Celebrity Fat Shaming, Dancing Man And Internet Trolls

Kelly Clarkson is pretty much the one celebrity that I would want to be my  best friend. She’s the girl who always looks like she’d be the life of any party even though she’d probably be the sober one, she always looks like she’s having the best time no matter what she’s doing, and she always has a smile on her face. She’s eternally positive and happy go lucky and insanely talented that you want to hate her for being so amazing but because she’s so damn likeable you just can’t.

But for all the amazing things about Kelly Clarkson, one reporter decided that they needed to point out – publicly – the one thing they don’t think is amazing about Kelly, and that is her weight. Kelly, who welcomed her first child River Rose last June, has been recently making the publicity rounds to promote her new album Piece By Piece and made an appearance on UK talk show The Graham Norton Show. During that appearance a columnist from The Sun decided she needed to weigh in on twitter about her thoughts on Kelly’s weight tweeting;

Jesus, what happened to Kelly Clarkson? Did she eat all of her backing singers? Happily I have wide-screen. #grahamnorton

— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) February 20, 2015

Followed by

Baby weight, puppy fat, muffin top. We’re so weakwilled we have to make up cute names for fat. Babies, puppies, muffins. Nope. Just fat love

— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) February 20, 2015

And then

Look chubsters, Kelly Clarkson had a baby a year ago. That is no longer baby weight. That is carrot cake weight. Get over yourselves.

— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 3, 2015

But because Kelly is the awesome person that she is, her response was nothing short of epic. In an interview with Heat Magazine, Kelly put Katie in her place by saying;

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Someone tweeted something about me?” After explaining what Katie had written (and who the hell she was) Kelly laughed: “Oh, and she’s tweeted something nasty about me? That’s because she doesn’t know me. I’m awesome! It doesn’t bother me. It’s a free world. Say what you will.”

Kelly is awesome and she knows she’s awesome and she knows that her dress size has no reflection on who she is as a person. But Kelly is a celebrity with amazing friends and family and an adorable newborn daughter and a hit single that’s rising up the charts and a brand new album to promote and she doesn’t need to be defined by her dress size. But what happens when the same thing happens to just a regular person – one who might not have the confidence that someone like Kelly Clarkson has? 

A few weeks ago some asshole posted this picture to 4Chan with the caption “Spotted this specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing. 

Now you’ll note that the lovely ‘specimen’ who decided to post this picture chose to do so anonymously, because clearly they don’t want to let the world know how disgusting they are by actually attaching their name to a post like this. I mean, why wouldn’t they want the world to know that they are the only people allowed to dance at a concert and enjoy themselves? Why should anyone who doesn’t fit their mold of ‘acceptable’ be able to dance and have fun and let loose without risk of some asshole with a camera phone body shaming them and posting their pictures to the internet?

If you’re wondering why your parents and grandparents are weeping for future generations, this is a prime example right here folks. Because this man, who was probably having the time of his life dancing and enjoying himself, was suddenly stripped of that good time because of some asshole who doesn’t even have the balls to sign his name when he posts a picture like this.

But just when you think there are too many Kardashian’s on the internet for it to feel like a safe place where people can dance and sing and be human beings without having to worry about some dick head hiding in their mother’s basement thinking they’re clever by uploading pics online, something happens to restore your faith in humanity. Soon after this picture was posted on 4Chan, many people criticized the poster for obvious body shaming and bullying behaviour. But then a twitter user by the name of Cassandra decided to do something about it. 

Anyone know this man or who posted this? There’s a huge group of ladies in LA who would like to do something special pic.twitter.com/DGbu3AXOrB

— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) March 5, 2015

According to Mashable, what happened next is, as Kelly Clarkson herself would say, simply awesome. #FindDancingMan was the hashtag that thousands of women used helping Cassandra find this man on twitter in the hopes of throwing him his very own ‘something special.’

And it wasn’t just Cassandra who wanted to do something special to show dancing man that everyone should be able to dance and enjoy life judgement free – thousands of other women on twitter did too. And all of their hard work paid off, because they found dancing man (who’s real name is Sean, but I really hope he starts to at least go by ‘Dancing Man Sean.)

YAY TWITTER!!! @Dancingmanfound #FindDancingMan ❤️❤️❤️ We are going to dance!!! pic.twitter.com/G7FxuiSsIh

— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) March 6, 2015

So amazing. See, the internet doesn’t have to be a haven for asshole trolls, especially when there’s people like Cassandra. So while this anonymous coward thought he was being funny and superior on the internet for posting a photo celebrating his childish and moronic behaviour, it’s dancing man who will have the last laugh, and the last dance.  

In my dream world, Kelly Clarkson would show up to perform at Dancing Man, Sean’s, party. How awesome would that be?