The Culture Of It All

Ep. 36 | Spoiler Alert: You Were Never Too Much

• Melanie Knights • Episode 36

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After a much needed break, Melanie returns to The Culture of It All with a new sound, new energy, and a heartfelt reminder that you were never too much. In this episode, she shares what inspired her new digital zine Full Volume — a fat, nostalgic, rebellious love letter to those who grew up not seeing their bodies represented in the glossy pages of their favourite teen mags. Melanie unpacks the evolution of the show, why softness can be political, and how fat joy, rest, and rebellion all coexist.

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Hello everybody, welcome back to The Culture Of It All. Welcome to episode 36. If you are a new listener, thank you so much for tuning in this week. I know there are a lot of new followers and subscribers over on Substack, so thank you so much for being here, for tuning in. I appreciate each and every one of you because without all of you as listeners, it would just be me talking into a microphone. So I appreciate that you're here for this conversation. If you are a long time listener, you may have, welcome back firstly, but you may have also noticed that that intro was a little bit different. And that is because whilst I took this very extended, unexpected hiatus from recording and bringing out new episodes, I did a lot of introspection. It's the season. Everyone who knows me knows that we hit September and I'm back to my journaling bullshit. I'm back to... introspective, having some kind of crisis over what I'm doing, the work I'm doing and how I'm creating. And this September it was coupled with the creation of and publication of my first digital zine full volume. I released that I think early October and if you haven't heard of it that's not your fault, that's completely my fault because I have a very bad habit of creating something that I'm really proud of, something that is pretty great and not talking about it because I get scared. So I will be linking to full volume in the show notes and go check it out because it's fucking great. And over the next six or so episodes, we will be taking the conversations, the themes from full volume, the autumn season and bringing them to your ears. We will be deepening those conversations and continuing to talk about fat joy and rebelling against diet culture and really reclaiming a culture in a time period that just left fat bodies out. Right. I was a teenager in the late nineties, early two thousands. And if you were too, it was a fucking wonderful time. I loved that era, but also it sucked. And I don't know whether it just sucked because, you know, high school hormones, all of that, or also because it was just a time when I never saw my body being represented, whether it was in magazines or on TV, movies, music, pop culture. Never ever saw fat bodies. And Combine that with conversations about quote unquote curves or like curvy bodies and plus size bodies or fat bodies when, you know, I always think like about Bridget Jones. That really fucked with us. That was a little bit later, but that really fucked with us because what do you mean this person who's straight sized and a size 10, if not smaller, is plus size? What do you mean that they're fat? What do you mean that they're wearing granny panties? Like that stuff really, as a culture moment, that really fucked with us. You know, I always think about growing up and how much I love watching movies like She's All That and Drive Me Crazy. Those were such great movies. And also really hard to watch. It's really hard to watch. go back and watch reality TV from that time, like Laguna Beach and the OC, and to just realise how cruel some of it could be. And how it felt like everything that was popular just wasn't designed for us or our bodies. And we weren't included. And so this continues to be about, you know, giving the middle finger to all of the systems. that tell us there is only one way to have a body. And I know that it is loud out there right now. And of course coming to the end of the year and into a new year it's probably going to get louder. I recognize that it is... it's hard to be in a larger body right now and to even... not that we should have to, but to even remotely convince people that No, I actually don't want to lose weight. I actually don't want to be thinner. And that continues to baffle people because not only is it everywhere online, not only does it feel like everyone is on some kind of weight loss journey, our governments, our political systems, the media continue to present weight loss as the only option. They continue to present it as the ideal and you know Autonomy always, that is the most important thing and also that includes those of us in larger bodies who do not want to participate in weight loss. So yeah there's a lot of shifts in conversations recently. I saw some a creator who I follow talking about, she's been seeing conversations around like mid-sized people, claiming they're plus size, and that's caused a lot of discord. But the reality is that when we, it's no different to body positivity, right? When we take a label of sorts and... we misrepresent it, if a label is taken and misused, misrepresented, what can often happen is it then, it loses its power. It stops representing the people who are being discriminated against because their body size, It also furthers body hierarchy and it changes the way we see larger bodies, it further discriminates, it further kind of others us. Anyway, yeah, so I know that it's tough out there right now, for not just for fat people. And I know that the world is fucking hard, but I want to bring you each episode I want to bring you some soft rebellion, some fat joy. we continue to have the conversations that are so incredibly important, whether it is around diet culture or fashion or style or anything else. But my mission continues to be the same and that is that I want to talk about what it's really like to live life in a larger body while ditching diet culture. because I do not see that as a trend. I don't see it as you know, trend that's going to come and go. This is my life. This is how I'm living. And I know that's the case for so many people. So I think it's really important that we continue to have these messages and these conversations. And we're to be doing that here on the show, but also with full volume. I'm so excited to continue working on that. and to bring you new issues. I absolutely loved working on full volume over the summer. It was definitely a labor of love, took far longer than I expected. Well, I say that, I know that I'm a perfectionist, but my perfectionism really, really came out during, during creating. And it just reminded me how much fun it is to put together something like this. I got to play on Pinterest a lot. got to go through my old videos from the last year and to see how my own style has evolved and also how my editing has evolved. And that's been really fun. It was also really fun to look back at how, for example, my dad influenced my style. And I talk about that in this issue as well with regards to his words and also waistcoats, if you know me. You know, I love a waistcoat um Yeah, it's full volume is really about bringing this kind of like late nineties, Y2K, teen mag vibes, elevating it and giving it a whole lot more fatness. It's fat joy. It's anti-diets. It's about fat stories being told loudly at full volume. And I think we really need that right now. We really need to hear more stories from fat voices and continue elevating those voices. So yeah, we're back. We're back with new episodes. And as I said, over the next six or so episodes, as we go through to the end of the year, these are going to be an extension of the conversations in full volume, deepening of these stories and these thoughts that I've been having for the last year or so. To me, full volume is about It's about being loud, but it's also about being soft. Right. One of the things I've recognized is that I started this podcast back in spring 2024 and I dove into it headfirst because I knew that if I didn't, I would never start it. I was so scared of being visible. the last year and a half from starting The Culture of It All, so much has evolved, so much has changed. I started this show wanting to share my own stories, being really afraid of sharing my own thoughts, because I was still trying to figure a lot of this out. I'm still figuring it out, but I was in the early days. And something that I have certainly reclaimed in the last year and a half is not just my physical softness, but also some mental and emotional softness. I'm still like middle fingers up. Like, I will always be that way. At the same time, I actually think that when you exist in a fat body and being soft, being slow or gentle, And not just physically, but like living a slow life. I think that's rebellious. I think it's political because so much of society dismisses fat bodies. We're not allowed to be soft. We, you know, we physically are, but we're not allowed to be at the same time. We're not allowed to experience deep rest or deep care. We're not allowed to ask for help. There's so much stigma around how people in larger bodies can... how we can behave or how we can show up in this world. And so I think that softness and rest are really rebellious acts for those of us in larger bodies. I know that for myself, I've had to really come to terms with the fact that, I need to rest too. Just because my body is larger doesn't mean that I'm any less deserving of rest or softness. It doesn't mean that I'm, it's no different to being deserving of care and... and love. Those things, we're all still worthy of those things, but there's such a stigma around larger bodies and the stereotypes that are associated with them that it's really important to remember that not only do hustle culture and the patriarchy demand so much of us as a society, then add in different marginalisations to that. and it's going to appear differently for each of us but yeah, something I've really come to terms with in the last year or so is that I'm allowed to be soft. I'm allowed to be physically soft and also it's okay for me to slow down and to rest deeply but at the same time I want to be heard, right? I do want to be seen and heard and I do have opinions. and I will share them loudly. And at the same time, I can love really deeply. And I think that's, it's, it's okay to be all those things, right? It's absolutely wonderful and beautiful and entirely normal and acceptable and everything to be so many different things all at once. It's, it's wholeness, right? It's wholeness. um So yeah, that's kind of where I'm seeing the show, these conversations and full volume heading. I want to bring more of that through. And that's why I made the decision to. bring new music to the show to really think about the conversations we're having here because this season of The Culture of It All is really about exploring fat joy, fat rest, fat rebellion. It's really about inviting us to lean into that during a time when It is so busy and there is so much expectation on everyone. And during this season, which cyclically is supposed to be about harvest and rest and hibernation, at the same time, we're expected to participate in so many things and finish the year strong and you know, achieve all of the goals that we haven't yet achieved. There's such an expectation to do that in two or three months, instead of allowing us to slow down, instead of allowing us to rest, instead of allowing us to reflect on perhaps we weren't supposed to achieve those goals. You know, there is no reason why we have to finish this year strong. There is no reason why you have to achieve everything. And there is no, there is no shame in not achieving things. There's no shame in not setting goals. And that's something I definitely want to lean into more in the, in the coming months and in the new year is what happens when we end a year being told that we should finish strong whilst also setting these big ambitious goals for a new year. Like, when do we rest? When do we get to slow down? And this is a cycle that I certainly found myself trapped in for years. And it's the reason why I continued to hit burnout year on year on year and felt like I never made any progress. So you don't need a permission slip, but this is your permission slip. You do not have to finish the year strong. You do not have to have it all figured out. You do not have to have some kind of big glorious plan. There is so, so much going on in the world right now. And I hope that this podcast and these conversations and the creative work that I share with you can... not just encourage you to rest, also give you some space. You know, it's so important that whilst we are working to support one another, bringing community, bringing together community, and also... working on how we can dismantle these systems, we also, I know we also need those moments of solitude, those moments of taking a breath. And it is a privilege to able to do that. I completely understand. If you need those moments, I hope that this show can be that for you. I hope that these conversations can be that for you. Please feel free to share with me in the comments section of this episode how you are, how you're feeling, how you're leaning in, like what's a comfortable pace for you right now? I feel like that's always such a great... great way to think about it. like I don't need to be at somebody else's pace, I don't need to be working towards somebody else's pace, like what's comfortable for me right now? um And what do I need? Right? Big question I always talk about, what do you need right now? Talking of what you need right now, I was recently interviewed by Jessica over at Nope That's Not Normal for her podcast. And we had a great conversation about body neutrality. And body neutrality for me is such an important topic because I think it's so underrated. We live in a society that tells us to hate ourselves and picks apart our bodies and profits off of our insecurities whilst also telling us that we should love ourselves. And it's one of the reasons I really dislike the whole like, you should love yourself or, you know, it doesn't matter what people think, It doesn't matter, but people want to tell you. And these messages are very confusing when you get both of them. know, from a young age I would be told, well it doesn't matter what size your body is as long as you're healthy. But, you know, it seemed to deeply matter to everybody around me what size my body was, whether or not I was healthy. And if everyone around me is telling me that my body isn't healthy and that healthy is thin, it seems to matter. And so these very confusing and conflicting messages... one of just one of the reasons why I think body neutrality is underrated is not talked about enough that people don't understand it. And that also I think it's not something we even reach for and it's it's definitely a journey and a process and I think it takes a lot of tools and a lot of self-trust. But body neutrality is so powerful because especially for those of us in larger bodies the stigma that's health looks a certain way or the stigma that you have to be performing health or performing these certain acts that make you, know, allow you to be seen as like a good fatty. It is performative. That is all it is, is performative. And so instead body neutrality allows us to not feel meh. We may do sometimes, but neutrality or feeling neutral about something, I think, comes with its own set of stigma that we think that it means we don't care. That's not what body neutrality is. I feel like body neutrality is really leaning into the idea that my weight or my body is the least important thing about me. And Jessica and I have this conversation about, you know, self-trust, body neutrality, some of the tools that I've used over the years to help me really find a neutral place. doesn't mean that sometimes I don't look at my mirror, look in my mirror and love my body. And sometimes I feel, you know, maybe not as, not as neutral, but there's a vast spectrum of feelings that we can have about our body. The body appreciation spectrum is vast and body love and body hate are, you know, two very very binary ways of seeing ourselves. And in fact, we can lean into this kind of middle ground. And also, I think, assuming that at some point you're going to love your body and then never dislike it ever again, or that you're never going to feel any other way, is super unrealistic when bodies inevitably change. As we get older, if we are fortunate enough to live a long life, our bodies will change. for all sorts of reasons. And I've noticed that in the last few years, certain things about my skin has changed. And it's really interesting to be able to look at that from a neutral place and go, oh, okay, this might be just cause I'm getting older. And that's, it's beautiful. It's wonderful. And I would love for you to go check out that episode. I will link to that in the show notes as well. And of course, as I said, I will invite you over to subscribe on Substack if you are not already a subscriber. For the first issue of full volume, it is an autumn issue. I feel like that's why I put so much, so much perfection into it. It was a labor of love. I tried very hard to source plus size images and There is an entire Pinterest board dedicated to this issue. I get so excited when I look through it. You will see a lot of my own style inspiration throughout this issue, throughout this theme. It's really funny because I... very much have over the last year been leaning into more of an autumnal colour palette even during the summer. try very hard. was very... as someone who is in a larger body it is very difficult to try and source summer clothes in a brown, burgundy, mustard kind of colour palette and I've worked very hard to do that and trying to thrift everything and I really have loved having fun with that and trying to find some pieces that work together. I'm also at the point where I'm really looking at the things in my closet and saying, okay, am I ever gonna wear this? Like, I bought this secondhand, I thrifted it, I loved it in the moment, I had a vision for it, is that still part of my vision? So there may be some more pieces going up on Vinted in the coming weeks as I go through that. I've also discovered new brands this year because of Vinted, that's something that's been really fun. And yeah, I feel like I've really found this. Autumn-Winter style, which is very... apparently it's grandpa chic. I feel like it's like soft academia with some grandpa chic, if you will. I have a real thing for corduroy and tweed and yeah, you can check it all out in this issue of full volume and I will make sure I link to that in the show notes. I want to finish up this episode by giving you a little A little snippet of full volume and sharing with you the editor's letter that I wrote for this first issue.