Skinny Legend

About

Skinny Legend is internet slang used by stans to describe the celebrity that is the focus of their fandom. The phrase is meant as a term of endearment among stans, meant to indicate that the celebrity they stan for is flawless.

Origin

While it's unclear where exactly the slang term started, one of the earliest known posts to use the phrase as a term of endearment towards a celebrity was posted August 17th, 2015 to Twitter by user @minxiepop^[1] about Christina Aguilera (shown below).

Spread

The phrase appeared over the following months particularly in reference to Demi Lovato. By July of 2016, the phrase saw more use with regards to Mariah Carey. On July 29th, 2016, Twitter user @C0UxPERX2 tweeted a photoshopped version of Carey, referring to her as a "skinny legend" (shown below).

On November 30th, 2016, a thread was posted to ATRL Classic^[2] debating if a person's favorite celebrity was a skinny legend. On February 15th, 2017, Twitter user @terryono420^[6] responded to a tweet by Tomi Lahren stating "Mariah is skinny. Fuck blue lives." The tweet gained over 6,800 retweets (shown below) and 14,000 likes. This solidified a connection between Mariah Carey and the phrase "Skinny Legend."

On May 27th, 2017, the phrase was added to Urban Dictionary (shown below).^[3]

On August 10th, 2017, Twitter user @lindxeyy tweeted a video of her screaming "Skinny" at Lady Gaga during a concert and Gaga looking surprised. The tweet gained 13,000 retweets and 36,000 likes (shown below).

A question about the video was posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop^[5] the same day. The video was covered by Buzzfeed^[4] on August 28th. Several photoshops of Carey making her look exceptionally skinny began circulating within the fandom as well. On January 31st, 2018, blog Revelist^[7] wrote about the slang term, calling it problematic.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References