Body-shaming is a shame that the modern civilisation is fighting with. While these battles might give the haters an excuse to feel good about themselves, the other side borders bullying. And I say this with personal experience, bullying stagnates childhood. I know and can list innumerable souls who are subjected to hate and contempt just because they don’t fit into society’s mould of beautiful.
And I’m here, unfortunately, because the ghastly numbers just rose by 1.
In a shocking incident, plus-size model, Natalie Hage was body-shamed by a co-passenger on a Los Angeles-bound flight.
The model took to Instagram to document her ordeal which began with rude messages that the man was sending his friend about Natalie.
I’m shaking right now. I’m on a flight to LA right now on @americanair. I paid almost $70 extra for this seat I’m in because I know I need a little extra leg room. I’m extremely flight anxious but there were only middle seats available so I had to take what I could get. As soon as I sat down, the gentleman on my left began LOUDLY huffing, sighing, and readjusting himself in his seat. I see him furiously texting and then purposefully turning the phone away from me. so, naturally, next time he texts, I take a look.
The texts were about me and I’m almost positive he took photos of me. Not only were the texts about me, but they were really mean and ugly, with even the recipient named ‘Linda’ chiming back with shaming retorts…someone who can’t even see the situation. If you can’t read the texts, it says ‘Hopefully she didn’t have any Mexican food’ and his response is ‘I think she ate a Mexican’. Then he proceeds to say he’s leaving a ‘neck mark on the window’ because he’s so smashed against the wall. From the photos, you can see I’m not in his space. He’s even taken over both arm rests on purpose, coming to my space and digging his elbows into my side…Which is in my seat. His next text to her was ‘if the news reports a DFW Airbus a321 leaving the runway without rotating, that would be my flight.’ Another I see later? ‘if these seats don’t hold, it’s not going to matter.’ And that’s just a few of them. There were several more.
I didn’t do anything to him. I’m in my seat, completely (see photos). I am crumpled into a ball trying to not bother. I’m just so upset. I asked the other man to my right if he’d switch me and told him what the man was saying about me and he said laughed and refused. That’s fine, it’s not his issue.
This is a fat person’s daily reality and not just on a plane. this is on a bus, standing in line at the grocery store, at a concert, on the internet. You can be completed in your own space, not bothering anyone, and people will still fuck with you and try to hurt you. All you can do is know you haven’t done anything wrong just by existing and to move on. This just makes me a mixture of enraged and super sad.”
But there is a silver lining…
Natalie didn’t sit sulking, instead confronted the man like a boss and even recorded the entire conversation! She wrote,
Here’s the video I took with the man, Eric, who did this shitty shit to me. I hope my voice isn’t too shaky and my voice doesn’t waver. Not the best audio quality but I feel good about the interaction because you should have SEEN his ‘holy shit’ face when I called him out. I didn’t want to film his face that much because I didn’t want him to get me for filming without consent. He tried lying, but when I started quoting him, he knew I was for real. Also, bonus gem – he went from immediately apologising to calling me inadequate to be sitting in an exit row because I couldn’t possibly help anyone in an emergency because I’m fat but quickly shut him down with that bullshit. Even more bonus gem? he apologised AGAIN and offered to take me to dinner ‘for the trouble’.
WHAT WAS THIS INTERACTION?!
WHAT WAS THIS INTERACTION?!
Needless to say, her posts have created a social media uproar and I can clearly see why. So, ladies, that is how you deal with hates/losers! Give it back as good as you get! Thank you for showing us the right way, Natalie. You’re beautiful, inside and out!
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