Body Shaming — Demotivational poster of an overweight woman with caption 'The Harpoons, Man Them'

Body Shaming

2013catchphraseclassic

Published August 16, 2026

Body Shaming is the online practice of mocking someone for their body type, covering fat shaming, fit shaming, and thin shaming. It grew out of 4chan ridicule of overweight users in the late 2000s and became a mainstream debate topic by the mid-2010s, driven by flashpoints like the Protein World Tube ad and Reddit's ban of /r/FatPeopleHate.

body image memes culture war memes 4chan memes cyberbullying memes fitness culture memes

Overview

Body Shaming describes the online practice of mocking someone for how their body looks. The label covers three flavors, fat shaming, fit shaming, and thin shaming, though fat shaming is by far the most discussed variant in meme circles3. Urban Dictionary users defined body shaming as 'the act of discriminating against other body types'4.

The term picked up steam alongside the fat acceptance movement, which pushed back on internet mockery of overweight people5. That pushback triggered its own counter-reaction from lifting and fitness communities, who started complaining about 'fit shaming' aimed at muscular bodies. By the mid-2010s, every viral weight-loss ad or celebrity bikini photo drew the accusation from one direction or the other.

Origin & Background

Platform
4chan (early mockery) / YouTube and Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2013

Ridicule of overweight users on imageboards traces back to around 2007 on 4chan, where anonymous posters spammed threads with jokes like 'man the harpoons' and 'a wild snorlax appears' whenever a heavy person was pictured3. The mockery hardened into a repeatable image macro when the 'Fat Girl' advice animal appeared on Reddit in early 2010, complete with captions leaning on obesity stereotypes.

The specific label 'fat shaming' as a term of debate arrived a few years later. On October 19th, 2013, an Urban Dictionary contributor submitted an entry framing it as 'a term made by obese people to avoid responsibility'4. Within weeks the phrase bled into mainstream YouTube commentary and click-driven news listicles.

How It Spread

On May 17th, 2012, YouTuber Laci Green uploaded 'Fat Shame,' a video defending the HAES approach and criticizing the pejorative use of the word. In its first two years the upload passed 830,000 views and 6,500 comments1. That November, Redditor HughMerlin posted 'SwoleHate/Shaming on FB' to /r/swoleacceptance, sharing insults directed at a muscular couple and giving 'fit shaming' its first repeatable Reddit reference point3.

Real-world flashpoints piled up fast: September 2012's 'Fit Mom' controversy over Maria Kang's 'What's your excuse?' Facebook photo, 4chan's January 2014 'Operation Bikini Bridge' campaign, and April 2015's Protein World 'Beach Body Ready' Tube ad in London, which anti-body-shaming activists defaced and reported5. March 2015 also produced #FindDancingMan, a Twitter search for Sean O'Brien after he was mocked on 4chan for dancing at a concert.

The peak flashpoint came on June 10th, 2015, when Reddit banned /r/FatPeopleHate, a 150,000-subscriber subreddit built around mocking overweight users. Angry users spammed replacement subreddits, front-paged criticism of CEO Ellen Pao, and left over 28,600 comments on the ban announcement within 24 hours2. Two years later, South African plus-size model Lesego Legobane's flat 'I don't like you' reply to a viral 'girl I like vs. girls who like me' tweet drew more than 310,000 retweets.

Frequently Asked Questions