When fat influencers get...even thinner.

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We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your April Extra Butter.

Today we’re talking about plus size influencers getting weight loss surgery. We’ll get into:

⭐️ Is this the start of the Ozempic backlash?

⭐️ How much do public figures owe their audiences?

⭐️ How to hold space for body autonomy with weight loss journeys.

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Episode 189 Transcript

Corinne

Today, we’re doing a follow up episode on the episode that we did about plus size influencers losing weight.

Virginia

Yes, the plot has thickened, shall we say? In terms of some of these folks’ trajectories. I said that and realized it sounded like a weight comment, and I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not talking about whether their bodies have thickened.

Corinne

The plot has thinned.

Virginia

The plot has twisted. There are developments to discuss.

Corinne

I can’t believe that that episode was a year ago!

Virginia

yeah, it’s wild. I think you kind of called it where it was, like, there’s all this ozempic talk and like, when is it going to take a take a turn?

Corinne

There’s always a lash and a backlash.

Virginia

If we were in the lash, are we now in the backlash?

Corinne

We might be in a backlash.

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling on Tiktok for three hours before bed, as is my wont, and Tiktok fed me a video by Rosey Beeme—who we talked about in our last episode, she is not someone I follow—and it was a video of her talking to the camera.

Virginia

Before we talk about this new video, I’ll just say that if you didn’t listen to the last episode, you could certainly go back and listen to if you missed it. The TLDR is that Rosey became very well known as a plus size fashion influencer, and then was very public about her ozempic health journey. I don’t think it was actually ozempic she was on, but one of the GLP1s and about losing a lot of weight on it.

Of course, Rosey can do whatever she wants with her body. Body autonomy is fundamental, but she was narrating her journey with a lot of very ableist rhetoric. She had a line about how she had to lose the weight because she couldn’t wipe her own ass, which I think lots of folks who rely on mobility aids for basic personal care tasks felt was an indictment of them and the idea that your body is worthless somehow if you need these extra supports, which is, of course, not, where we would land on that.

So the last episode was us discussing how Rosey had gone on this journey and how she was narrating and justifying the journey through a lot of very ableist rhetoric. And now Corinne, what is happening wit