kill your algorithm

avoid the impending resurgence of thin being in

tw: disordered eating, food talk

Before there were whispers of an all-seeing algorithm in my brain, there was tumblr thinspo. There was the Instagram explore page, full of girls with unspeakably low body fat percentages in matching sets. There was the way I heard everyone speak about calories, carbs, exercise.

“I’m being good tonight, no dessert for me.”

The kiss of death for any person: MyFitnessPal. I was on diets before I had even kissed a boy. I prayed to not look the way that, frankly, I look now. Obsessive thoughts of food were as certain as breathing. I woke up at 5:30 and straightened my beautiful curly hair, ate as little as I could for breakfast, and then thought about food all day. When could I eat next? How much gum could I chew before I had to have a snack?

At the end of the day, dinner with my family, a scoop of peanut butter, and then going to sleep hungry feeling accomplished, and dreaming of the next time I would allow myself to eat.

There was also the ADHD worm in my brain: obsessive, sugar-crazy, excitable, but also full of dread, full of self-hatred & disappointment. The disordered eating patterns made a wonderful wife to my already differently wired brain, primed to binge and shame and guilt.

My interest in men was the cherry on top of this beautiful soup of pathologies. It kept me tied to the idea that if I just kept everything “in control” (my weight, my appearance, my projection of hotness), there would be no reason why a man could possibly wrong me. But men, in their reliably bad manner, have never been apt to bend to the will of women.

In time, calorie tracking turned into its slightly less evil twin, macro tracking. Working out was less of a punishment and more of an outlet. This narrative was obviously underlined by the notion that if any of that stopped keeping me small, it wouldn’t be too bad to go back to the old ways.

What really shook these years and years of neural pathways equating goodness to thinness and desirability was my foray into the idea of compulsory heterosexuality, and ultimately, my queerness.

Peace and blessings to my college Feminisms professor, who absolutely rocked my world. Learning about comphet, and then obsessing about it on TikTok, and then professing my love to my now girlfriend, generated a relationship with my body that still lets unrealistic beauty standards claw at it every once and a while, but ultimately has lent itself to a cycle of neutrality, kindness and appreciation, far superior to the cycle of love and hatred.

Compulsory Heterosexuality (comphet): Coined by feminist theorist Adrienne Rich, the implicit societal assumption & continuing patriarchal pressure that emphasizes straightness as the “default”

As I fell down the algorithmic rabbit hole towards queerness, I inadvertently began to move away from diet and thinness content.

I started to explore with clothes, not just wearing things to prove my body looked a certain way (flat and smooth and compact), but because they felt good on me, and helped me project the self I felt like inside.

I started to follow mid-size, then plus-size creators that mirrored my body and expanded my view of what fashion could look like, and what a life outside of thinness could be.

Then, I discovered the button that has helped me become the intentionally body neutral person I feel like today.

The gorgeous, the lovely, the freeing NOT INTERESTED button.

What I eat in a day to lose weight? NOT INTERESTED.

GLP-1 ad? NOT INTERESTED.

Body checking at the start of a video? NOT. INTERESTED.

Our all-knowing algorithm works too well. Watch one video for too long, and you will get fed more. It’s easy to write it off as harmless, but the language seeps into the brain, turning into calorie-deficit-macro-gut-health-low-carb-no-sugar soup that eventually leads you to not getting ice cream with your friends because you’re thinking about how you might look in photos in the future.

Get soooo friendly with this lady right here:

I’ve gotten in the habit of clicking before the video continues past its hook. Because, even for all of my mental fortitude in trying to manifest an attitude towards my own body that mirrors how I feel about others, the sparkle of the allure and privilege thin people have still has the potential to incite a relapse of disordered thinking.

The not interested button, to me, allows me to feel in charge of at least my bubble as the world spins towards medical weight loss and an extreme resurgence of thinness as the only acceptable way for a body to be.

I get to actively reject the constant barrage of cultural noise that explicitly or implicitly says that my body is one that needs to be fixed.

My brain is better off now, not thinking about food all day. I am able to hold space for health without admonishment and self-flagellation.

I am not saying that this can fix a lifetime of brainwashing, but it is a great place to start. Killing your algorithm is an act of resistance, and one that is as simple as two buttons.