Last month, Facebook removed one of the emoticons it lets people use to tell their friends how they’re feeling. Called the ‘feeling fat’ emoticon, it was a smiling, double-chinned yellow blob to illustrate the kind of happy, slightly guilty feeling you might have after stuffing down an unnecessary pudding following a hefty main course.
Facebook did this because 16,000 signed an online petition to get the chubby-cheeked emoticon dropped from the list of options. It was seen, in the words of Facebook’s explanation/apology, as “reinforcing a negative body image, particularly for people struggling with eating disorders”.
In some ways, I don’t have a problem with this. There are people out there with eating disorders, and they already have – if they’ll forgive me – enough on their plate. Facebook has now replaced ‘feeling fat’ with ‘feeling stuffed’, giving those who have indulged in shameless gluttony a way of sharing that on Facebook without offending anyone.
Yet I can’t help feeling Facebook has capitulated to a kind of manic oversensitivity. Reacting to Facebook’s move, the petition’s leader described how “as someone who struggled with body image, I feel so happy that I’ve helped eliminate one form of body-shaming hatred on the Internet”.
“Body-shaming hatred”? Is that really the effect of using a silly emoticon to share the fact that you’ve eaten more than you should?
But then social media seems to be the new home of bonkers political correctness; a place where everyone who doesn’t meet your nutty righter-on-thanthou criteria can be pilloried and shamed. It’s a place where Benedict Cumberbatch can’t make a pro-equality point, albeit using dated, inappropriate terminology, without being cast as a racist.
Social media is now both a minefield and the modern equivalent of the old market-square stocks. Put a foot wrong and you can be accused of microaggressions: innocent or well meaning actions that are seen by overly PC types as an attack on their rights. There are endless stories of people being sacked after making a bad joke on social media, or – in one case – overheard by someone using social media. Sure, some of these jokes are abhorrent, but do these people deserve to have their whole life ruined?
Even the websites themselves are going crazy. In the US, Facebook has increased the number of gender options from the traditional two (men and women) to 51. Yep, fifty-one! Apparently, male, female and trans-gender – a selection which would seem to cover most bases – isn’t enough to describe the full range of gender identities. You see, it doesn’t do enough to differentiate those who are ‘pan-gender’ from those who are ‘gender questioning’ from those who are ‘gender nonconforming’ or ‘intersex’ (did you get all that?). In fact, it doesn’t do enough to differentiate those who see themselves as male from those who see themselves as cis-male, which means you are both male and have the gender identity ‘commonly associated with males’.
This all drives me potty, yet there’s equally stupid stuff coming in from our right-wing chums. Those who liked the good old days when women/gays/immigrants had their place and knew it are just as likely to go on Twitter, send death threats to left-wingers and complain when they’re told off that they’re now being victimised and that it’s a free-speech issue. Neither is true.
And that’s when I remember: social media isn’t really a place for fighting social injustices or changing the world – it’s a place for those who love the sound of their own voice, and particularly the way it sounds when shouting in outrage. It’s a place for self-righteous monologues, not real discussion, and where surfing the next wave of overblown public anger is a major thrill. As usual, then, the tech that should be bringing out the best in us brings out the worst. by Stuart Andrews