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This merits discussion.

I woke up this morning to this comment on this post:

“Sarah M.

Phew. Good thing you changed that pic.

Really, Jordan? Is this what you’ve been living off? This would make sense. We’d like to see you succeed, but we can pretty much guarantee that you’re going to drop like a dead fly at any given moment, given your sickly, bobble-head silhouette.

Have a sandwich. Eat some protein. Enjoy some good ‘ol fashioned FAT. Cause God knows you need it. Girl cannot survive on garlic flakes alone. Seriously, it’s really unflattering when your head is 3 times the width of your hips. No joke. It’s kinda painful to watch.”

And here’s what I wrote back:

“JordanReid

OK. I’ve gotten a whole bunch of emails this morning about this comment, and honestly, I wasn’t even going to respond, because it simply doesn’t bother me. Attacks on my values, my family…those things bother me, but attacks on my eating habits and body – both of which I think are just dandy – don’t. But then I thought better of it, because lots of young women read here, and I want to let them know that this is not OK. This kind of viciousness about a woman’s shape – any woman’s shape – is incredibly damaging, and has consequences that I suspect the writer of this comment never thought about.
I welcome discussion and criticism, but this kind of negativity has no place on this website. Going forward, comments like this one will be deleted.”

I wasn’t going to talk about this…but it’s just too important of an issue to ignore. Why say such a thing to another human being? Why tell someone, even under the shroud of anonymity provided by the Internet, that they’re going to “drop like a dead fly” and that they have a “sickly, bobble-head silhouette”? What is the goal? I’ll tell you: to make someone else question who they are and how they feel about themselves. And that is NOT OKAY.

Something about the Internet makes some people feel free to launch vicious attacks on those who “put themselves out there,” and I get that…but this kind of attack makes me furious. Because even if I am able to take it for what it is – scrutiny from someone who has no right to tell me what I should or should not look like – and understand that the only thing that listening to it can do is clutter up my mind, tarnish my confidence, and obscure my search for what I really feel is important to me…it’s not just about me. Comments like this one make me furious for the women who read here and count “bobble-headed” as just one more thing they have to file away in their brain under “must not look like” (must not be too fat/skinny/flat-chested/big-chested/short/tall/whatever). They make me furious because they just perpetuate the idea that people should feel free to pass judgment on others’ choices in life. When it comes down to it, one person’s petty notions about appearance should have nothing at all to do with how you feel about your body, the same way your friend’s belief that it’s of the utmost importance to marry an investment banker should have nothing to do with who you decide to start a family with.

In many ways, this ties into the point I was making in “Love and Living Rooms“: there’s just so much judgment out there about everything from style to love to wallpaper to weight that it sometimes becomes almost impossible to figure out what matters to you. When you think about what you like (or don’t like) about the way that you look…to what extent is it a byproduct of what you’ve heard from others? When there’s so much shouting in your ear, it’s hard to tell. It’s like The Price is Right, when a contestant is choosing a price and the audience is all screaming at them, and by the time they say a number, they aren’t sure whether they made the decision or just did what the audience members with the loudest voices told them to do. The more you listen to other people’s finger-wagging about any aspect of your life, the less you’re going to be able to live honestly, in a way that makes sense to you…and that applies to how you feel about the size of your breasts just as much as it applies to how you choose your life partner.

So shut out all that chatter, and listen to what you know is true about your own body. The noise is just that: noise, and it means nothing. Not in your life. You’re better than that.



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April 1st, 2010 | Posted by Jordan | Best | 30 Comments »

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  • Biscuit

    GOOD FOR YOU JORDAN! Ugh, the internet really brings out people's inner trolls, and it's just completely unwarranted negativity.

    This made me want to high-5 you, and yell out “EFF YES!” all at the same time. I'm so sick of the nasty, mean, catty crap.

  • eburke101

    Jordan, you rock. I love your blog…it makes me smile everyday. What you wrote about your husband, your living room a few days ago made me melt. I can relate. Keep it up girl…and thanks for reminding me of the many blessing in my life.

  • PatchworkJackie

    What a thoughtful and powerful response to a nasty, horrible comment! Way to make blogging gold, Jordan!

  • sugainmytea

    Jordan, you are awesome. Thank you for your refreshingly REAL perspective on things. I've been reading your blog since NS and followed you here because I can genuinely agree with your approach to things, from the way you handle negativity to the way you react to the good stuff! So thanks, and keep doin' what you're doin'.

  • cookie

    well said, J.

  • http://twitter.com/SamaraOShea Samara OShea

    Jordan I think you were very brave to allow for open comments in the first place, and I agree that now is the time to censor such things. You tried to have an honest, productive forum and some people didn’t want to play fair. Constructive criticism—by all means—but this. No one should have to read something like this about him or herself.

    A good lesson for us all to remember comes from the book THE FOUR AGREEMENTS by Don Miguel Ruiz. He professes that you (me, we) shouldn’t take anything personally because . . .

    “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one you live in. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for those predators who try to send you emotional poison. They can hook you easily with one little opinion, and feed you all their emotional garbage. When you take it personally, you eat it up, and now it becomes your garbage. But if you don't take it personally, you are immune to their poison; you will not eat it. Immunity to emotional poison is the gift of this agreement.”

  • dianeshipley

    First of all, good on you for not letting comments like this get to you and for taking a stand on principle.

    It's not just an internet phenomenon, either – people seem to think it's appropriate to make comments about other people's looks on a regular basis. Clearly it's based on their own insecurity, but it does have potentially harmful effects, especially on young women.

    Sorry to be all self-promote-y but I think it's relevant: I blogged on this topic http://bit.ly/bzLY4d after an internet friend told me it wouldn't be flattering if I cut my hair too short (implying I wasn't pretty enough). I don't like to look stereotypically feminine, but I don't think that's anyone else's business.

    Anyway. You seem like a lovely person and I enjoy your writing (as do many others) and you have great friends, family, a husband and furbabies and those are the things that really matter, as I'm sure you appreciate. Thanks for being a beacon of positivity and genuineness. (If that's a word. Heck, even if it's not.)

  • amandachart

    Wow, and people wonder why girls have so many body issues. People making similar comments to the one above. Women should empower one another, not bring each other down. Way to go Jordan for touching on this. You are beautiful and I admire you for putting this out there.

  • NYCGal

    This person is sad and insecure. Your response was spot on and thoughtful, but please dont even dignify such shallow and rude attacks. I'm sorry, but you are just plain beautiful with a lot of talent and a really lovely life, and such comments just wreak of pure jealousy. Jordan, there will always be haters and you cannot be everything to everyone. If you are not this reader's cup of tea, fine. Please keep doing what you are doing for those of us who adore you and appreciate what you are doing.

    By the way, I was in complete shock that someone actually came to yours and Kenrick's home and said that it wasn't so nice or whatever. Seriously?! What isn't nice is that level of tackiness.

    PS I grew up putting garlic salt on pizza and it tastes like pure heaven.

  • Felicity

    I think you're gorgeous. But thin women do come in for it. It's like the final frontier of people we can attack. It's considered a terrible crime to say such a thing to an overweight woman, but not to a slender woman.

  • http://www.bekindworkhard.tumblr.com/ Jessy Rawls

    Some people are just unhappy and want everyone else to be as well. That comment was just plain not nice and I don't understand why people want to hurt others. I know this is cliche but why can't people treat others the way they want to be treated?

  • janaecious

    so very over girls dissing other girls' looks. it's so tired. what happened to girl power? ( i miss the 90's) you look fine. as a fellow petite chick i think people assume that it's okay to comment on your smallness/skinniness when in fact it is just as annoying and rude as commenting on someone who is overweight. i have had to deliver more than enough cuss outs to those that weren't able to understand that telling me to “eat a sandwich” wasn't cool or “cute”.

  • jordanreid

    thank you guys all so much for your supportive comments. i don't think that I'll never see a comment like this one again – hell, this kind of thing is part and parcel of blogging, and especially the kind of blogging that I do, and that's fine by me – but it was important to me to convey that you just can't listen to stuff like this. besides being damaging and corrosive, it's totally irrelevant, and nothing more than a distraction from the important stuff.
    p.s. in this daily beast article, meghan mccain has some pretty cool things to say about women who put down other women for their appearance: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/…

  • jordanreid

    agree: 'eat a sandwich' is just as rude as 'hit the gym' (or whatever). no one but YOU gets to say what you should and should not do.

  • jordanreid

    skinny, overweight, blonde, brunette, tall, short, whatever…no matter what you are, there will always be someone ready to tell you that you're wrong, that you aren't good enough. always. once you realize that it's not about you – it's about the person who feels comfortable telling you what to do and how to live – accepting these things with a grain of salt gets a million times easier.

  • jordanreid

    isn't that unbelievable? talk about someone i won't be inviting over for tea and crumpets anytime soon ;)

    p.s. garlic salt on PIZZA? want.

  • jordanreid

    great post! and thank you :)

  • jordanreid

    amazing quote.
    thank you for saying i'm brave – i don't think so, though. i just genuinely want to create an honest forum where people can talk about how they feel, what they think…and to that end, i'm not going to stop the unmoderated comments anytime soon. you know, i don't even know that i would delete attacks like the one i just wrote about (as i said i would in my original reply to SarahM); i'm glad i addressed it here, and that's enough. that said, i absolutely will delete attacks on my friends and family – that's a whole other story.

  • jordanreid

    ha! high five back atcha ;)

  • http://www.teresawu.tumblr.com Teresa Wu

    This post = why you're hands down my favorite NS girl. :)

  • Melissa_G

    That's just awful. Body snarking like that is just senselessly vicious whether it's directed at a fat person or a thin one. And although it has the power to really hurt other people's feelings, it really says a lot about the body snarker and nothing real about the person it's directed at. I would neither like to be or be friends with someone who says stupid shit like that. Seriously. Aren't we (and women especially) subjected to enough body hatred and body disciplining every second of the day? Why does someone feel compelled to come and post something like that on a pleasant website under a post about some AWESOME-LOOKING GARLIC SALT?!

    And the comment is even more senseless when you consider how unfounded it is. Because you have a beautiful appetite, as is abundantly clear on this site.

    What I really like about you Jordan is that you are clearly comfortable in your own skin and don't ever have bitchy, body snarky comments about others. You do not starve yourself, that's very clear. And you definitely enjoy your bacon and cheese! I do too, and I'm so happy I'm not one of those many women who are miserable about their body and have a tortured relationship to food. And, while it seems like you have a unique metabolism, I bet you totally wouldn't freak out and hate yourself if you gained some lbs naturally as a result of getting older, or pregnancy, or something.

    Whatever, this commenter obviously doesn't really read the site enough to understand anything about you. And they're mean.

    And fuck that person who didn't like your apartment either. New York is full of awesome people like you, and also mega-materialistic, bitchy, ambitious, self-deluded people like…ahem…well, you know. Your apartment is adorable and unique, and so much better than the cookie-cutter, copied-from-Pottery Barn shit that other people spend the equivalent of several decent annual salaries on.

  • Catnip Intoxicating

    I honestly do not know why someone would put the energy into posting a comment like that.

    I have been on both sides and even under 100 pounds I was still told I was “fat”. Hips and boobs, I have them. Some people love it, some don't. I will never be tall and thin and that is OK.

    Carry on Jordan.

  • christinag

    Agree 100%

  • http://petitebitcherie.tumblr.com/ Ginger

    I should've probably sent this in as a reader question, but whatever. Please feel free to delete this comment if it makes you uncomfortable. Have you always felt this secure? Or was it more like a journey of learning to shut out the negativity and like your body anyway?

    I'm 25 and I only recently learned how to stop obsessing over every flaw, real or perceived. I spent most of my adolescence freaking out over how skinny I am, how tiny my wrists are (freakishly), how unfeminine I felt…. and the fact that of my eyes is ever so slightly smaller, which is a flaw no one else seems to notice… but to me it was glaring. It took years to get over these insecurities and finally feel attractive and happy in my own skin. At this point, I am secure enough to laugh when people at Starbucks tell me to get full fat milk because “you should, you're so tiny!!” and when random people tell me I should have a sandwich instead of a salad. I just wish I'd got there faster. Like, 10 years ago.

    So, yeah… would love to hear your perspective in regards to accepting your body and the work it takes. If this is something you're comfortable with, obvs.

  • Pingback: Reader Question: Ginger «

  • jordanreid

    Hmm….this would make a good reader question, actually. Some really personal stuff in there…but…hmm….ok :)

  • Joanne

    I agree, negative comments are a drag, and I don't think this one will be posted, but you are thin. Very thin. And you were heavier in your older photos. And I mean this comment respectfully. I'm sorry, this is not an insecurity issue on my end, just something of note. With every girl in the girl trying to be thinner (make that, every Caucasian girl), it's just something that people will notice.

  • jess

    It would lend more credence to your claim that you don't care about the haters if you just… ignore them. It seems like you're protesting too much by constantly addressing the negativity. Does that make sense?

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