The Culture Of It All

Fat Chat: 3 Lessons From Going Viral on TikTok?

• Melanie Knights • Season 4 • Episode 23

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Welcome to season 4 of The Culture Of It All! 

We’re starting off the new season with a catch up, because whilst I took a break from recording I’ve been busy finding a wonderful fat community on TikTok. It all started with my fashion videos, sharing my experiences as a fat person trying to find their ‘casual style’ and it’s kinda snowballed from there.


And then in early March I made a little video, like 15 seconds and it went sort of, kinda, maybe viral? At least viral for me. I’ve been creating content for a decade, and have never experienced something like this. Over a few days I was confronted with all of my biggest fears, some of which had been festering since 2016, and I survived… and when you tune into episode 23 you'll hear the good, the bad and the unhinged.

Finally, I’d be so grateful if you could spread the word about The Culture Of It All, the easiest way for you to do this is by leaving a 5 star rating and review. 

When I started the show last year, I knew it was about laying a foundation, getting myself comfortable with speaking up and finding my flow. For the first time in my career, I’m not afraid to toot my own horn TOOT TOOT, and ask for support. 

I’m ready for The Culture Of It All to be SEEN 👀 HEARD and CELEBRATED, just like the fat community. Thanks for being here, listening and any support you can offer. 

In this episode:

  • Melanie discusses the fears that have held her back as a fat content creator.
  • She highlights the negative impact of diet culture and fatphobia on her visibility.
  • The conversation touches on the difference between skinny shaming and fat shaming.
  • Melanie shares her experience with a viral video addressing an AI filter that promotes fat shaming.
  • She emphasizes the importance of community support 
  • Melanie reflects on her journey towards confidence and using her voice.
  • The episode discusses the need for safe spaces for fat individuals online.
  • Melanie expresses her commitment to advocating for fat acceptance and liberation.
  • She concludes with a call to action for listeners to embrace life outside of dieting.


Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Season Four
00:25 The Journey of a Fat Content Creator
04:50 The AI Chubby Filter
11:40 The Impact Of Visibility As A Fat Content Creator
15:58 Building Community and Support on TikTok
19:57 3 Much Needed Reminders From TikTok
25:38 Fashion, Body Image, and Fat Liberation
29:06 Conclusion and Future Directions

Next week:

Mini-sode: Diet Culture vs The Diet Industry

Come say 'hello' on social media!

You'll find episode content on Instagram stories.

Looking for more conversations around the politics of fashion? Join me on TikTok

Support the show over on Substack! You'll find regular episodes along with monthly bonus episodes in our wonderful fat positive community.

Melanie Knights [she/they] (00:00)
Welcome back to the cultureville! Welcome to season four! Hello, hello, hello my plus-size pals! Hello everybody! If you are new here, thanks so much for joining us, I really appreciate it. Today's episode I'm going to be sharing with you what I've learned about being a fat content creator over on TikTok. The good, the bad, and definitely the unhinged. So the fears that I've recognised have held me back.

not just in the past year since kind of entering into the fat liberation anti-diet space as a creative, but actually in the past decade, because 10 years ago I started my own business and I really struggled with a lot of things during that decade. I struggled with marketing, struggled to sell and there was a lot of reasons for that. But this past year has taught me so much and I've started to recognize how some of the

impacts of diet culture and fatphobia have really impacted the way in which I was able to kind of quote "show up" on in the online space and actually be visible. So I'm going be sharing with you some of those fears that I've recognized and how they held me back. I'm also going to tell you a little bit about what happened when my video kind of went sort of viral? question mark?

I'm also going to be sharing the conversations I've been having, how that is going to impact the show in a really, really positive way and kind of what you can expect from the Culture for All in the coming episodes, weeks, months, hopefully years.

But before we get into today's episode, a quick reminder that you can subscribe to the Culture of It All over on  Substack by heading to cultureofitallpod.substack.com forward slash subscribe. And you can choose between the free or paid plan.

Subscribers get early access and regular bonuses, including creative resources, blogs, videos and more. You can follow the show over on Instagram under @CultureOfItAllPod, where I share episode updates and the stories, my fat thoughts and the odd Aquarius meme. Let's be honest, a lot of Aquarius memes. You can also join me over on TikTok under @MelanieKnights where we discuss plus size fashion without the diet talk.

body image parenting fat acceptance. And as my friend Ali says, you might want to grab your popcorn because the comment section is like an unhinged reality TV show. But anyway, let's do a little catch up because for some of you, you're probably thinking, Melanie, where the fuck have you been? I know, I know, I know. I left you off sometime in March at the end of season three and was like, season four is coming. It's not going to be long.

I honestly had every intention of season 4 coming in early April and then I suddenly felt like I needed to make a few changes behind the scenes which don't really impact recording but they were going to impact potentially new listeners, new people joining our community and I just kind of tied up the loose ends. I closed it on my old website, I got rid of my old email list.

I moved everything across to Substack and I realised that I wanted to actually hone in my voice in terms of this podcast, the content I'm creating and yeah, it just inadvertently meant taking some time off from recording. And in between all that we had Easter break, my kid was at home, we had a flood in our kitchen and I had an infection in my tooth, so...

All in all, was very eventful and I'm very, glad that April is coming to an end. But anyway, there are some changes happening behind the scenes. As I said, Substack now will get audio a week early. So if you are listening in Substack, hello, thank you for supporting me. You are gonna get episodes a week early. That is my thank you. You'll also get every episode sent straight to your inbox, meaning that you can listen from your inbox, you can listen from the app.

or can listen to your favourite podcast player by adding it to your RSS feed. I'm also going to be working on a creative project which will become probably a regular bonus resource for subscribers. I'm really, really excited about this. My friend and I have been brainstorming and like throwing ideas back and forth and as I was talking about what I wanted to create for all of you and how I wanted to develop that, she had this creative idea.

and we've been running with it together. Going back and forth, lots of ideas, and I'm so, so, so excited to actually create something kind of visually creative as well, because that is also big passion of mine.

And of course just as I started recording they started cutting trees down on my street so you know fingers crossed you won't be able to hear that.

So I want to give a content warning upfront of today's episode because I am going to be talking about an AI filter, discrimination in the comments that I've experienced over the last couple of months, and just some of the general negativity that I've experienced. I'm not going to get into details, I'm not going to share with you specifics and exactly what people say to me. But yeah, we're going to talk about it a little bit. So to give you a little bit of context, because that is what I do. It all started just a couple of months ago and within a...

three day period, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. My kid and I were fat shamed by one of his peers. An AI filter that made people look chubby came across our feeds on TikTok and I made a little video calling that chubby filter out and it kind of went viral. At least viral for me. And I received more negativity in like 72 hours.

then I've actually received in a decade of being a content creator and being in the online space.

So by the time I got to the point where I made this little 15 second video calling out the chubby filter I was already kind of at my fat shaming limit to be quite honest. I have been afraid that I've shared this before that being in a larger body as a parent the way in which that could potentially impact my child. Not his body so much but more so the impact of bullying and

Just the fact that he and I are very, very close and we get on very, very well. And my fear has been that as he gets older and as people will say things, inevitably, about my body, that that could change our relationship. So I was prepared for it. It's something I've been aware of and prepared for. I just didn't really expect it to happen at this age, which may be little bit naive. I don't know.

anyway, I'm gonna do a whole separate mini episode about that experience, but I just wanted to give you an idea of how I was feeling by the point of which I made a very short video calling out a Javi filter. So this filter that graced our TikTok feeds, my husband actually sent me the first video

And he sent it to me with the message, here's some content for you. So I was like, what in the 2001 is this? Like it was so horrific. Not just the filter itself, which was very kind of fat suit-esque, I guess, but more so the text that the creators were using, the captions and the comments were horrific. It wasn't even so much the filter, the filter was bad enough.

but it was everything else that came along with it. It was the videos of the young women who are smiling to the camera and making captions that say, ha ha, this filter makes me chubby, here's my motivation to go to the gym, or glad I don't look like this. It was awful. And the one video in particular I saw, it was 70,000 comments strong. Like, it was wild.

And there was also a lot of people who then turned off the comments because apparently when they're faced with their ignorance, their fatphobia, their discrimination and their mean girl behaviour, they don't take the video down, apologise and like admit they were wrong. They just turn off the comments because they just want to hide from their own manufactured hate. It was completely disrespectful and it was real mean girl energy.

And so I made a little video. The funny thing is, I had already recorded this video in the week previously and had kept it in my drafts

And it was using a trending sound, so that may have had an impact on why it grew so quickly. But I literally just called out the filter. I just was like, fuck you, this filter is disgusting. I hope you have the day you deserve. And all hell broke loose. I have never seen that kind of growth on a video, that kind of engagement. It was wild.

It was very overwhelming, it was very consuming, and I realised very quickly that this could, you know, take over your entire life. So many comments, some of which were mean, some of which missed the point, and a lot of which were actually very supportive.

It made me realize how, or reminded me I guess, how deeply ingrained diet culture is. Because whilst I am very aware of the inequities and discriminations for folks in larger bodies,

I work from home, I have done for a decade. I'm not dating, I'm not, you know, I feel like for me, my personal real life is quite small and that's fine. Like, I like it like that. But it's very, it's in a bubble. And so whilst I choose to learn and unlearn and kind of look up what is going on in the world outside of that bubble, day to day, it's very easy to forget that there are these people walking around who have these horrific thoughts about you.

And those thoughts are always there, whether they say them in public or not, because it doesn't take a lot for them to then get behind their phone or their keyboard and just spout the most hurtful, mean things. It's just so ingrained. Fatphobia is so ingrained, diet culture is deeply ingrained, and I expect that there are going to be people who don't understand somebody else's lived experience.

because I recognise that we all have different lived experiences and unless you've lived through it you might not understand it. But I did foolishly expect that some people would want to learn, they would want to do things differently, they would want to show up with intention of listening in order to actually understand someone else rather than just so they can respond or rage comment. And the comments were super interesting because I realised that people really, it gave that energy of like I want to catch you out, I want to outsmart you.

to prove you wrong. It was this feeling of somebody wanting to embarrass you, discredit you, or say like, ha! See? You're wrong. I was like, babe, it's my lived experience. That can't really be wrong, right? This is literally the things that I've experienced in my lifetime. That's not wrong.

And if you want to watch the video, I will link to it over in the show notes, but honestly, it's like less than 15 seconds. I made my point clearly, but you know.

So as I said, this only happened a couple of months ago and although I started The Culture of It All in 2024, I actually started working in the online space, creating content. started my first business in 2015. And over the last decade, I have really struggled with being visible. Even when I've been in a smaller body than the one I'm in now, I really struggled with being visible.

I really struggled with having kind of confidence and using my voice to speak up and actually talk about the things that I disagree with, the things that I believe to be true and right. And even a year ago, I was so scared of being visible online. Before I started the podcast, I had been working with a body image coach for a couple of years and her and I would text back and forth and I remember sending her so many messages in the early days of the Culture Of It All!

talking about how terrified I was of just getting hate.

I was terrified of being misunderstood or being told that I'm not the person I think I am. That's something I've struggled with in kind of in my real life, in my personal life. I've had friendships that have ended with people telling me that this is all my fault, that I'm responsible, that I'm not the person I think I am. That was my kryptonite. Like I was so afraid of that. And it happened on the odd occasion in the past decade.

Well, spending a year in this space and recording and creating and speaking up, that has certainly helped.

I feel like in just the last 12 months I've gained in confidence with using my voice. I feel much more equipped to talk about fat acceptance and fat liberation. I feel like I have more of a natural understanding of not only my own experiences but also how to talk about these experiences from a more cultural point of view.

talk about them from a more collective point of view than just from myself.

It's also helped that the last couple of years one of my supporting words for the year has been the word assurance. That has been really important to me because yes, I have people around me who love me and support me, but most of the time it's just me. It's me in this office creating, recording, it's me on TikTok. I don't really share other parts of my personal life on social media.

And that is with intention and that is because the other people in my life either don't want to be or need to be on my social media or part of that. And that's fine. But sometimes it can feel very lonely. And I do have people I can talk about these things with, but that doesn't change the fact that it can be very lonely. And I knew these past two years, I really needed to hone in on having my own back, on knowing that no matter what, like I'm okay. Like I've got this, I'm good, it's all all right.

And this is something that I've come to kind of recognise in myself and the content I create and the way I speak up. It's like, I know who I am. I know how much diet culture has taken away from me in my life. I know that it held me back. I know that the price I've paid financially, emotionally, physically, just to be smaller. I also know I'm not alone. And so even though I will absolutely admit the fat phobia, even just this week, has been getting to me, it's not going to change.

my perception of myself. It's not going to make me think I should change who I am in order to fit in. I no longer care about that. And that has been a process and I feel like that's something that I really deeply wanted two, three years ago when I started an intuitive eating practice, when I really started to unlearn diet culture. It's just taken time and it's just replacing the diet talk and the negativity with

new ways of thinking, different perspectives, and I think it's also just a process of just repeating the same things and finding other people who also get it.

Now one thing I wasn't surprised to discover is that 25,000 plays on a video isn't actually that viral after all. ⁓ Which is also kind of scary and of course it made absolutely no difference to my life whatsoever. But there were a number of things that did make a difference to me after that video went maybe kind of sort of viral?

I got to have conversations with these people who were so incredibly brave and they shared with me the first time they had been fat shamed. This was a video off the back of me being told in the midst of the chubby filter and being fat shamed by my kids peer, somebody said to me, "fat shaming doesn't exist." And of course I was like, well, let me prove you fucking wrong. And we did.

⁓ People were so brave, they shared with me their stories, they shared the first time it happened, they shared when it was the last time it happened, last week. They shared with me who did it, they shared with me so much and that was both heartbreaking and incredibly powerful and I still feel, I still think about that video because I'm like, there's this video there with these...

these people's stories and I feel like something needs to be done with it. I haven't quite figured that one out yet, but it's just so vulnerable and so, it so needs to be shared. I've also found a really incredible community over there. It's funny because I have a friend who loves the app and has talked at length about how much of a community she has found on TikTok.

And I don't, I don't know, I was kind of a little bit cynical. was like, I don't really think I can find a community there. It doesn't really feel like a community, but so many people say that it is, it is an app full of community.

But once I started, I guess, taking it seriously, just, you know, being there fairly regularly and being honest and sharing my thoughts, I found a really great community and I speak to these people every day. There's other plus size creators who are sharing their life with us. They're sharing recommendations. They share fashion outfits. They're just sharing their stuff. And yes, there's people who are, you know,

have really big platforms, but there's also a lot of us with much smaller platforms and that's really wonderful to see as well.

And there's so many of these folks who just this week have been in my comments of every video fighting against the anti-fat comments, fighting against the fat phobia, speaking up, telling them how wrong they are. So many people having to argue about the fact that the reason plus size clothes don't exist is actually not because of the cost of fabric. Honestly, if I have to have another conversation about the cost of fabric, will scream.

It doesn't cost that much more to make plus-size clothes, especially in fast fashion and mass production. But yeah, anyway, that's a whole other story. But the thing is, in a world where it feels like everyone and their mother is on some kind of weight loss journey, it is super refreshing to know that there are so many people who are here to support the fat community. And there's also some people who are on a weight loss journey.

and aren't going to turn their backs on us and are actually also saying that these shops didn't want my money when I was fat they're not having it when I'm thin. Cool I want that kind of energy because I don't care if you're on a weight loss journey I don't want to hear about it but I also don't think that they need to turn their backs on us so I really really have appreciated some of the the energy and vibes that I've had over there in amongst the sea of negativity.

But there's three things that I've been reminded just this past month as a fat creator over on TikTok. This wonderful community of fat allies who want to heal together, they want to unlearn. It's full of inspiration. There's so much fun and fat joy. And there are, right? I know it's hard to believe because I feel like TikTok does get a really bad rep but there is so much joy there. I've also been reminded that when I speak up, especially against fat phobia and fat discrimination,

I'm just gonna get negativity along with the support. It doesn't make it okay, it doesn't mean that I should accept it, it doesn't mean that I don't block people when they're really mean. But I've learned that people will just twist your words, People will find that small little piece and twist what you said, they'll misunderstand you on purpose in order to make their point. This was such a fear of mine, as I said, it was my kryptonite. It's happened so much the past two months.

I'm just like, fuck it, I don't care anymore. They're just, they're gonna do it. And it's hard when, you you have a very small amount of caption that you can respond. I think I'd probably write a thousand word essay in order to argue with them, which is pointless. And I do get that, right? Which kind of brings me onto the third thing I've been reminded of, which is I'm not here to actually create content in order to argue with ignorant fat phobic strangers.

I'm not even really here to try and convince them to change their mind because there's a lot of people who just don't want to... they don't care. They do not care. They do not want to change their mind. They are not there to listen or understand. They don't have any intention of engaging their brain and learning.

Personally, I think they are far more likely to listen to our straight-sized allies. I think that we need more people in smaller bodies elevating marginalized voices, elevating fat voices, not just the fat people who have the kind of socially acceptable fat bodies, but we need to have fat bodies elevated in every part of the fat spectrum. And...

I am not here to create content for ignorant fatphobic people. I am here to create content for the folks who are being harmed by skinny tok Those could be people of any size body. I'm here for the people who feel like in order to live their lives they have to be smaller. The people who don't yet know that there are other ways to live a life without diets or without the pursuit of thinness.

And whilst I would like some of my content to reach people who have yet to unlearn, unpack their own internalised fatphobia, I don't think I'm asking too much, but you know, it seems I am. And it's happened a couple of times, there have been people whose initial kind of comments have been negative, you know, that kind of like negging they're trying to be negative, but they're also trying to be nice about it, like...

don't take this the wrong way but kind of thing and we've gone back and forth and a couple of them have gone huh I never thought about it like that that's that's great that that's a starting point that is a starting point

but that does take a lot of work and lot of energy and it can be quite exhausting because two people out of hundreds of people is a very small percentage.

And you know, I want my platforms to be a safe space for folks in larger bodies, whether it's here, Substack, or on social media. I want those places to be safe for fat folks, people in larger bodies, plus-sized people, to be listened to, to be heard, to be seen, to feel seen. I want them to be celebrated. And I've begun to recognise that

It really isn't within my control on a public platform. Like, I can absolutely block people and I have done that a lot, but if every single time I call out weight stigma or bias or discrimination and fatphobia, I am inundated with comments from people derailing the conversation away from my original point, I'm left asking myself, can the folks who need my support actually see past that? Can they even find me? Is it causing more harm than good?

And I don't have the answers yet. The last couple of days I felt very kind of despondent about the whole thing. I was like, am I doing this wrong? Should I be taking a completely different approach to this? And I spoke to obviously a few friends and most of them said, no, I think the positivity far outweighs the negativity. And I know they'd be honest with me. So yeah, I'm going to keep on going.

And don't want to stay quiet. I want people to know that they're scene, that they're heard. I want to continue standing up for fat acceptance. I'm just battling with my desire to use my voice and the need to ensure everyone feels safe. I always joke that's kind of my two personalities. It's like middle fingers up, fuck the patriarchy, let's destroy it all, burn it down, fuck the rules. Like that's like one part of me. And the other part of me is like...

everybody okay? And that's really hard because those two things feel like, wildly opposite ends of the spectrum and it's really difficult to try and protect everybody at the same time as speaking up because, especially in this kind of social media world where right now fascism is on the rise and fatphobia is getting out of control.

But I can't make fashion videos and not speak up about how the system works. I can't not talk about the discrimination, this cycle that we find ourselves in, the way it furthers racist, ableist, anti-fat narratives within society. For me, if I'm going to talk about fashion, I also have to talk about the inequity within fashion, even if...

I only face some of those barriers.

And all of this over the last year and even the last couple of months has really helped me to kind of establish where I feel most confident and capable and like what I really have to offer the fat liberation space, the things that I really want to be talking about and the ways in which I want to speak up.

And a year ago when I started this podcast I thought that the fat liberation space was really small. And it is small compared to say the diet industry.

But it is so much bigger than I had expected it to be. It's so much, there's so much intersectionality, right? So within the fat liberation space, there are so many different voices, all of which need to be elevated. And it's helped me to hone in and figure out exactly where my passions lie.

where my strengths are, how I can use my own experiences, but also the knowledge I've gained, where I feel most comfortable, creative and capable. That's been really, really powerful. And it doesn't mean it's easy because the Lord knows it's noisy out there, right? It is so noisy out there right now with skinny tok and the fat phobia and the fat shaming and it's a lot.

But I'm gonna keep sharing my fashion videos, I'm going to keep sharing my silly little outfits, and I'm going to keep speaking up.

So here on the show you are going to hear more from me about body image because fuck the fashion rules. I am so tired of, you know, the small selections of clothings we have available not being fun or brightly coloured and there are so many businesses out there who are catering for us. I want to elevate their voices. I want to tell you about them.

I want to break the rules together, the fashion rules, no matter what body size you're in, because honestly they affect all of us, fuck it. I'm going to talk about parenting as a plus-size parent because we are heading to high school this year and we are close to teenage years and like... I don't know, that's scary. And you will hear more about fat acceptance, right? You'll continue to hear more about fat acceptance because...

I want more folks to know there is life outside of dieting and weight loss. There is a life outside of dieting and weight loss. There is a life outside of diet culture. And I don't really know how to do this quietly. I don't know how to do it quietly. You know, some people wear their hearts on their sleeves. I wear my passions on my sleeves, which is kind of how I show my emotion and my vulnerabilities. So there we are.

Thank you so so much for coming back to season four, even if I left you hanging for a bit, I appreciate it. And if you're new here, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you will stick around. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you want more content from me, if you would like bonus resources and you would like your episodes a week early, and of course,

any other long form thoughts that cross my mind in between then get your cute butt over to Substack. CultureOfItAllpod.substack.com forward slash subscribe. You can pick the free or the paid plan.

The paid plan is £5 per month and it helps to support the show. It keeps me in coffee and sparkling water. And you will also get a shout out here on the show. So I appreciate you, whether you're a free subscriber, a paid subscriber, whether you're listening on your favourite podcast player. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate you. In next week's mini-sode, we will be diving into the differences between diet culture and the diet industry.

So it's gonna be a juicy mini-sode We're cram a lot in there, but I will see you next time. See ya pals.