PrettyThin has been around for quite some time. And it has changed over the years. There is only one way to truly understand what PrettyThin is all about, and that is to join the community.
Somewhere in 2003 or 2004, this site started as a journal and belonged to an individual with an eating disorder. Though it was used as a way of sharing her thoughts and struggles, it was also her way of remaining motivated and staying on track. On track, unfortunately, was with behaviors that she came to realize might kill her, but behaviors which she identified with so much that she felt changing them would mean losing grip of who she was, and possibly of the only thing she had any control over: herself.
Around that same period, sites like hers were receiving a lot of media attention. Not surprising, because it was just about that time that websites started appearing that allowed people to make their own websites. The media attention sparked many debates and proposed legislation, and there was a large push to shut sites like hers down.
In 2005 I was one of those people shutting those sites down, and I stumbled upon the original PrettyThin. By then, I was removing several dozen of these sites a day. What made me pause was that this site belonged to someone I knew. I confronted her, more to understand what these sites were about than anything else. This is when I started learning about how ignorant I was about eating disorders.
Up to that point, I thought anorexia was the super skinny girl looking in the mirror and seeing themselves as fat. Although this is not completely inaccurate, it is a misrepresentation, and it is all that most people are taught about eating disorders. Most often, people only know of eating disorders as anorexia, and possibly bulimia, unaware of what this really means or how many other forms and shades exist.
And though I ended up learning about and through my ignorance of eating disorders, I did not approach my friend hoping to learn anything about them. My curiosity wasn?t about eating disorders at all. I wanted to understand why she created a site like this so I could address the issue of having to take them down all the time. That is what the media attention had gotten everyone to do, and that is what I needed to solve.
From site to site, they often looked very similar. The specifics of the content changed from one site to another, though often it was the same ? scans from Vogue magazine more often than not, or pictures of celebrities, and Victoria Secret models. This would later be dubbed ?thinspiration.? But why was she drawn to it?
I have come to understand the?answers to these questions over the years, but it is not this understanding that I am writing about; it?s the history of PrettyThin.
I did not close down the site and asked her to do it when she felt she no longer needed it as her journal. I also stopped taking down other ?thinspiration? sites, but instead asked them to place a disclaimer on their sites acknowledging that anorexia could kill you. And over the next two years I realized that taking a site down didn?t address the disorder at all; it didn?t address the people or the true issues. All it did was take down a site in an environment that allowed hundreds of other sites to replace it.
In 2006, my friend decided to close down the site. I asked if I could take the site over. It was a fairly popular site with a lot of pictures, and I wanted to turn it into a community. I changed my name to Zander, referred to my friend by another name, and I started listening to conversations. If I could have a conversation with all the people coming to the site, maybe I could ?cure? them. And this is where PrettyThin, as it is today, was born. It has evolved and matured into something quite different over the years, but one thing has remained the same ? PrettyThin is a place where individuals with eating disorders come and talk openly and honestly.
In the beginning, I left the thinspiration on the site. It was the way people were finding the site, and if my goal was to cure the world of anorexia, then the more traffic the better. I had spent two years talking to and guiding my friend who was now in recovery, so why couldn?t I do it for others?
PrettyThin.com became a forum for people with eating disorders, so long as they were not bulimic. Anorexia was okay to talk about, but not bulimia. This is 2006. Bulimia was too triggering; too harmful; it was just ?wrong.? When I made that rule the community immediately rose up against me. This was the first of many mistakes that I made over the years, and the community has done what it does best: represent a very large and diverse population of people with eating disorders. It is through them that I have learned, if anything, about EDs, and it is to them that all the thanks goes for this site. (not to mention some fairly amazing mods. there are no words to capture the thanks owed to them)
Here we are in 2012. I now understand that eating disorders don?t have ?cures.? They are not a contagious disease. And they do not come in one form, one shape, or one size. They can effect men (though more so women). They effect all races (though mostly in Western cultures). They are consuming. And for those who first start encountering thoughts and developing habits of an eating disorder, they are confusing. Because people often don?t understand what they are experiencing. That?s frightening. And it often leads to isolation.
The super skinny person in the mirror seeing a fat reflection speaks volumes to why PrettyThin exists. That image is a person with an eating disorder who has gone a long way down the road with their disorder, and is going to have a very difficult time developing more healthy and sustainable habits. Very often all this happened in isolation, or among family and friends who neither understood or knew how to react.
PrettyThin is a place where those with eating disorders don?t have to feel alone. PT is the largest and most active eating disorder community in the world. Where individuals with eating disorders offer support and encouragement to one another, understanding that identifying the disorder doesn?t tell you how to stop feeling the way you do. It is a place where the community suspends judgement. PrettyThin has given eating disorders a voice, and there is only one thing to thank for it ? the members.
We?re a couple months away from 2013. Eating disorder are getting a lot of media attention again. Websites allowed people to share in a different way back then, and now social media sites are the ?new? way. Tumblr stating it was going to start addressing the problem of all the ?thinspo? sites appearing on their platform because they don?t want to contribute to the spread of eating disorders. They don?t want people posting those pictures they find in magazines and on ?health and fitness? sites. Unfortunately, the attention is coming from sensationalized medical shows blaming sites for the problem while promoting clinics that cost $6000/month if you want treatment from them (though they offer to sponsor a couple people on the show for free ? standard marketing costs I suppose). But again, I mean to write about the history of the site, and I am going on a tangent.
After 10 years, society and the media are having the same conversation, and not addressing the true issues. And PrettyThin is around, still, doing its thing.
A community. People take from it what they will, and will bring to it from their own experiences. At the end of the day, the hope is that people take the time to share, understand, reflect, and make determinations for themselves. Because the cure isn?t someone telling you what to do or how to think; the only change that ever takes place is the change you wish to make on your own. Until then, no one should ever be alone.
Stay beautiful, just as you are,
James
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Source: http://www.prettythin.com/welcome-to-prettythin/
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