I had never imagined that I would write one day such a post, but sometimes life makes us determined to write in order to protest against all injustice.
In two words:“Is Instagram racist?”
During the past couple of weeks I am facing big troubles with my Instagram publications.
The hashtags I am using no longer work and as a result my photos do not appear in the hashtags’ pages; this is a huge problem for a blog such as mine that is just starting because I cannot make it known to a broader public.
I refuge to do as other person do that is to stop publishing for a while, or just change the hashtags I am using etc. I refuge not because I have a problem with best practices, in the contrary I usually don’t have a problem with that, but I refuse because my publications on Instagram have nothing illegal or abusive. It’s their algorithm that has a problem and I am saying this to stay just a bit impartial and stay away from paranoia and believe that there are people and not machines at Instagram that want to see me banned.
I am just a food blog and I do not see why “machines” or “men or women” would be troubled with me at Instagram.
solo food was created for singles because I stayed single for a very longtime, without many friends of boyfriends, and I know very well that in order to be well on your own, you need to “spoil” yourself as much as you can because no one is going to do it for you.
I also know that in order to find someone nice and build a relationship, you need to be well on your own, and continue to be well alone even when you are in a relationship.
So I publish recipes for great food that you can make for one or two servings and I also share articles regarding TV series, books or other subjects that I really love and that they contribute to my happiness.
I cannot imagine why my beautiful pictures would be banished on Instagram. Am I a racist ? Do I attack the rights of men or women? Am I a pornographic site? Do I abuse on children?
Besides, regarding this matter, it’s not acceptable to send messages to Instagram reporting the problem and staying without any answer or to see that this “huge” company, bought by Facebook for billions, has not created official forums where people can go and post their problems and wait for an official answer coming from official moderators. This approach is not old school at all, all big companies have done it but I did not find anything regarding this type of forums. All I had was just a “ridiculous” quick form to report a problem!
To finish, while looking on the Internet what people was saying regarding the famous shadowban, I found a tweet of this young women called Carina Shero who was complaining that Instagram had banished her account because she is fat and she is fighting for the rights of fat people by posting photographs of herself that might be choking when viewed with the criteria of a perfect body that are imposed by our society that despise difference and loves perfect people.
I was really fat for a long period of my life, and I really understand voices of fat people standing out because they face racism every day in their life and this for years and years. I strongly believe that Instagram should never had banished this young girl because she has the right to show her body if she is feeling that this is ok and if she really feels like it, as they do all these young thin ladies, showing their perfect abdominals on Instagram. She has the right also and it’s as simple as that!
For people that think that she is promoting the fact that being fat is OK, the only thing I have to say is that sometimes you need to remove all complex around your body and you image in order to fully understand that loosing weight at least   juste pour being healthy and not just being beautiful.
Because when I was quite fat, or even very fat, I was trying to feel pretty by buying nice cloths (for which I was spending a fortune), I was putting up make-up and I was pretty because I have the chance to have a beautiful face and a well distributed body. But my ankles were really hurting, I was really suffering or my hip or my knee was hurting and I was aching a lot because my bones did not support my weight. I was losing my breath quite easily and it was really difficult to exercise because when we are overweight exercise is somehow tiring and might hurt articulations if we are not careful.
I lost the first 10kilos in order to provide some relief to my articulations, and in time with exercise and a reasonable diet consisting of good food which was low in fat and that I was making myself, I was managing to climb up the stairs in the subway two-by-two and I was feeling light and strong and proud of myself to have managed to do this. Because it’s essential to lose weight while eating well and not just 3 potatoes in boiling water or just a pathetic salad. Thin people cannot understand how it’s difficult it is to “mistreat” or even “abuse” yourself in order to lose weight. They cannot understand how difficult it is to learn to manage quantities you are eating because smaller stomachs have learned one way or another to listen to themselves more easily than fat people with bigger stomachs. But I do know how difficult this is because I lost the next 20kilos while eating like four! But it is still difficult for me to manage quantities because I love food and it’s difficult to listen to myself when food is really good. But I am still trying to say no even when food is really good and I am full, I continue to make light recipes that are really good and try to listen to my inner voice and stop eating at time.
To get back to the young lady that is banned (almost like me) on Instagram, overweight people need to feel pretty in order to want to be prettier and more important to be healthier.
Bien à vous,
Dimitra
