This Insta post’s positive message was taken the totally wrong way

Sometimes, people read things online and totally miss the message.

I recently read an article from Yahoo!’s homepage about why Bernie Sanders would be a terrible president. After reading through the entire piece and scrolling toward the bottom to the comments section, it wasn’t hard to find some harsh language from Yahoo! users condemning the piece as “ridiculous” and the work of “pure stupidity.” In other words, it didn’t take much to find some incredibly dumb Bernie supporters. The thing is, I’m a Bernie supporter myself. In fact, if I had a short conversation with these folks, I’d probably find myself agreeing with a large majority of their views.

See, the article was a satire. The author was making fun of Bernie’s critics with heavy sarcasm. Unfortunately, the Bernie supporters who commented at the bottom of the page in anger and vehemence didn’t realize it, either out of stupidity or momentary ignorance. Either way, they completely missed the point of the article. Which brings me to this befuddling piece from Total Sorority Move.

Veronica Ruckh, the writer of the article, takes on an Instagram post of Mel from @MelVFitness. It’s true, I have no idea who this Mel person is, but apparently she’s pretty significant, especially if the first line of Veronica’s article describes Mel not only as both a personal trainer and fitness expert, but more importantly: “bitch I’m jealous of.”

Anyway, essentially @MelVFitness posted this picture to her Instagram page:

The image also has the following caption:

“Check out my transformation! It took me 15 minutes. Wanna know my secret? Well firstly I ditched the phonewallet (fwallet) cause that shit is lame, swapped my bather bottoms to black (cause they’re a size bigger & black is slimming), Smothered on some fake tan, clipped in my hair extensions, stood up a bit taller, sucked in my guts, popped my hip — threw in a skinny arm, stood a bit wider #boxgap, pulled my shoulders back and added a bit of a cheeky/Im so proud of my results smile. Zoomed in on the before pic — zoomed out on the after & added a filter. Cause filters make everything awesome.”

And at the end, she caps it off: “What’s my point? Don’t be deceived by what you see in magazines and on Instagram. You never see the dozens of other pics they took that weren’t as flattering. Photoshop can make a pig look hotter than Beyonce.”

In other words she’s making what I’d consider a pretty clear statement: girls, take it easy on yourselves. These models in the magazines are a superficial aesthetic serving as little more than department store mannequins. Underneath all the makeup, spray tans, awkward posture adjustments, costume changes and the rest of the long list of tricks the industry utilizes, below it all is a normal human being.

Mel’s before and after picture attempts to exemplify this reality to her audience. Her message is simple, and she capitalizes on her own human flaws alongside her knowledge of the magazine and Instagram pictures to convey that the perfection we see on a day-to-day basis is not real. Mel, here, is a pretty cool gal. A feminist, a realist, and an inspiration for self-conscious women and men who hold themselves at perhaps too high of a standard thanks to the overwhelming amounts of unrealistic portrayals seen just about everywhere these days.

Yet, somehow Veronica just doesn’t seem to understand what exactly is going on: “See, Mom? The skinny arm WORKS, so you can quit making fun of me for it! Personally, I fancy myself an expert at making myself look skinnier in pictures than I am in real life.”

Just wait. It gets worse. Take a look at some of her own advice for making oneself seem daintier: “skinny arm complete with anorexic clavy pop, hair covering arm, clutch over tummy, makeup contouring, smile small to make your cheeks look less round, stand next to fatter person, blur the shit out of everything.”

Just to recap, let’s point out some of the key elements that Veronica suggests exploiting while striving to reach her perception of perfect:

1. Pop out your collar bones with “anorexic” flair.

2. Stand next to a “fatter person.”

3. Don’t smile too much or else you’ll make your cheeks look fat.

Ok, this is bad. No — this is horrible. Still, as much as I would like to just dismiss this as another case of pure misunderstanding, I can’t help but face the fact that Veronica’s confusion about Mel’s Insta post is a sad representation of the struggles collegiate women face every day.

Sure, you could say that even men are constantly bombarded by billboards and magazines loaded with way sexier dudes with chiseled abs and pecs the size of a small child. If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, though, the pressures women face to fit a certain image or mold are undoubtedly much weightier — well, skinnier. The problem runs deep, and even though we’d like to make fun of women like Veronica, the fact is that she’s just another victim to a culture that has effectively confused and blurred the lines between what is normal and what is expected of the female sex regarding sexual appearance.

Besides assuring my own girlfriend that she’s perfect just the way she is, and maybe randomly (but not creepily or in a cat-call sort of way) complementing my other friends that are girls on how they look today, there’s not a whole lot I can do on a large scale to change the way our culture operates. But, something we all can do is be just a little bit clearer.

I guess I’ll take the first step, and hopefully the rest of us can follow suit: Girls, you’re perfect just the way you are.