. I can putter hours and hours away, and this is probably an Aspie blessing so I rarely get bored but locked inside you miss just sitting outside a breeze on your face. I miss my groups and clubs and visiting people and seeing places. This has been the worse winter, weather wise I ever have remembered.

Please Help Me!



Can one of my readers do me a favor, I would like to write the lady in this video, but can't understand what she says is her email address? {remember I have serious hearing issues, the Youtube transcripts don't cut it....Please post it in the comments if you could.

I wonder how much "obesity" out there in the severe cases is uncontrolled lymphatic conditions, that leg of her is "water" not fat and she looks like she could be an undiagnosed lipedema case too beyond the lymphedema she already knows about.