for fat people, remi bader was never a body positive hero

it's not about the weight loss. it's about abandoning the community that lifted you up.

Trigger warning: This newsletter includes explicit mention of extreme weight loss, weight-loss surgery and disordered eating.

I’ll admit it: when I saw Remi Bader’s dramatic weight loss late last year, my first thought was, Why can’t I do that?

I spent a solid portion of my early life trying to do what Bader did — lose a shit ton of weight. And I’ve spent the last 10+ years of my life fighting back against the voices in my head (and the societal stigma and systemic oppression) that tells me my body is wrong. And still, one former-fat influencer loses the equivalent weight of a small teenager and I’m right back where I was at 8, 10, 13, 16, 22, 25, wishing away the fat on my body so people would just treat me like a human being.

Before we really get into this, there’s something I need to say first: I don’t know if writing so directly about Bader is the right thing to do. I’ve noticed a lot of fat activists speaking about her in code, which I deeply respect as their right thing to do. I’ve also read a lot of think pieces about Bader and our culture of treating fat people as monolithic, relatable comfort, like this excellent one by Teen Vogue’s associate editor Aiyana Ishmael.

On the other side of the coin, I find it troubling (but not surprising) that multiple large publications have turned down my pitch explicitly naming the harm Bader has caused — probably because the optics are bad — asking me to broaden my angle and water down my points to, frankly, meaningless words that I and many others have said already. And isn’t that why I started this Substack — to name the things no one will pay me to say?

If I’m being honest with myself, I also feel for her. I know what it’s like to live in a body that the world punishes you for. I know what it’s like to wake up every day and wish things were different. I don’t think Bader’s journey was calculated in some malicious way. She just wanted out. And she took the out she was given. If anything, it’s a damning reflection of the world we live in — the same world that made her famous for struggling in a fat body, only to reward her even more for escaping it.

I also know that a lot of how I feel about her comes from old, deep wounds that are just now starting to scab over. And while I typically follow the advice of “write from the scar, not the wound,” things aren’t always be that simple. Wounds reopen. Scars still have feeling. And sometimes, we just have to speak from whatever well of feeling we have access to.

This is a combination of both.

Misery loves company

When I first discovered Bader after she went viral on Tiktok, I liked her. It felt good to have my own issues as a fat person (i.e., nothing fitting my body, especially not from Zara) so on display and in a humorous way. I felt comforted by her comment sections — other fat women like me, commiserating over how hard it is to shop where “everyone else” does. It was like that scene in Mean Girls, where they’re all sharing parts of their bodies they hate, only on a way larger scale. To put it simply, it felt good to belong and connect over our hardships, to find common ground in similar struggles. Misery, and miserable she was, loves company.

But the tone began to shift. As Bader’s star rose, we, her audience, were subject to more and more content lamenting over her fat — and growing — body. She often implied this is why she’d never had a boyfriend, why she’d never experienced romantic love. Her body was always the problem — not the thin-is-always-in, misogynistic culture we live in. Again, relatable. We were all raised to believe we had ultimate control over our bodies, and our fat bodies are our personal failing. Who could love someone who can’t stop eating? Can’t or doesn’t care to take care of their bodies? The lies we are told.

Then, when she finally entered her first relationship, we were all elated. Unfortunately, we still live in a world where a fat woman being in a relationship with an attractive, athletic-looking guy is a huge accomplishment. It felt like we were all in that relationship, relishing in being loved fully for who we were. Despite it all — all the back rolls, cellulite, tummy jiggle — we were loved. And maybe, deep down, we wanted to believe that if Bader could be loved, then we could be too. The strength of our parasocial relationship with Bader hinged on our collective future together; relied on her staying fat. After all the fight and struggle, we were all out on the other side with her. But we all know that’s not where body issues end. It was just a bandaid.

Eventually, the two of them broke up, and thus began her descent. TikToks crying over her ex, who allegedly broke up with her via text (terrible). Then, we were thrust into her new era of carelessness, partying on yachts with influencers, traveling to Greece on brand trips. Finally, she started to get smaller and the workout videos came and the harmful implication that “real body positivity means taking care of your body” started and the questions about what was going (how DID she do it?!) rolled in, never to be answered until last week, when she appeared on Khloé Kardashian’s podcast, Khloé In Wonderland (1. wtf kind of podcast name is that?, and 2. watch at your own risk). If you’re thinking, Where do I know that Khloé gal from? Yes, this is the podcast of the woman who popularized the “Revenge Body”.

Does she owe us relatability?

When the news finally broke that she did, indeed, get weight-loss surgery, the internet exploded. It seemed 50/50 — half people who were supportive of her choice to withhold this information, and half people who were furious she wasn’t honest.

The former 50% think we’re all pissed because she lost a bunch of weight. That is the simple way to degrade our legitimate rage. The truth is, she’s not unrelatable now because she’s no longer fat. She’s unrelatable because she was dishonest, and ditched the causes and the following she built her fame on because — news flash — she always wanted to be skinny.

But then again, don’t we all, in some way, want to be accepted? Don’t we all crave the kind of ease that comes with thinness? Is it fair to ask one person to carry the weight of our collective trauma? There are no easy answers for these questions.

For over a year, she allowed her audience to believe that her weight loss was a result of natural changes — portion control, intuitive eating, healing her relationship with food, exercising. She allowed us to believe that we were all just lacking the willpower and stamina to do it ourselves, a harmful diet-culture belief that keeps people stuck for decades.

Meanwhile, the reality was that she had undergone weight loss surgery, a decision she kept hidden while continuing to engage with the fat-positive community. A community that, let’s be clear, she never actually claimed to be a part of, but one she profited from nonetheless. She cultivated an audience of fat people who saw themselves in her, who resonated with her struggles, and who felt, for once, that they weren’t alone in a world that constantly tells them they should not exist as they are.

Here’s the thing: no one is mad at Bader for getting weight loss surgery. Many of us, myself included, understand intimately why someone would choose that path. Fat people are discriminated against in every sector of life — healthcare, employment, dating, fashion, you name it, and it’s even worse if you also live in other intersections — if you’re racialized, trans, disabled, the list goes on. It is painful. It is exhausting. It is a burden that sometimes feels impossible to carry.

What people are mad about is that for a long time, she let us believe she was fighting alongside us while actively working towards an escape hatch we were never supposed to notice. And then, once she emerged on the other side, thinner and suddenly more palatable to mainstream media, she spoke hatefully of her old body as if it were a prison — in turn speaking of her fat following in the same way. That framing actively harms the very people who supported her.

Does she owe us relatability? No. But if her only form of relatability was her fatness, then she was never genuinely relatable at all. She became just another example of the age-old narrative: Fat people are tragic. Fat people are pitiable. Fat people will always, eventually, do whatever it takes to be thin.

So no, Bader was never a body positive hero. And maybe that was our mistake — making her one when there are so many other amazing influencers, content creators, fashion designers who do the real work. What’s more damaging than that mistake is the cycle it perpetuates: Fat influencers gaining fame by commiserating with us, making us feel seen, and then abandoning us when the opportunity to be thinner (and more widely accepted) arises.

What does that tell the fat people who are still here? The ones who are still struggling, still being denied healthcare, still being ridiculed and dehumanized, still trying to find peace in bodies the world refuses to accommodate? It tells us that we’re alone.

And let’s be honest, she got famous for trying to squeeze her body into too-small clothes that were never made for her anyway, instead of seeking out brands that catered to her. What about that was really “body positive” anyways?