Dreaming of the Fat Hub
The recent revamping over at Big Fat Blog has had me thinking about fat (cyber) communities, or the lack thereof.
I remember when I came out back in 2000 and found TechnoDyke, and I thought it was the lesbian community portal to beat all portals; it had regularly posted articles, an active forum, and content from activism to advice to techno-geekery. While the forums are still pretty active, the main site seems to have quieted a bit, with no new articles being posted in a few months (or years?); I’m guessing this can be attributed, in large part, at least, to the other fabulous things that Stacy has started. Still, sometimes I miss TD and wish that it would experience a revamping/reinvigorating with new articles, voices and goings-on. Since things quieted down there, I haven’t really been able to locate as vibrant, active and diverse a hub of lesbo life and activity online.
The absence of a dyke hub has made me think a lot, too, about the lack of any central fat site. Big Fat Blog is fantastic and does great work, but it’s still just (for the most part) one person trying to keep up with fat news in addition to his day job. Conversely, Livejournal communities like Fatshionista are fantastically active, but with so many posts daily (one day this month there were almost 40!), it’s active more in the way that a message board or forum would be than a blog or news website. In the ideal world, you could weld together BFB, Fatshionista and, what the hell, TechnoDyke as well to get the diverse, (semi-)regular articles, the active forums and the other neat bells and whistles that come on all those sites individually.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening any time soon, and while there’s news of a fatshionista.com site in the works; there hasn’t been much news about this since, though, and from the posts it’s hard to tell what form it will take. Massive forums? Blog plus forums? Something else entirely? Who knows. It might just be my nostalgia for TechnoDyke, but I’d personally be interested in something that went in that direction, a site with an intuitive interface, nifty features like polls and profiles, and a robust, active message board. Certainly it won’t be that way in the beginning, but after a while? I think great things could happen, especially in a community run by folks who are committed to feminist and fat lib ideals, and who seem to have been so conscious about including all different voices and respecting and embracing difference in the community they currently run. Who knows, though? With the recent revamping of Big Fat Blog, maybe that’s the direction Paul is headed. Either way, until this imaginary community emerges, I’ll keep dreaming about (and maybe, if it takes too long, preparing for) a fat hub.
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
The criticisms of my students would serve as a good warning to visitors of Seeworthy: she talks too fast, she's too hard on us, she assigns too much work, and you have to be a dyke to get a good grade.
In other words, I'm a big, fat, queer, feminist meanie, and I am totally out to get you. Graaagh!
Ah, I wouldn’t assume there’s nothing in the works, Sheana. But I understand: I want it all *right now* too - a super, big, encompassing community to kind of grow out of everything.
Eh, I don’t doubt things are in the works - I’m just all about transparency, and sometimes I wish we BFB plebians knew what your vision for the future of BFB was (if it’s changing, at all - which it doesn’t necessarily need to, since it’s great as-is). The same goes with the up-and-coming fatshionista.com… I know they don’t want to talk too much about their plans lest people be let down or impatient or whatever, but for a movement that’s been somewhat active ever since around Stonewall, I’m sort of perpetually surprised that our community hasn’t yet come to the level that gay lib has. But then, I know both oppressions work in different ways and are entrenched differently … Logically I understand why things aren’t quite so “NOW” with fat lib, but I guess my heart just wishes things were … faster.
I, too, found the absence of a “fat hub” disheartening. I started my own blog at http://www.the-f-word.org but it is centered more so on fat and feminism, than on fat in general. Still, with a full-time job, full-time classes and the occasional wanting to spend time with the fiance, I can only commit myself to a couple posts a week on it.
We need something like Feministing where a network of writers contribute.