All Body Shapes Are Beautiful

Submission 6,337

About

All Body Shapes Are Beautiful refers to a series of memes based on a two-panel image exposing a perceived double standard in public acceptance of bodyshaming targeted at men and women. Starting in 2020, the comic has been used as source material for memes, with users editing in various characters.

Origin

Prior to January 14th, 2012, an unknown artist signing as "V. Wise" or "V. Wisr" posted a drawing of three women with different body types, captioning it "Every body is beautiful <3" (shown below). In the following years, the image was used in various blogposts. For example, on January 14th, 2012, Blogpost^[1] user popfisk used the image. An April 16th that year, Wordpress^[2] user solesanosun used the image to illustrate their post.

Prior to October 2016, the image was used in several demotivational posters.^[3]^[4]

On October 23rd, 2016, a two-panel cartoon based on the image, created by an unknown user, went viral. On that day, the comic, in which a second panel with a bespectacled short man asking, "Mine too?" and a woman responding, "No!" was posted to Imgur,^[5] Jpegy^[6] and 9GAG^[7] (shown below).

Spread

The two-panel comic received viral spread online, being reposted on Reddit,^[8] Facebook^[9] and other sites in the following years. Translated versions of the comic were also posted.^[10]

On May 23rd, 2020, Facebook^[11] meme page Depression Barbell Club posted the earliest found humorous edit of the image, replacing the man in the image with weightlifter and bloatmaxxer Kyriakos Grizzly. The post (shown below, left) received over 1,900 reactions and 580 shares in one year.

Apart from a limited number of examples,^[12] the format did not see use until March 15th, 2021, when Facebook^[13] page Rappers In Peculiar Places posted a DaBaby Convertible edit of the image which gained over 5,100 reactions and 3,200 shares in five months. On March 17th, Redditor XVI_ONYX reposted the meme to the /r/okbuddyretard^[14] subreddit, where it gained over 18,500 upvotes in five months.

Following the viral spread of the DaBaby Convertible version, the format achieved notable popularity online. For example, on March 18th, 2021, Instagram^[15] meme page dark_iron_gains posted a meme that accumulated over 18,200 likes in five months (shown below, left). On March 22nd, the template was added to meme generation bot FeijoadaBot 1500, with its Facebook^[16]^[17] page posting several bot-generated memes in the following months (examples shown below, center and right).

In mid-August 2021, a version of the meme featuring Barack Obama went viral on social media.^[18]