Writes Ziwe, in "Best Foot Forward/How to feel about an 'okay' rating of your feet by strangers on the Internet" (The New Yorker).
September 22, 2023
"I am very self-conscious about the way that I look, in part because I am a woman who happens to be conscious."
"Since birth, every piece of media I have encountered has socialized me to hate all of my body parts.... I thought that I was ugly for a very long time and then, suddenly, I found myself on wikiFeet [a photo-sharing foot-fetish site dedicated to celebrities’ feet], against my will, in the form of a photo of me from college, on a Lake Michigan beach.... [A]mong five voters, one voted 'beautiful,' one voted 'nice,' two voted 'okay,' and one hater voted 'ugly.' I am not sure the wikiFeet community realizes that, by reducing women to just their foot scores, they are dehumanizing us.... I am more than ten toes and eerily flat arches. I also have a beautiful heart beneath two medium-sized breasts.... Please go to wikifeet.com, create a user account on this collaborative, celebrity-foot database, and vote for me like my self-confidence depends on it..... I care what people think about me. But the best lesson I ever internalized is that no one will love me, or my feet, like I love myself (and my feet).... Loving myself is a tough task, and requires constantly reminding myself that I deserve patience and generosity and warmth...."
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52 comments:
She should work a few shifts in an oil refinery. No one would notice her feet inside her steel-toed boots.
"You don't have to prove to me that you're beautiful to strangers."
Maybe a better line would have been "You don't have to prove to yourself that you're beautiful to strangers."
She went to a site where she'd be judged for her feet, complained that she was being judged for her feet, and then urged people to up-vote her feet so she'd feel better?
Sounds about right.
Why did The New Yorker not refer her to mental health counseling? Why do they humiliate her by publishing a de facto admission of an anxiety disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, and possibly obsessive-compulsive disorder or deeper issues?
We have become an incoherent covfefe world of people who don't know when to shut up, and have ineffective support networks around them.
What was I saying? Let me get back to checking my phone for the 1,000th time today.
Someone needs a free trip to Africa and experience a culture were children are dying of starvation every day.
I doubt therap will help someone a shallow and vapid as this women.
vote for me like my self-confidence depends on it.....
If your self-confidence relies on the comments and opinions of anonymous people on-line, you have already lost.
Of course, Ziwe is a satirical comedienne who may be trolling folks here.
Does this minor celebrity have a sponsorship deal with wikiFeet?
Yes, people: go to WikiFreakNeuroticFeet and help this head case collect clicks and monetize her self-obsession.
All this palaver, and no foot pictures.
YOU NEED FEET
(Traditional)
You need feet to stand up straight with.
You need feet to kick your friends.
You need feet to keep your socks on
And stop your legs from fraying at the ends.
You need feet to join the army
And to dance the hoochy-koo (on Saturday night).
Yes, the whole world needs feet for something
And I need feet to run away from you.
"We have become an incoherent covfefe world ..."
I want a mug printed with this gem. Seriously, you could make a fortune.
Plagued by a self-indulgent narcissistic disorder.
This article would have been improved by a photo of her feet and a comment section.
I get an icky feeling that by reading just that post, even without going to the linked stuff, I have participated in deeply sick fetishes that would be best kept within the confines of an interpersonal relationship, not printed publicly.
Don't obsess in selfiesh (sic) obsession. Do what you can, when you can, within reason. Love yourself and look for someone who shares your affection.
[A]mong five voters, one voted 'beautiful,' one voted 'nice,' two voted 'okay,' and one hater voted 'ugly.' I am not sure the wikiFeet community realizes that, by reducing women to just their foot scores, they are dehumanizing us
Oh, how dreadful. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it, has it really fallen?
Similarly, if someone posts something about you on the internet, and you don't seek it out, and read it, are you damaged somehow?
I'll also point out that Five Votes means this rating is statistically invalid. Get back to me when there are 100s of votes.
Some people are just so damn insufferable.
Aren't we forgetting that it was liberals in advertising creating all this imagery from thin air? Like all the inequity built into the legislation passed by the democrat controlled congress for the last seventy years, this too must be reviled!
Wikifeet doesn't dehumanize you and make you only your feet, no more than the remark, "Nice mullet" reduces a man to his hair.
Here’s a tip on how to love yourself: be born.
Never heard of this broad. The dumbing down of the word "celebrity" is far more pernicious than this chick's corns.
Wait...before you go, tell me more about your beautiful heart.
Yes, remember that she's a comedian and this is a humor piece.
Someone needs a free trip to Africa and experience a culture were children are dying of starvation every day.
The places where people are starving today are very few and far between and caused entirely by governmental action.
Parody is hard these days.
Who is more judgmental of women's appearance...other women or men?
Still, not every person on "rate my feet" is there doing a little mental heal slumming. So we could say that her article is "fake, but accurate."
Althouse @ 8:29: "...remember that she's a comedian..."
DANG!!! I read too quickly and missed the "sarc" tag. More fool I!
Feet?
Why not blog something more significant, like Megan McCardle's opinion in today's WaPo print edition, p. A-17 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/20/married-parents-ideal-children/), finally admitting that 2-parent families really matter?
She says that, inter alia, "only 30% of college-educated liberals agree that is important for children to have two married parents."
And then tell McCardle that not only should she be promoting policies that incentivize 2-parent families, but she should be addressing policies that dis-incentivize 2-parent families?
So, Ziwe is mocking women. Sexism? Genderism? People... comedians have been canceled for less.
"Sat up in Harlem, at a table for two,
There was three of us there, Me, Your Big Feets, and You..."
I read part of her piece and the fact that she's a comedian. I couldn't tell whether the parts I read were a send up of feminism or of men who judged her by her feet or race or body odor. It was very subtle. I guess I'm not her ideal reader.....But I can share her concern. My best quality is my moral grandeur. It compares favorably with Tolstoy's and is radiant from my being, especially on dank fall days. In a better world, women would openly compete to embrace my spiritual enlightenment but that's not the way it has worked out.
"I am very self-conscious about the way that I look, in part because I am a woman who happens to be conscious."
This is a good line. Not entirely PC, though difference feminists might grudgingly agree. As the piece itself is just a tad subversive.
Imagine my horror when I realized there was a "rate my elbows" site.
/shudder
Following up on Brylinski, slightly OT, apologies:
Guess who makes an appearance in McArdle's WaPo piece on "married parents are ideal" for children?
Before she even gets to the topic, she eases her prog readers into the forbidden subject by conceding that they might name the "depredations of Donald Trump" on their list of prime evils.
Humor piece?
In a more sane time, overwrought writing like this would be easy to spot.
As the Babylon Bee has learned, it is almost impossible overhype a subject, that months later turns out to be true.
A woman seeking validation by how others view her feet, is well within the foul poles of reality.
I was going to dip my toe into this conversation, but then decided against it. Good for those who weren't afraid to jump in with both feet.
I think most commenters here didn’t read the article. I got through most of it and it’s a sort of rambling comedy piece with some social commentary. It’s not about the feet, folks.
"Since birth, every piece of media I have encountered has socialized me to hate all of my body parts."
How sad to be that weak of mind and will.
Harold Ross, William Shawn, and E.B. White must be so proud of the New Yorker now. If Shawn were here, he'd commission John McPhee to write a piece on entropy and its many manifestations, physical and metaphorical.
Calling Peggy Hill.
"I am not sure the wikiFeet community realizes that, by reducing women to just their foot scores, they are dehumanizing us.... I am more than ten toes and eerily flat arches."
I'm a knuckle man myself...
I didn't read the article, but I am prepared to support her on her criticisms of reducing persons based on body parts on the basis of the "average sized breasts" comment.
(Yes, I know that was snark/sarc).
Ann Althouse said...Yes, remember that she's a comedian and this is a humor piece.
Remember? First we'd have to know. I've never heard of this person and there's nothing here to indicate it's not serious.
RigelDog said...I think most commenters here didn’t read the article.
That's an unreasonable expectation. The only thing you have a right to ask of us is that we read the excerpt.
Gharie asked “ Who is more judgmental of women's appearance...other women or men?” The answer is men. It’s always men commenters calling a woman politician or celebrity fat or ugly. I’ve also never heard women publicly disparage another woman’s looks in real life, but I have overheard plenty of men doing it in public places.
"I am more than ten toes and eerily flat arches. I also have a beautiful heart beneath two medium-sized breasts"
Go on..
From the article...
"I am more than ten toes and eerily flat arches. I also have a beautiful heart beneath two medium-sized breasts."
walter said...
"Go on.."
Ehhhh, to each his own. Personally, I'd rather have two juicy thighs, cornbread, and a couple of sides.
I think the “eerily flat arches” thing is a brazen theft from “Barbie.”
Say, up in Harlem at a table for two
There were four of us: me, your big feet, and you
From your ankle up, I'll say you sure are sweet
From there down there's just too much feet
Yes, your feet's too big
Don't want you 'cause you feet's too big
Can't use you 'cause you feet's too big
I really hate you 'cause your feet's too big.
Imagine this in a newspaper a hundred years ago.
They're always sort of confusing because it's hard to tell them apart from the other articles. And why do readers have to write the cartoon captions for them?
Wait, so wikifeet isn't real?
I have abnormally high arches (pes cavus), which causes abnormal weight bearing, aa well as hammer toes, bunions, weird calluses, and a tendency to foot pain since age ten. I have had surgery, and will need more.My feet are not pretty, but they do the jobmost of the time, and I really don't give a damn if they aren't "pretty".
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