Everyone is Beautiful to Someone

It’s Friday and I’m going to try and put a positive thing on a difficult subject. Body shaming. Now, in Second Life terms I’ve been guilty of this to the point where I’ve laughed with my friends, in private, at the size or shape of another avatar. I don’t personally get why someone wants to be a furry or a child avatar or have boobs that enter a room 5 minutes before the rest of them do, and I will probably snigger a little bit if you do, because to me it doesn’t look attractive and, in some extreme cases, to me, looks ridiculous. Put simply, I don’t understand why that person wants to look ridiculous. But, I will also defend that person’s right to look as ridiculous as they want. It’s their SL. If it makes them happy – bloody good on them. Just because they don’t conform to my idea of beauty doesn’t mean they don’t conform to their own or other peoples.

Now, here’s the rub. I mentioned I might have a snigger or two with friends in private. I’m not proud of that but it’s truthful. What I would never do though is approach that person and attack them for not being my ideal of beauty. I wouldn’t call them names, question their mental health or make other comments to them, or around them, in public. In case anyone needs spelling out why I wouldn’t …and apparently some people do need help understanding this it seems….ridiculing or belittling others based on your bias and prejudice is bullying. Plain and simple. Whether it’s about the colour of their skin, their religion, their sexual orientation (of note as we head into SL Pride week) or just how they want to live their SL differently from yours if you attack or abuse them for it you become the weak, small minded bully.

My mum used to say to me the old adage that sticks and stones will break your bones but words can never hurt you. Simply not true. Words can hurt you and leave scars deeper than any scratch or bump picked up by a simple stick or stone. There’s a line….it’s fine to have an opinion on someone’s look but you don’t need to share it with them, or your followers on Facebook. You might win some cheap shots, a spike in your followers, you might clickbait a few new faves and likes to your post but honestly the person who is willing to stand up, look different, live their life in SL the way they want regardless of the majorities opinions, has way more balls than the bully every single time.

Everyone is beautiful to someone.