Well, the number of people claiming Taylor Swift, a person who had an eating disorder, isn't skinny is certainly proving the OP's point. That being said, I think part of this is that the person is using a simplified, slightly cartoon-ish art style, which communicates reality through minimal lines. Our brains interpret reality through exaggerations in drawings like this; if they were to communicate youth in this style, they would probably make the figure's eyes 30-40% bigger than they would be in reality. I think that, the more detail they added, and the closer to photo-realism they got, the less, "plus-sized," she would appear.
Another aspect is the angle of the photo; it's a somewhat candid photo taken while she's walking. She looks significantly thinner in the photo below, where she's posing at a more flattering angle for the camera.
None of this is to invalidate the OP's point, but to offer an explanation for this mentality. If your exposure to women is mostly anime characters drawn with exaggerated proportions and Instagram models posing at optimal angles, you can convince yourself that Taylor Swift isn't skinny by seeing a simplified sketch of her.
Are we even positive that the post's picture and yours show her at the same weight? Not saying she's fat in either, but the post might show her at a normal weight.
I don't know when the first one was taken, but the one I posted is from this year, and I doubt she's gotten significantly thinner as she's gotten older. I'm sure there's some difference in weight, everyone fluctuates a bit over time, but it probably isn't a huge amount. Some of it might be the outfit, but I think it's mostly just the angle.
Right. Now which do you think Taylor Swift had? Do you think that she felt pressure to get bigger, and over-ate in a attempt to bulk up, or felt the need to get smaller, and starved herself? What do you think the most likely eating disorder is for Taylor Swift, a female pop star, to develop?
If I seem hostile, it's because your comments come across as though you're trying to say, "Just because Swift had an eating disorder, it doesn't mean she's skinny." And while I don't much care for Swift, saying this woman isn't skinny is absurd and indicative of the fucked-up beauty standards that cause women to develop eating disorders. So, if that wasn't your intention, I apologize, but jumping in to (incorrectly) tell me the definition of an eating disorder and then point out that eating disorders can also include weight gain (even though the context made it clear I was referring to anorexia or bulimia) sure makes it sound like you're trying to say Swift is heavy.
I don't think "skinny" is being used correctly here, which seems to be the whole source of conflict.
Taylor Swift isn't skinny. She certainly isn't overweight, but skinny doesn't mean "not overweight", it means thinner than average. It's the opposite extreme of fat, with the norm being somewhere between. Taylor Swift is in the normal range. Emma Stone is skinny.
If you're using "skinny" to mean "not fat", obviously there's going to be some disagreement with those who use "skinny" to mean "thinner than normal".
Still seems like a definitional problem, with an imprecise meaning behind the word "skinny."
Even according to BMI, she’s bordering on underweight.
Bordering on, but still on the "normal" side of the chart.
Does "skinny" look to broad population averages, or celebrity averages, or even celebrity averages for that particular age, or some kind of ideal? Is "skinny" a pejorative, negatively loaded term?
I wouldn't call Taylor Swift "skinny" if that's intended to mean thinner than ideal. But she is thinner than the American average. Is the American average considered "fat"? How much of a gap is there between skinny and fat, occupied by people who are neither?
Oh I'm aware. That's why I threw in that even according to the faulty BMI scale for women, Taylor Swift is considered bordering on underweight to being underweight.
That you think Taylor Swift isn't skinny says way more about you than anything else.
Her weight has fluctuated, like most normal people. When she was closer to 115, she was closer to skinny, not at 130. Certainly not in the reference photo, which is probably the fullest I've seen her. There are plenty of photos where you could make the argument, but they look much more like the "exaggerated" sketch anyway. She is not skinny in the reference photo provided.
I think it depends on where you live too, skinny (as in thinner than average) being a relative measure.
I live somewhere extremely skinny by global standards and she wouldn't be called skinny, people might say, "yeah I guess she's skinny" if asked, but she wouldn't be seen as "a skinny person" because she wouldn't be far off the average. Same way a 5'8 woman wouldn't be a "tall woman" in the Netherlands.
"Taylor Swift is" is wrong.
everyone has skinny or fat periods.
Especially celebrities can vary a lot in short periods.
Intense tours with daily performances, team of specialists and trainers: skinny
In between, writing, recording enjoying that big touring money in fancy resaurants, parties: fat
Language is a tool for communication. It requires interpretation. The meme uses language to try to get a point across, and adds illustrations to further enhance understanding. I’m sorry that the imprecise language made you unable to comprehend the point of the post, but it seemed pretty clear to me.
Discuss the ideas communicated or go off and sulk because you can’t comprehend, but all this whining about the language is beyond stupid. If you don’t wanna talk about beauty standards you can quietly excuse yourself. This adds less than nothing to the conversation.
More crying over a word. Wow, interesting dialogue we’re having instead of talking about society we get to hear you whine about a word. Good talk lemmy, real fun.
That is not a problem except for men who are way more interested being pedantic over semantics than they are in talking about a visual phenomenon. And then then, almost all of them are being dishonest.
There's no real confusion. Anyone who can rub some brain cells together can figure out what was meant. The context is visually demonstrated. It's unmissable since you have to look at it to even know it's time to get uppity about Taylor Swift being called skinny and then pretending like OF COURSE Taylor Swift looks plus size in drawing format since she's not skinny!
This is just straight up a situation where a bunch of neckbeards just want to comment their opinion on a woman's body while pretending like they're upholding the strict rules of language and meaning against unwashed hordes.
That is not a problem except for men who are way more interested being pedantic over semantics than they are in talking about a visual phenomenon.
Hi, I'm autistic.
What you call pedantry, I call accuracy, precision and consistency in communication.
If you want to use words in a way where they have multiple different possible meanings that are context dependent, you can do that, but its always going to be confusing for me and probably most other male autists, unless there are clear and consistent guidelines as to which context should connote which specific, similar but substantially different meaning.
But there is clear and obvious context. It's unmissable. You have to look at it before even getting any inkling of an idea that there's an ambiguous word. This is picture with a guided series of posts and a visual demonstration of what is being discussed. Even with the autism you describe here, it requires purposefully ignoring the context in order to go down this path of fixation of confusing what the word used in the demonstration means, which in turn requires a desire to ignore talking about the actual point to instead focus on best defining how to describe women's bodies.
Words aside, the demonstration is just adding together relatively small errors that add up to something that looks significant. The sides of the dress are loose around her torso in the reference photo but form-fitting in the sketch, the overlaid sketch is scaled too small and doesn't match her pose, extending her lowered neck and leveling her angled shoulders. Adjusting the scale, and accounting for the draping in the outfit and the pose of her head and shoulders, there really isn't any difference other than the arms being drawn too long.
The whole point being demonstrated is that someone who is obviously not plus sized in real life will read as plus sized when their silhouette is traced into a drawing. It doesn't matter if they are semantically skinny, thin, or normal, only that they are not plus sized but will be when traced.
So what is the dishonesty you're suddenly detecting? That Taylor Swift is actually not skinny therefore this illusion doesn't work? It's a visual illusion you're claiming is false, so visually demonstrate your counterpoint. Otherwise this is just throwing things at a wall to see if it will stick. After all, that outfit is clearly not loose fitting, as we can clearly see in the image.
Again, all this "confusion" and "problem" you're detecting are just neckbeards arguing about anything except the actual visual illusion because commenting on the exact right verbiage to categorize women's bodies into is more interesting to them than, you know, visually demonstrating why a theorized visual illusion does not hold.
It's a visual illusion you're claiming is false, so visually demonstrate your counterpoint
The outfit is not as tight fitting as the drawing on the right, and the pose doesn't help. We can all clearly see it in the image. There are plenty of images of her that would look slim even when traced.
I can't upload an image for some reason, but here's a good example.
The drawing on the right, as in the stylized "skinny" one from the comparison drawings? The difference between those two side-by-side pictures is the body, not the tightness of the outfit. Again, the one on the left is traced from the actual photograph. Look at the actual photograph of Taylor Swift in that post. Where do you see a bunch of loose fabric in that oufit's torso? Do you actually think Taylor Swift is swimming in that outfit since she's actually as skinny as she was 13 years ago? Just her legs alone, which are not under that dress, will clearly demonstrate otherwise.
Of course a picture of a much skinnier Taylor Swift will look skinnier than one of a less skinny Taylor Swift. But that has nothing to do with the visual illusion described being apparently dishonest, which was your last assertion after you moved on from the semantics being the whole problem. This has taken quite a journey since your original assertion.
All of this is proving my point that this entire post is only a problem for guys who just want to argue about a woman's body instead of the visual illusion. Not a single person who is arguing about "skinny" vs. "thin" semantics is demonstrating a single thing about how it affects the theorized illusion, that clearly isn't their interest. To them, this post is just an avenue to share "valid opinions" on the right way to describe women's bodies.
If you compare the drawn body to a real body's actual size and proportions, 'full figure' is basically 'somewhere between normal and a healthy skinny'.
'Tall and thin' is in actuality 'starvation/anorexia/muscular dystrophy/something like that'.
The proportions are fundamentally unrealistic, which, on the one hand, duh, but on the other hand, does literally create an unrealistic body size/shape/proportion standard.
Either you are mistaken, or you likely have some kind of genuinely concerning medical condition.
Like I'm not trying to dox you, but take a picture of yourself, wearing fairly tight clothes, in the same pose as the anime figure, line them up at the shoulders, and overlay them and compare the outlines.
Use a camera that is further away but also zoomed in a good amount, and if you do actually want to post the image, blur out your face and any tattoos or scars... totally fine if you want to just keep such an image to yourself.
What you will likely find is that you are mistaken, you misjudged the proportions, or perhaps you are a skinnier lankier dude, but not literally the same limb thicknesses as the anime figure, or, perhaps you actually are that skinny, in which case, if you are past puberty, you likely have a relatively rare medical condition like chrones or muscular dystrophy, or anorexia, or are malnourished.
Not sure if that's a fair comparison. That looks like Japanese cartoon style, which is of course going to be stylized, but also visit Japan and you will see that average figure there is skinnier than Taylor Swift in the photo
I've done a fair amount of karate and met a fair amount of Japanese people, met them as visiting teachers or competitors.
On average, do they maybe have slightly less body fat than other peoples?
Sure, to a noticeable but small degree, but not to the point that they all literally have the proportions of anime characters.
And my 'sample' of such people is of course biased towards those who are athletic, obviously not every Japanese person is a karateka.
Are there skinnier models that tend to be in a lot of magazines, marketing, advertising?
Again yes, but such people are not close to average, normal people, just the same as models in most other cultures with mass marketing, or actors in movies.
From my experience, it's a smaller body frame. I felt awkward taking up so much space sitting down on the subway. And I was 165 at 5.11-6. So basically a twig. All those sandos changed that lol
A simple trace has no shading or depth, which then the widest section of each part is brought to the front, on the same plane of the slimmer parts of that section.
For example, a cyclindar has a gradual taper to the full width. This art style would just flatten it to a rectangle.
Art is about capturing the feeling of a thing, not recording and replaying the actual thing.
A good drawing discards almost all of the unnecessary information from the real scene. Then you exaggerate to bring out the essence - which lines get thicker, which shades get darker, which features are literally enlarged or shrunken.
That's the labor of the artist, to decide what's relevant and what's not.
Sure, but that's not the point of this post. It's a reminder that draws (haha) attention to the fact that art isn't necessarily a literal 1:1 copy of real life and that we shouldn't compare ourselves or others to idealised or stylised artistic depictions, nor judge ourselves on them.
I think anyone who's seen a decent amount of celebrities in person can attest to this. People who look attractive in 2D do look attractive irl, but in an uncanny way? Less of a sexy - I want to date this person - attraction and more of a confused - how is it possible to look like this - admiration.
TBH lots of supposedly attractive celebrities look kind of weird to me, probably mostly due to fashion (makeup etc.). That would probably be even worse IRL, depending on whether they're "done up" and how much of their look is plastic surgery.
That's also not a uniformly right fitting outfit. It's tight on the shoulders and hips, but looser at the middle Drawn clothes don't have to have any thickness or areas to stretch.
I won't deny that this is true, but it's also the case that cartoons tend to have larger heads. The skinny version of swift here is also shorter and has more narrow shoulders / hips. She's not just drawn thinner, but literally smaller to accommodate the proportionally larger head. I think this is kind of exaggerating the effect. If the artist had instead drawn a larger head, it wouldn't be as dramatic.
This thread is insane. Apparently skinny people can't jiggle because....I guess they're not allowed to have meat and organs and other squishy jiggly things?
Just sexy bones I guess!
I was honestly hopeful coming into this thread only to be confronted a wall of people basically arguing that cartoon bodies are an attainable beauty standard or something?
Have you ever met skinny people? Even when I was at my thinnest, my body did jiggle. Not because of fat or stretched skin (at my fattest, I have still been on the lower end of normal weight), but because relaxed muscle jiggles too, unless you have muscles like stone. Which you cannot really have, if you are underweight, which people in this thread seem to think is "skinny".
Also thin is not the same as healthy, nor beautiful. People with anorexia are really thin, do people think they are healthy? Or cancer patients. Or someone like me, whose "miracle diet" is autoimmune diseases combined with mental health problems. I am all bony to touch, you can see my ribs and a tight gap. My cheeks are sunken in. I still jiggle.
I really did not intuit how fat people truly are until I lost about 65kg and got fairly toned and muscular.
I hit 73kg at 188cm at that was with so much added muscle vs prior. If you had taken away all the muscle mass that I had added through my journey I'm confident to say I would have been around 65kg. This was with around 11% body fat.
Rediscovering at my own body in the mirror and seeing what actually skinny was... Completely blew my mind and changed my perspective forever
You can also look back at photos of people in the 70s from various cultures. We’ve become fatter overall because of processed food and reduced exercise.
that's an effect of the demographic transition. society stopped having a dozen kids each so maybe three or four make it to 20. now they expect all (or nearly all) to survive to adulthood.
Alright , alright, alright. What's the fastest disease we can spread to kill children? We need something where if one kid leaves a room, another kid can walk into the room an hour later and catch the disease. Something that can infect a whole school basically at once.
Any ideas? What's the fastest spreading disease you can think of?
Because I think they like it when we complain about it. In that spirit, I LOVE 10,000 pixel tall image posts! They are so easy to view and definitely not annoying.
The trace does not match the photo and is the wrong pose. its squishing her arms and shoulders down and ignoring the twist in her stance, making her chest look blobby.
I feel like I'm going insane with this stuff, is there really no better terminology? Because one huge factor with how people look is their general build, like how broad their shoulders are, for example. That, to me, looks like the biggest difference between the illustrations.
It's like they've never seen women's bodies in real life before. If Taylor fucking Swift isn't considered skinny, then I guess the rest of womanhood can go yeet ourselves off of cliffs. She's practically underweight and it still isn't skinny enough.
Many people use skinny as the opposite of fat, so to be charitable to the poster maybe that's what they meant. They could be thinking: Taylor is thin sure, but not too thin, so not skinny. Skinny would be firmly in the underweight category using this definition; a sleight on their weight and not something to aspire to.
In the pursuit of continuing to be charitable, I'll assume you're genuinely confused.
"Not skinny" does not mean "fat" necessarily, in the same way "not tall" does not necessarily mean "short", or "not cold" isn't the same as "hot". It's a continuum with a middle ground that's the assumed "default" so there are terms describing deviation from that middle. In common language, "not" preceding the term that describes that deviation tends to mean it falls within the default range, as if they meant it fell outside the range in the other direction they'd just use the term for that part of the range instead.
In this case, the assumed middle is the range of weights deemed "normal" so fat and skinny describe those body types that fall outside that range. Saying someone isn't skinny does not equate to saying they're fat since thay can be neither (and that's typically what's meant).
Without knowing too much about Taylor Swift, I assume she's much more fit than the average person, and muscle weighs more than fat, so her weight might even be a bit misleading here, compared most people.
I would say she's more fit than skinny. She's definitely been skinny and too skinny, but I think she gained a lot of muscle before and during her Eras Tour, making her look less skinny in that picture there.
But, it's problematic to even discuss her weight like this, and it just puts unnecessary pressure on other people, who might see her as skinny.
I've been 125 at 5'9", that was my weight after I recovered from disordered eating and until my husband asked me to bulk, so from 20 years old to about 48. Nobody really commented that I was too thin (except husband), I looked slender not skinny skinny, was in shape, worked out. More cardio less weights.
90 lb when having trouble from 16 to 20 - that looked skinny and surely wasn't healthy but I still got my period.
150 now since gaining - aimed for 145, overshot. Still aiming for 145 finally making progress, slowly. People STILL think I am thin. I am not. This is more than I weighed 9 months pregnant and honestly it freaks me out a little. Doctor says it's a healthy weight still though.
ETA - 125 at 5'9" is barely even underweight by BMI. 128 lands in Normal territory.
I think it's a cultural thing, some places people just have lower BMI's genetically or dietarily (is that a word?).
I'm considered skinny at 6'4 130lbs, but all of my friends who are all a little underweight or "barely healthy" according to BMI wouldn't, they'd just be considered thin, since the median weight is much lower than in, say, the US.
Yes, I googled and found similar numbers that would put her at a BMI of 19, which is indeed almost underweight. I don't buy the numbers though. I mean look at the thighs in that picture. She's definitely bigger than the majority of the women at my work, and they're about normal weight. I'd put her at around a BMI of 25 or 174.5 lbs. Not overweight, but definitely not skinny.
I agree that she doesn't look as underweight in that picture as the stated BMI implies, but there's no way in hell she has a BMI of 25, i.e. nearly overweight. I have that BMI and I have a clearly visible fat belly, while she looks fit.
Consider the camera angles here as well. The camera is shooting from slightly below which puts emphasis on her thighs and hips with the slight lens distortion.
She’s definitely bigger than the majority of the women at my work, and they’re about normal weight. I’d put her at around a BMI of 25 or 174.5 lbs
I'm not the one who brought it up, I'm only disagreeing with an argument that was presented to me. The entire post hinges on an agreement that she is skinny. And yeah, the post is rude. I normally never comment on people's body out of nowhere, and I never even cared about her weight in the first place.
I don't know how you can say "her face isn't part of this conversation" when the conversation is about whether somebody looks skinny or not. You brought the camera angle argument up and her face is furthest from the camera, yet it's still not the face of a skinny person.
How is arguing what relative terms mean a thing? Skinny means less fat than someone else, usually the "average" which obviously varies wildly from many factors. Fat means fatter than that same idea. The definition will vary person to person. This thread is full of people who confuse their opinion with objective truth.
Way too many people interested in litigating absolute definitions of relative terms that have already been thoroughly distorted by marketing and mass media (thank you, 90s and 2000s sitcoms for teaching me that anyone who isn't heroin chic is embarrassingly heavy).
Also a lot of the commenter have never had family, friends, or perfect fucking strangers comment on their bodies and it shows.
Well, in this particular picture and this particular moment.
These rich people have their phases of drugs/drink/food or whatever and periods of strict programs/a team of personal trainers/ozempics or whatever.
People here are discussing if Swift is skinny while they most likely are having their own version in mind.
She looks regular size, normal, healthy in that picture, probably smack dab in the middle of a healthy weight not "incredibly skinny". Runway models and distance runners are incredibly skinny. I feel like perception is so skewed now. I guess she's small compared to whatever the average is here now, but the average is fat.
They would have found my graduating class appalling.
"In 1989, the average weight for an 18-year-old in the United States was roughly 155 to 165 pounds for males (with an average height around 5 feet 9 inches) and 120 to 125 pounds for females (with an average height around 5 feet 4 inches)."
156 replies
Well, the number of people claiming Taylor Swift, a person who had an eating disorder, isn't skinny is certainly proving the OP's point. That being said, I think part of this is that the person is using a simplified, slightly cartoon-ish art style, which communicates reality through minimal lines. Our brains interpret reality through exaggerations in drawings like this; if they were to communicate youth in this style, they would probably make the figure's eyes 30-40% bigger than they would be in reality. I think that, the more detail they added, and the closer to photo-realism they got, the less, "plus-sized," she would appear.
Another aspect is the angle of the photo; it's a somewhat candid photo taken while she's walking. She looks significantly thinner in the photo below, where she's posing at a more flattering angle for the camera.
None of this is to invalidate the OP's point, but to offer an explanation for this mentality. If your exposure to women is mostly anime characters drawn with exaggerated proportions and Instagram models posing at optimal angles, you can convince yourself that Taylor Swift isn't skinny by seeing a simplified sketch of her.
Are we even positive that the post's picture and yours show her at the same weight? Not saying she's fat in either, but the post might show her at a normal weight.
I don't know when the first one was taken, but the one I posted is from this year, and I doubt she's gotten significantly thinner as she's gotten older. I'm sure there's some difference in weight, everyone fluctuates a bit over time, but it probably isn't a huge amount. Some of it might be the outfit, but I think it's mostly just the angle.
that does not make a person skinny, it just makes a person think they aren't
No, that's body dysmorphia. An eating disorder is when that dysmorphia causes abnorma, unhealthy eating habits.
right. and sometimes that results in overeating, not undereating.
Right. Now which do you think Taylor Swift had? Do you think that she felt pressure to get bigger, and over-ate in a attempt to bulk up, or felt the need to get smaller, and starved herself? What do you think the most likely eating disorder is for Taylor Swift, a female pop star, to develop?
If I seem hostile, it's because your comments come across as though you're trying to say, "Just because Swift had an eating disorder, it doesn't mean she's skinny." And while I don't much care for Swift, saying this woman isn't skinny is absurd and indicative of the fucked-up beauty standards that cause women to develop eating disorders. So, if that wasn't your intention, I apologize, but jumping in to (incorrectly) tell me the definition of an eating disorder and then point out that eating disorders can also include weight gain (even though the context made it clear I was referring to anorexia or bulimia) sure makes it sound like you're trying to say Swift is heavy.
I think it was just a technical correct thing. You are both right.
I don't think "skinny" is being used correctly here, which seems to be the whole source of conflict.
Taylor Swift isn't skinny. She certainly isn't overweight, but skinny doesn't mean "not overweight", it means thinner than average. It's the opposite extreme of fat, with the norm being somewhere between. Taylor Swift is in the normal range. Emma Stone is skinny.
If you're using "skinny" to mean "not fat", obviously there's going to be some disagreement with those who use "skinny" to mean "thinner than normal".
Still seems like a definitional problem, with an imprecise meaning behind the word "skinny."
Bordering on, but still on the "normal" side of the chart.
Does "skinny" look to broad population averages, or celebrity averages, or even celebrity averages for that particular age, or some kind of ideal? Is "skinny" a pejorative, negatively loaded term?
I wouldn't call Taylor Swift "skinny" if that's intended to mean thinner than ideal. But she is thinner than the American average. Is the American average considered "fat"? How much of a gap is there between skinny and fat, occupied by people who are neither?
Not in our society. Skinny is seen as the ideal.
Yeah I'm around that height and I'd lose my adhd meds if I showed up to a doctor weighing that without a damn good reason
From the photo she would appear to weight more than 130lbs (for 5 10 height). My one daughter is 130 at 5' 8" and looks much skinnier than TS
It’s almost like everyone’s body is different or something. Weird.
It's almost like celebrities don't lie about their weight or height.
Taylor Swift isn’t plus sized.
If it is true she's 130 at 5 10, she must have really low muscle mass
BMI is a terrible metric, and even then her BMI is on the lower end of the normal range.
Oh I'm aware. That's why I threw in that even according to the faulty BMI scale for women, Taylor Swift is considered bordering on underweight to being underweight.
That you think Taylor Swift isn't skinny says way more about you than anything else.
Her weight has fluctuated, like most normal people. When she was closer to 115, she was closer to skinny, not at 130. Certainly not in the reference photo, which is probably the fullest I've seen her. There are plenty of photos where you could make the argument, but they look much more like the "exaggerated" sketch anyway. She is not skinny in the reference photo provided.
She was unhealthily underweight at 115.
Aka "skinny"
And unhealthily overweight = "fat"
Wow you cleared up all the confusion immediately with this really clear definition of skinny and fat! WHHOOOAAAA WOWWWEEE /s
Correct.
Yeah it says I know skinny women
I think it depends on where you live too, skinny (as in thinner than average) being a relative measure.
I live somewhere extremely skinny by global standards and she wouldn't be called skinny, people might say, "yeah I guess she's skinny" if asked, but she wouldn't be seen as "a skinny person" because she wouldn't be far off the average. Same way a 5'8 woman wouldn't be a "tall woman" in the Netherlands.
I can't comment on that, but the photo is certainly not remotely close to a skinny person
"Taylor Swift is" is wrong.
everyone has skinny or fat periods.
Especially celebrities can vary a lot in short periods.
Intense tours with daily performances, team of specialists and trainers: skinny
In between, writing, recording enjoying that big touring money in fancy resaurants, parties: fat
I've seen plenty versions of this Swift woman too
In the context of the post they clearly were using “skinny” to mean “not plus sized”.
This is like saying 2 = 3 because 2 != 4.
This yellow firetruck is red because it is not blue.
The aircraft is grounded because it is not flying at above 20k feet.
Etc.
Skinny literally means 'thin or very thin'.
It does not mean 'not plus size'.
Look up any English dictionary's definition.
They way OP from the image used the word was nonsensical.
The only thing that is 'literally skinny' is the drawn-as-skinny figure, based on the picture of Swift, who is herself not skinny.
Language is a tool for communication. It requires interpretation. The meme uses language to try to get a point across, and adds illustrations to further enhance understanding. I’m sorry that the imprecise language made you unable to comprehend the point of the post, but it seemed pretty clear to me.
Discuss the ideas communicated or go off and sulk because you can’t comprehend, but all this whining about the language is beyond stupid. If you don’t wanna talk about beauty standards you can quietly excuse yourself. This adds less than nothing to the conversation.
A hammer is a tool for putting nails into things, if you hammer your finger with it instead, you're doing it wrong.
Every person in this thread who objects to the use of the word is proof on its face that this person has at least nicked their finger on the way down.
More crying over a word. Wow, interesting dialogue we’re having instead of talking about society we get to hear you whine about a word. Good talk lemmy, real fun.
Considering the argument hinges on whether "skinny" applies equally to the person and the sketch? Kind of a vital point.
Also? Bitching and moaning about artstyles being problematic? Not my definition of fun, but you do you.
Right, that's the problem. They were using the word in a way that's inconsistent with the dictionary definition, causing confusion.
That is not a problem except for men who are way more interested being pedantic over semantics than they are in talking about a visual phenomenon. And then then, almost all of them are being dishonest.
There's no real confusion. Anyone who can rub some brain cells together can figure out what was meant. The context is visually demonstrated. It's unmissable since you have to look at it to even know it's time to get uppity about Taylor Swift being called skinny and then pretending like OF COURSE Taylor Swift looks plus size in drawing format since she's not skinny!
This is just straight up a situation where a bunch of neckbeards just want to comment their opinion on a woman's body while pretending like they're upholding the strict rules of language and meaning against unwashed hordes.
Hi, I'm autistic.
What you call pedantry, I call accuracy, precision and consistency in communication.
If you want to use words in a way where they have multiple different possible meanings that are context dependent, you can do that, but its always going to be confusing for me and probably most other male autists, unless there are clear and consistent guidelines as to which context should connote which specific, similar but substantially different meaning.
But there is clear and obvious context. It's unmissable. You have to look at it before even getting any inkling of an idea that there's an ambiguous word. This is picture with a guided series of posts and a visual demonstration of what is being discussed. Even with the autism you describe here, it requires purposefully ignoring the context in order to go down this path of fixation of confusing what the word used in the demonstration means, which in turn requires a desire to ignore talking about the actual point to instead focus on best defining how to describe women's bodies.
Words aside, the demonstration is just adding together relatively small errors that add up to something that looks significant. The sides of the dress are loose around her torso in the reference photo but form-fitting in the sketch, the overlaid sketch is scaled too small and doesn't match her pose, extending her lowered neck and leveling her angled shoulders. Adjusting the scale, and accounting for the draping in the outfit and the pose of her head and shoulders, there really isn't any difference other than the arms being drawn too long.
No one said Taylor Swift was plus sized. She is a relatively thin, but healthy weight in that picture.
The whole post was about the "expectation" of skinny people in art. They then proceeded to trace a thin, but not skinny, person in loose clothing.
Not that there aren't body positivity issues in the world, but this post itself seems dishonest overall in its premise and execution.
The whole point being demonstrated is that someone who is obviously not plus sized in real life will read as plus sized when their silhouette is traced into a drawing. It doesn't matter if they are semantically skinny, thin, or normal, only that they are not plus sized but will be when traced.
So what is the dishonesty you're suddenly detecting? That Taylor Swift is actually not skinny therefore this illusion doesn't work? It's a visual illusion you're claiming is false, so visually demonstrate your counterpoint. Otherwise this is just throwing things at a wall to see if it will stick. After all, that outfit is clearly not loose fitting, as we can clearly see in the image.
Again, all this "confusion" and "problem" you're detecting are just neckbeards arguing about anything except the actual visual illusion because commenting on the exact right verbiage to categorize women's bodies into is more interesting to them than, you know, visually demonstrating why a theorized visual illusion does not hold.
The outfit is not as tight fitting as the drawing on the right, and the pose doesn't help. We can all clearly see it in the image. There are plenty of images of her that would look slim even when traced.
I can't upload an image for some reason, but here's a good example.
The drawing on the right, as in the stylized "skinny" one from the comparison drawings? The difference between those two side-by-side pictures is the body, not the tightness of the outfit. Again, the one on the left is traced from the actual photograph. Look at the actual photograph of Taylor Swift in that post. Where do you see a bunch of loose fabric in that oufit's torso? Do you actually think Taylor Swift is swimming in that outfit since she's actually as skinny as she was 13 years ago? Just her legs alone, which are not under that dress, will clearly demonstrate otherwise.
Of course a picture of a much skinnier Taylor Swift will look skinnier than one of a less skinny Taylor Swift. But that has nothing to do with the visual illusion described being apparently dishonest, which was your last assertion after you moved on from the semantics being the whole problem. This has taken quite a journey since your original assertion.
All of this is proving my point that this entire post is only a problem for guys who just want to argue about a woman's body instead of the visual illusion. Not a single person who is arguing about "skinny" vs. "thin" semantics is demonstrating a single thing about how it affects the theorized illusion, that clearly isn't their interest. To them, this post is just an avenue to share "valid opinions" on the right way to describe women's bodies.
Same kind of thing here.
If you compare the drawn body to a real body's actual size and proportions, 'full figure' is basically 'somewhere between normal and a healthy skinny'.
'Tall and thin' is in actuality 'starvation/anorexia/muscular dystrophy/something like that'.
The proportions are fundamentally unrealistic, which, on the one hand, duh, but on the other hand, does literally create an unrealistic body size/shape/proportion standard.
Please tell me that page is a joke. Those 4 figures are practically identical.
(Yes, I see the minute differences between them)
for manga that's a WILD amount of variety. not because that's OK, just because the industry is stuffed full of same samey sameness
I think minute differences was the point.
I know, what I'm saying is that that's obviously not enough
I'm built like the rightmost figure and I'm a man(?)
I genuienly don't believe you.
Either you are mistaken, or you likely have some kind of genuinely concerning medical condition.
Like I'm not trying to dox you, but take a picture of yourself, wearing fairly tight clothes, in the same pose as the anime figure, line them up at the shoulders, and overlay them and compare the outlines.
Use a camera that is further away but also zoomed in a good amount, and if you do actually want to post the image, blur out your face and any tattoos or scars... totally fine if you want to just keep such an image to yourself.
What you will likely find is that you are mistaken, you misjudged the proportions, or perhaps you are a skinnier lankier dude, but not literally the same limb thicknesses as the anime figure, or, perhaps you actually are that skinny, in which case, if you are past puberty, you likely have a relatively rare medical condition like chrones or muscular dystrophy, or anorexia, or are malnourished.
I was just joking about being kind of an underweight twink I do not have body dysmorphia
Not sure if that's a fair comparison. That looks like Japanese cartoon style, which is of course going to be stylized, but also visit Japan and you will see that average figure there is skinnier than Taylor Swift in the photo
Edit: wording
I've done a fair amount of karate and met a fair amount of Japanese people, met them as visiting teachers or competitors.
On average, do they maybe have slightly less body fat than other peoples?
Sure, to a noticeable but small degree, but not to the point that they all literally have the proportions of anime characters.
And my 'sample' of such people is of course biased towards those who are athletic, obviously not every Japanese person is a karateka.
Are there skinnier models that tend to be in a lot of magazines, marketing, advertising?
Again yes, but such people are not close to average, normal people, just the same as models in most other cultures with mass marketing, or actors in movies.
From my experience, it's a smaller body frame. I felt awkward taking up so much space sitting down on the subway. And I was 165 at 5.11-6. So basically a twig. All those sandos changed that lol
I think a contributing factor is the art style.
A simple trace has no shading or depth, which then the widest section of each part is brought to the front, on the same plane of the slimmer parts of that section.
For example, a cyclindar has a gradual taper to the full width. This art style would just flatten it to a rectangle.
Art is about capturing the feeling of a thing, not recording and replaying the actual thing.
A good drawing discards almost all of the unnecessary information from the real scene. Then you exaggerate to bring out the essence - which lines get thicker, which shades get darker, which features are literally enlarged or shrunken.
That's the labor of the artist, to decide what's relevant and what's not.
Sure, but that's not the point of this post. It's a reminder that draws (haha) attention to the fact that art isn't necessarily a literal 1:1 copy of real life and that we shouldn't compare ourselves or others to idealised or stylised artistic depictions, nor judge ourselves on them.
That is really illustrative.
This comment caused me such agony that I now have no other option but to draw a bead on you.
I've done painting of live models who are objectively attractive to have people (men I'm sure) say nasty things about the model.
Like attractive in real life an attractive in TV/Internet are different and a 10 on person is a 4 on the Internet or whatever.
This is a great illustration of that problem.
I think anyone who's seen a decent amount of celebrities in person can attest to this. People who look attractive in 2D do look attractive irl, but in an uncanny way? Less of a sexy - I want to date this person - attraction and more of a confused - how is it possible to look like this - admiration.
Clavicular is a perfect example of this, he looks like a statue not a person
TBH lots of supposedly attractive celebrities look kind of weird to me, probably mostly due to fashion (makeup etc.). That would probably be even worse IRL, depending on whether they're "done up" and how much of their look is plastic surgery.
That's a fair point, though some look amazing either way.
That's also not a uniformly right fitting outfit. It's tight on the shoulders and hips, but looser at the middle Drawn clothes don't have to have any thickness or areas to stretch.
Isn't that dress covered in fringe? I mean, she's in great shape either way, but fringe all over a dress is bulking.
I won't deny that this is true, but it's also the case that cartoons tend to have larger heads. The skinny version of swift here is also shorter and has more narrow shoulders / hips. She's not just drawn thinner, but literally smaller to accommodate the proportionally larger head. I think this is kind of exaggerating the effect. If the artist had instead drawn a larger head, it wouldn't be as dramatic.
I always love this type of thread-squabbling.
Obesity has become such a pervasive problem that people do not even understand what it means to be skinny.
I grew up in the '70s when we ate the appropriate amount of food. 50 years later let me tell you my friends, what you think is skinny is NOT skinny.
Same age. These people would be appalled at the class of '89.
Talking about a mutual friend in his early 20s, "He's not fat, just a little pudgy."
"In 1989 he would have been the fattest kid in my class of 400, by a long shot."
Dude was speechless for a moment. The young man in question is shaped like Cartman.
Taylor Swift's legs would jiggle if you shook them...
Most people's legs will jiggle if you shook them, even thin people.
This thread is insane. Apparently skinny people can't jiggle because....I guess they're not allowed to have meat and organs and other squishy jiggly things?
Just sexy bones I guess!
I was honestly hopeful coming into this thread only to be confronted a wall of people basically arguing that cartoon bodies are an attainable beauty standard or something?
Just a bunch of people arguing that Taylor fucking Swift is not skinny.
It's wild.
By 20th century standards, she's perfectly normal. Now that obese is the new normal, she's dying of anorexia.
No. That only happens when there's surplus fat or stretched skin.
Skinny people don't jiggle.
It's really true.
Have you ever met skinny people? Even when I was at my thinnest, my body did jiggle. Not because of fat or stretched skin (at my fattest, I have still been on the lower end of normal weight), but because relaxed muscle jiggles too, unless you have muscles like stone. Which you cannot really have, if you are underweight, which people in this thread seem to think is "skinny".
Also thin is not the same as healthy, nor beautiful. People with anorexia are really thin, do people think they are healthy? Or cancer patients. Or someone like me, whose "miracle diet" is autoimmune diseases combined with mental health problems. I am all bony to touch, you can see my ribs and a tight gap. My cheeks are sunken in. I still jiggle.
How much fat is “surplus”?
I wouldn't call it "surplus", mind you. Gimme the ones with a belly, all genders.
I really did not intuit how fat people truly are until I lost about 65kg and got fairly toned and muscular.
I hit 73kg at 188cm at that was with so much added muscle vs prior. If you had taken away all the muscle mass that I had added through my journey I'm confident to say I would have been around 65kg. This was with around 11% body fat.
Rediscovering at my own body in the mirror and seeing what actually skinny was... Completely blew my mind and changed my perspective forever
You can also look back at photos of people in the 70s from various cultures. We’ve become fatter overall because of processed food and reduced exercise.
We've also gotten significantly taller and older in only about a century.
Year Median age
1820 - 16.7
1860 - 19.4
1900 - 22.9
1940 - 29.0
1970 - 28.1
1980 - 30.0
1990 - 32.9
2000 - 35.3
2020 - 38.8
that's an effect of the demographic transition. society stopped having a dozen kids each so maybe three or four make it to 20. now they expect all (or nearly all) to survive to adulthood.
We can fix that.
We are working on it as fast as we can!
Alright , alright, alright. What's the fastest disease we can spread to kill children? We need something where if one kid leaves a room, another kid can walk into the room an hour later and catch the disease. Something that can infect a whole school basically at once.
Any ideas? What's the fastest spreading disease you can think of?
Oh I love this!
What an awful image format. Why is this still a thing?
On mobile, it's less hassle than 5 separate images and its definitely less hassle to create and upload.
Because I think they like it when we complain about it. In that spirit, I LOVE 10,000 pixel tall image posts! They are so easy to view and definitely not annoying.
Oh absolutly! In fact… I meant the exact opposite of what I said!
The trace does not match the photo and is the wrong pose. its squishing her arms and shoulders down and ignoring the twist in her stance, making her chest look blobby.
I feel like I'm going insane with this stuff, is there really no better terminology? Because one huge factor with how people look is their general build, like how broad their shoulders are, for example. That, to me, looks like the biggest difference between the illustrations.
She's not skinny though?
Taylor Swift is (supposedly) 5'10" and around 130lbs.
That is skinny. Even according to BMI, she's bordering on underweight.
I think these people calling Taylor Swift not skinny are just imagining Victoria Secret models.
It's a range, just like all bodies are on a range, and they don't seem to get that
It's like they've never seen women's bodies in real life before. If Taylor fucking Swift isn't considered skinny, then I guess the rest of womanhood can go yeet ourselves off of cliffs. She's practically underweight and it still isn't skinny enough.
Many people use skinny as the opposite of fat, so to be charitable to the poster maybe that's what they meant. They could be thinking: Taylor is thin sure, but not too thin, so not skinny. Skinny would be firmly in the underweight category using this definition; a sleight on their weight and not something to aspire to.
Do people really think that Taylor Swift is fat?
"not skinny" includes both "fat" and "normal", though
I was responding to this in particular.
In the pursuit of continuing to be charitable, I'll assume you're genuinely confused.
"Not skinny" does not mean "fat" necessarily, in the same way "not tall" does not necessarily mean "short", or "not cold" isn't the same as "hot". It's a continuum with a middle ground that's the assumed "default" so there are terms describing deviation from that middle. In common language, "not" preceding the term that describes that deviation tends to mean it falls within the default range, as if they meant it fell outside the range in the other direction they'd just use the term for that part of the range instead.
In this case, the assumed middle is the range of weights deemed "normal" so fat and skinny describe those body types that fall outside that range. Saying someone isn't skinny does not equate to saying they're fat since thay can be neither (and that's typically what's meant).
Again, I was specifically replying to this line:
Plenty of VS models have oomph tho.
No way she's 130 in that pic. Not saying that's bad but no way those are the legs of a 130lb 5'10 person
I agree with you that that's skinny. Definitely thin by any metric.
I know it depends on the body, but at 5'2" when I was 125, I was definitely thin and underfed. Add 8 more inches of height? Wild
Yeah I've been 5'3" and 115lbs. I was really unhealthy, underfed, and thin.
It's bonkers that there is so much support in here for people saying shit like Taylor Swift isn't skinny.
Without knowing too much about Taylor Swift, I assume she's much more fit than the average person, and muscle weighs more than fat, so her weight might even be a bit misleading here, compared most people.
I would say she's more fit than skinny. She's definitely been skinny and too skinny, but I think she gained a lot of muscle before and during her Eras Tour, making her look less skinny in that picture there.
But, it's problematic to even discuss her weight like this, and it just puts unnecessary pressure on other people, who might see her as skinny.
Thanks for bringing the whole point of the post back around!
My autism is too strong here. Did not get whether you were sarcastic or not here.
I was being sincere, I promise!
I've been 125 at 5'9", that was my weight after I recovered from disordered eating and until my husband asked me to bulk, so from 20 years old to about 48. Nobody really commented that I was too thin (except husband), I looked slender not skinny skinny, was in shape, worked out. More cardio less weights.
90 lb when having trouble from 16 to 20 - that looked skinny and surely wasn't healthy but I still got my period.
150 now since gaining - aimed for 145, overshot. Still aiming for 145 finally making progress, slowly. People STILL think I am thin. I am not. This is more than I weighed 9 months pregnant and honestly it freaks me out a little. Doctor says it's a healthy weight still though.
ETA - 125 at 5'9" is barely even underweight by BMI. 128 lands in Normal territory.
I think it's a cultural thing, some places people just have lower BMI's genetically or dietarily (is that a word?).
I'm considered skinny at 6'4 130lbs, but all of my friends who are all a little underweight or "barely healthy" according to BMI wouldn't, they'd just be considered thin, since the median weight is much lower than in, say, the US.
Yes, I googled and found similar numbers that would put her at a BMI of 19, which is indeed almost underweight. I don't buy the numbers though. I mean look at the thighs in that picture. She's definitely bigger than the majority of the women at my work, and they're about normal weight. I'd put her at around a BMI of 25 or 174.5 lbs. Not overweight, but definitely not skinny.
I agree that she doesn't look as underweight in that picture as the stated BMI implies, but there's no way in hell she has a BMI of 25, i.e. nearly overweight. I have that BMI and I have a clearly visible fat belly, while she looks fit.
Consider the camera angles here as well. The camera is shooting from slightly below which puts emphasis on her thighs and hips with the slight lens distortion.
This is insane of you.
Fair enough, but that doesn't explain why her face looks so puffy
Her face isn't even part of this conversation. You're just rudely commenting on a woman's body at this point.
I'm not the one who brought it up, I'm only disagreeing with an argument that was presented to me. The entire post hinges on an agreement that she is skinny. And yeah, the post is rude. I normally never comment on people's body out of nowhere, and I never even cared about her weight in the first place.
I don't know how you can say "her face isn't part of this conversation" when the conversation is about whether somebody looks skinny or not. You brought the camera angle argument up and her face is furthest from the camera, yet it's still not the face of a skinny person.
Taylor Swift is not "skinny" though.
Look at her thighs.
Ariana Grande is skinny.
She's practically dying. She's skeletal.
Ever heard the phrase "skin and bones"?
That's where skinny comes from.
And as evidenced here, the definition of skinny varies wildly.
Ariana Grande looks like she has a very serious eating disorder. She’s not skinny, she looks malnourished.
It’s like saying that a Honda Civic is a muscle car because someone rolled up in a poorly setup Kei car.
Skinny used to be a pejorative and it basically meant that you were too poor to feed yourself, i.e. malnourished.
yeah but now it means you're rich enough you don't have to spend all your waking hours eating and working
what
Skinny means you can see the bones.
I'm not saying I find it attractive, I'm not arguing that it's healthy.
Taylor Swift is not skinny.
Thats not what skinny means.
You've defined skinny as 'medically dangerously low levels of body fat/muscle tissue'.
It is possible to be skinny and healthy.
Ariana Grande is so far beyond skinny that she genuienly needs an immediate medical intervention.
golly that’s not what i understand skinny to mean. i think it’d be odd if “every skinny person is unhealthy” was true by definition
No, it does not. Your opinion of what a relative term means is not fact.
How is arguing what relative terms mean a thing? Skinny means less fat than someone else, usually the "average" which obviously varies wildly from many factors. Fat means fatter than that same idea. The definition will vary person to person. This thread is full of people who confuse their opinion with objective truth.
The entire point of the OG post went right over most people's heads.
Way too many people interested in litigating absolute definitions of relative terms that have already been thoroughly distorted by marketing and mass media (thank you, 90s and 2000s sitcoms for teaching me that anyone who isn't heroin chic is embarrassingly heavy).
Also a lot of the commenter have never had family, friends, or perfect fucking strangers comment on their bodies and it shows.
This is certainly not skinny.
Well, in this particular picture and this particular moment.
These rich people have their phases of drugs/drink/food or whatever and periods of strict programs/a team of personal trainers/ozempics or whatever.
People here are discussing if Swift is skinny while they most likely are having their own version in mind.
Are you fucking kidding me? That is incredibly skinny. Anything significantly skinnier would be anorexic.
The fuck?
She looks regular size, normal, healthy in that picture, probably smack dab in the middle of a healthy weight not "incredibly skinny". Runway models and distance runners are incredibly skinny. I feel like perception is so skewed now. I guess she's small compared to whatever the average is here now, but the average is fat.
Quick look says Brit?
I think you might have a skewered frame of reference
And obviously for the americans, the same thing
Na I think it's your perception that's fucked up.
ah well
They would have found my graduating class appalling.
"In 1989, the average weight for an 18-year-old in the United States was roughly 155 to 165 pounds for males (with an average height around 5 feet 9 inches) and 120 to 125 pounds for females (with an average height around 5 feet 4 inches)."
The world doesn't measure in stones, rocks, feet, elbows or whatever.
Use real measurements please