“Y’can sit here if ya want to…”
It was such an effing heartwarming moment in my childhood – hearing Forrest Gump get his first friend invitation en route to school. That iconic movie moment’s always stuck with me (along with a litany of other over-uttered lines issued from everyone I know in their best and lowest laryngeal tone). And it’s always what comes to mind when I see and hear equally heartwarming exchanges anywhere else in the world. Including the online world. ‘cause recently that’s exactly what a group of chicks did for this one dude who didn’t realize someone was gonna upload him getting down in public. He was just minding his own bizz and getting funky – but quit his jiggling the moment he heard the camera folk having a laugh at his expense. As if that wasn’t cruel enough on their part, they then posted the images of him along with a snide caption, referring to the poor man as a “specimen”.
Wait – question for the uploader:
Why are we making fun of him here? Because of his body? His weight? ’cause that doesn’t make sense, then. You’re ridiculing him for doing one of the best things there is to lose weight – dancing. They even have classes that employ such activity to make it more fun. And once the girl group here in the U.S. saw the poor dejected dancer, they had an activity of their own in mind. Thus, the hashtag #finddancingman was born – a plan to seek out homeboy and throw a dance party in his favor, complete with celebs like Pharrell (I refuse to look up the spelling again. I have a worse time with the r’s and l’s in his name than someone Chinese speaking second-language English).
When they finally found the guy (Sean’s his name, I think) in the U.K., he was so ridiculously happy that he “didn’t stop smiling for 24 hours”. And that’s a beautiful thing. As I’ve said in my adipositivity blog, obesitiy’s no good because it’s unhealthy – not because it’s aesthetically displeasing. But, we don’t accomplish shit for ourselves or others alike by body-shaming them. We accomplish it by elevating them and reminding them of all the other numerous good things there are in life – all the reasons not to punish the puppet you live in with the stuff meant to fuel you. I hope Sean’s story ends up like that. Maybe he’ll network, slim down, lead a healthy, happy, fulfilled life after this – especially now that he’s making some high profile pals.
But I admittedly might kill myself if he turns into the next Jared trying to sell me yoga mat sammmiches.
(Get off me. Even lil Jenny had her bitchy side.)
F’real though: 1.) good on this chick group.
And 2.) can I get an invite for this dance party?
I wanna ride the boogie train there.