Why Not Choose Kindness?
Nicole Arbour created a video on YouTube on September 3, 2015 about fat people and how they should work to lose weight. Dear Fat People caused the internet to blow up with hate towards her. I’m here to ask her the question: Why not choose kindness?
Tessa Violet, another YouTuber, asked this question on Twitter, on the 4th of September, one day after Arbour posted her video. One of the answers she got was “‘Why not’ is not a good reason for anything.”
“You could say ‘why not,’ to bad things as well,” said Tessa in her video regarding her Twitter post. “Burn down your house... Why not? Which I guess makes sense but the more I thought about it, the more I thought: I’m not saying ‘choose kindness just because.’ I’m asking you a question: Why not choose kindness?”
Why wouldn’t anyone choose kindness?
Nicole Arbour started Dear Fat People off by mentioning that some will get offended by the footage following it, and that people should beware. She then joked about how if said fat people would chase her down for the video, they wouldn’t be able to catch her because of how fat they are. Throughout the entire video, Arbour talks about how fat people should be shamed by the public for what they are. She talks about how fat people smell like sausages and are oily. She talks about all her problems with fat people.
One could argue that she does this because it’s honest; some overweight people are simply not responsible with their eating habits, or something along those lines. The thing is, kindness is honest.
Kindness /ˈkʌɪn(d)nəs/ noun -- the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.
Usually, honesty goes hand in hand with being considerate. If my friend’s fly is open, I’d tell her so that she doesn’t get embarrassed later on when it’s too late. If she asks for my opinion on a shirt she’s trying out in the dressing room, I’d tell her my honest opinion so that she doesn’t waste money on something that doesn’t flatter her. To choose to be kind to someone doesn’t involve lying to them. Honesty, however, can be delivered with kindness or with cruelty.
The background music to Dear Fat People is music that sounds like it could be taken right out of a Bowser vs. Mario scene in Super Mario Bros. It’s almost like Arbour is making herself the villain on purpose. She has an excessive amount of jump cuts to put emphasis on certain things, like when she says, “If we’re offending you so much that you lose weight, I’m okay with that.” She edited the video so that “lose weight” was said a few times.
She also replayed scenes of her making fun of fat people with onomatopoeia. She did this when she described a zig-zag que at the airport with swooshy noises while swiping her finger in a zig-zag line. This clip is replayed a total of three times throughout the video, as if to remind the viewers how lazy the overweight family in her story are because they were allowed to skip the queue. She attempts to take a comedic route on a serious topic but only further emphasizes the acrimonious tone.
Arbour claimed that this video was pure satire. Does that make it okay? Arbour stated that her video did not mean any harm and that she was only trying to help fat people by criticizing them. All the while, she disabled her comments and ratings on her video due to the negative feedback. She “tried to help” fat people, but wouldn’t allow them to make conversation with her.
Isn’t that ironic?
“Comedy can be a very powerful tool and I wish that we could use it more respectfully.” said Grace Helbig, another comedic YouTuber, in a response video. “The more you just kind of say whatever you want with disregard to people’s feelings, the less I as a viewer consider you a comedian; I just consider you kind of mean.”
She simply labeled the video as satire and went on with it. “I don’t think getting perceived as funny is worth the expense of someone feeling torn down,” says Tessa Violet in her video, Why Not Choose Kindness? It’s as if Nicole was given the choice to say something “cruel and dismissive,” (as Tessa calls it), or something kind; Nicole chose the former.
Still, the question is: Why not choose kindness?
Shaming does not help any cause. If you tell a particularly thin girl, for example, that she is too skinny, or has to gain weight, it will make her feel like there is no cure to her possible metabolism issues, insecurity, or terrible body image. If anything, it will make her feel worse about herself; like she’s hopeless and can never gain weight. The same goes for overweight people. Telling them that they’re fat, need to lose weight, or that it isn’t healthy doesn’t help. They surely know this already. The truth is, nobody can tell by simply looking at someone that they have an internal problem.
TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life celebrity, Whitney Way Thore said, “You don’t know that they have a medical condition. You don’t know if they lost someone dear to them. You don’t know if they just lost 100 pounds. You don’t know.”
tl;dr:
Instead of shaming someone for something they are, why not show them the healthy ways of living? Motivation is the key to positivity. Shaming only makes the problem worse. The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. This is what we should keep in our hearts throughout life. This is what makes our world inexplicably marvelous.
