Every month GLAMOUR's Social Media Director Chloe Laws will be interviewing and spotlighting some of the most empowering and unique creators on TikTok. We all mindlessly scroll, hum challenge songs all day, and have realised there's no such thing as an original thought since being on the app. But, as with all social media, it's important to curate your online space – engaging and connecting to creators who educate, empower and inspire us.
This time, it's model, TV personality and influencer Jess Megan we're getting to know - an internet big sister figure who is ‘helping girls feel happy in their body’. With 411k followers and 6.3M likes on TikTok, she's spreading joy, support and feminist education to the masses.
I started modelling while I was at university, at that time I was a size 8-10 and considered plus size...
At about 22 years-old I began posting my portfolio work online and I think a lot of women kind of gravitated towards me because they were not used to seeing my kind of body type in beauty and fashion campaigns. I enjoyed having discussions with these women about the modeling industry specifically, but then I realised at large, we have a body image problem in society. And obviously that's reflected in all of the plus size models and all of the like activists we see online today. But back then it was still pretty stark. There wasn't a lot of that going on yet. So, I just built and built a platform. And I used my master's degree in creative writing and language to write captions, which I think is where a lot of my following has come from- people like my long, fun captions. I think it gets people to see their bodies as less of a harmful thing and more of a thing that helps them on a daily basis.
We've not come through millions of years of evolution so that we could tell ourselves how ugly we are, how unattractive we are, how flat our hair is. For all our bodies do for us, we spend so much time and energy berating them.
‘Body positivity’ is a very contentious subject, especially when it comes to the fact that obviously a lot of the body positivity movement is rooted in the fat acceptance movement from the 1970s, and since then it's been watered down into what we have now. It was a movement for people who existed in fat bodies who were discriminated against. It's important to acknowledge that I do exist in a smaller body and therefore I have that privilege of not being discriminated against in the same ways. I prefer to use the term body confidence.
To me, the body human body is one of the most extraordinary things…
We've not come through millions of years of evolution so that we could tell ourselves how ugly we are, how unattractive we are, how flat our hair is. Ultimately the human body is so astonishing, it can do so much. There's a great quote from Bill Bryson, that says “All that is really going in your mouth is texture and chemicals. It is your brain that reads these scentless, flavorless molecules and vivifies them for your pleasure. Your brownie is sheet music. It is your brain that makes it a symphony.” For all our bodies do for us, we spend so much time and energy berating them. And every day we wake up and have this to-do list of things that we have to fix, like “I have to get rid of my cellulite. Oh, I have to sort my nails/ I have to lose some weigh.” It's exhausting when we know the fact that 20% of our body's energy is taken up by the thoughts we have, and so many of them are negative. So, I wanted to start making content that gives people clarity and perspective. That was really the only thing I was trying to do. I just want people to understand that life is terribly short and it is so devastating and such a boring thing to just spend it constantly hating yourself over something that is actually really pretty amazing. I hope that I've helped people wake up from this terrible sleepwalking, just sleepwalking through life, because they're afraid of what other people would think of their bodies.
I get a lot of very affronted, very offended men commenting on my posts, who think it's outrageous that somebody who exists in a body type like mine could ever dare to be confident.
Men have this stereotype that unless you are the ‘perfect’ kind of woman (in their eyes), then ultimately you should be hiding away until eventually you reach some kind of Adonis-version of yourself. If I was confronting these men who troll me, I would ask them to think about what it is that they would prefer me to do? What would be their ideal scenario for me in their heads? Like I think ultimately it's so sad. Do you never think about how much of your own time you're wasting, spending it hating women? it's such a boring thing, worry about yourself. How I exist or present myself does not harm you. These men are offended because they feel like they should only be presented with women who they find attractive. And that is an incredibly self-centred worldview.
I just want people to understand that life is terribly short and it is so devastating and such a boring thing to just spend it constantly hating yourself over something that is actually really pretty amazing.
TikTok has changed so much of how I operate and the content I create…
The platform has really changed the way I present myself, because TikTok has so many young girls on there. For such a long time, on Instagram, I was talking to mostly 21-35-year-olds. When it comes to speaking to younger people on TikTok, you have to try and put yourself back into the mindset of that age. And it is different, because I've come such a long way in my journey of body image - I have to try and remember just how hard it was when I was that age. On TikTok I'm taking it back to basics and creating digestible content, because so many of these young girls are in the midst of really intense body hatred.
Join Chloe Laws and Jess Megan on TikTok Live at 5PM, Wednesday the 3rd of March 2022, for more empowering conversation.
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