On Monday, Canadian fusspot philosopher Jordan Peterson looked at a picture of a young woman in a bikini — specifically plus-sized model Yumi Nu, who will be the cover girl for Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue this year. A disgrace, he thought, and so he hopped onto Twitter and posted this mean little tweet:
At this point, the entire internet rose up as one to tell Dr. Peterson that “no fatties” was not the deep philosophical take that he evidently thought it was, even if he threw in a comment about the forces of “authoritarian tolerance” that apparently made him look at the picture against his will.
Peterson told his critics on Twitter to bring it on.
But it turned out that he really didn’t want anyone to bring anything on; less than an hour after his “bring it on” tweet he announced he was … leaving Twitter.
So let’s see some of the “vicious insults” that sent him packing.
Some of his twitter critics offered pointed, if brief, rebuttals to the assertions in his “not beautiful” tweet.
Some less polite tweeters thought it was a little weird that Peterson would comment on someone else’s beauty or lack thereof given that the formerly not-unhandsome Peterson now bears a strong resemblance to a cadaver having a very bad day.
Other commenters defended the Nu, noting that her brand of beauty might not appeal to Dr. Peterson but it sure did to them.
There were a lot of these. America seems to have an ever-growing appetite for thicc women. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Weirdly, it wasn’t just the Peterson haters who had a problem with his tweet. Quite a few of his fans expressed their disappointment.
Peterson had surprisingly few defenders, some of them evo-psych-spewing weirdos.
Others were simply big fans of Kate Upton:
Sure hope she sees this, pal!
The whole debate, such as it was, left some commenters pondering one as-yet-answered question.
Actually, this is only really a mystery to Peterson and his most devoted fans. The rest of us figured it out a long time ago. Perhaps the response to his not-beautiful tweet will suggest to him at least one reason why.
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Y’all covered mostly everything, but have to throw in how negatively impressed I am about Peterson defenders decrying Yumi Nu’s body as unnatural, while preferring “slim and stacked” look of women who have had breast augmentations. The porn industry really has poisoned cis men’s brains
Multiple people have pointed out that being able hold onto your fat is something that’s selected for, in the real world as opposed to JP’s fantasy Stone Age. If you’re very thin your periods stop, so it’s easier for women who tend to plumpness to get pregnant, carry a pregnancy to term and breastfeed.
This is not meant to denigrate thin people, of course.
It’s no coincidence that thinness became the standard of beauty when poor people in western cultures got regular access to relatively cheap, calorie-dense food. Standards of beauty are, in part, about class.
The salon industry makes that so clear. The salon owner I worked for a few years ago used to give free services sometimes just to counteract even a little bit the system’s bullshit.
“You may not like it, but this is what peak female performance looks like “. Can’t believe nobody already said that.
At any weight I’ve had in my life, from unhealthily skinny to my current pudge, I have never looked as good in a bikini as she does. She’s a pretty young woman and I bet she’s fun to hang out with. Although, since it’s the swimsuit issue, I’d have liked to see her in something brightly colored.
I commend the comments by David and the Tweeters who so rightly called him out. chef kiss to @nonocake.
True authoritarianism is when you think your personal ideas, feels, and aesthetic privileges are correct and you try to impose them top-down. Kinda like ol’ stroking-out benzo-junking Russian-simp Jordy here.
Let’s hope he sticks to his idea of staying away from Twitter. The less heard from him the better. But what’s the over/under on how long he can go without vomiting up some fast bullshit? You know he’s gonna browbeat his assistant (what a terrible job that person has) into giving him the password.
Oh, I see, according to @drst, it was immediately. Why can’t righties ever stick the flounce? I had the misfortune to be on a message board with one, and every time he got his metaphorical ass handed to him for being completely unable to logic, he flounced. And came back. For EVER, till the board owner saved us all by banning him.
What a fragile little snowflake JP is.
@Goddess Stacey: Yeah, but you’re conventionally attractive, so he’d at least think you deserved to live. He’d have had another stroke if he ever met my friend who was built like the cover model and had hot and cold running men on tap all the time, in different countries even. Some real lookers, too.
But I’d like to make him read about your lifestyle. And then — this is the best part — not allowing him to say anything about it and you to ANYONE, with severe monetary penalties attached. I’d send some of the money to you to buy flying equipment for your men, and keep the rest as a fee for having to deal with him. And a video of him spluttering for you and your assistant to giggle over.
Look, I know Jordan Peterson isn’t anyone’s idea of attractive, but the comments policy does say to not attack people based on their looks.
Apologies if I’m misinterpreting anything–I do have body image issues, so I tend to be rather sensitive about these things.
She looks fine to me, I don’t know what that windbag’s getting his knickers in a bunch about.
@Becky you gorgeous bitch
See I told you GSS is awesome. Our sis.
@Goddess
Evidently!
@GSS ex-noob
OK. I like you a lot.
Misogynists and right-wingers — but I repeat myself — had the same freakout about Lena Dunham appearing on Vogue.
Oops, forgot the link: https://www.villagevoice.com/2014/01/19/rightbloggers-continue-outreach-to-women-with-lena-dunham-is-ugly-campaign/
@Prophet309
I do see what you mean, it can be tempting and delicious (I myself do it a lot) to point out the “well your no oil painting” response when someone is cruel about someone else looks – especially when it’s a cis man, and especially when the person they are mocking is out of their league by most people standards, and even more especially when the person being cruel is so evidently “punching down” (ie. Having more cultural influence, picking on something like fatness which women are made to feel horrible for). And I don’t feel sorry for Peterson AT ALL. If you shout at Twitter it might shout back – he deserves the flack.
But all that being said, sometimes the blowback isn’t only on the person in question but those who share their traits, who may be thinking “oh, being a skinny man is bad then. I thought so”.* So yeah. I get where you are coming from.
*to clarify for the skinny fellas – it’s not!
@Lollypop – And anyway, the standard response to “you’re no Adonis either” is “well, I’m not modeling on magazine covers, looks are completely irrelevant for men” (although three minutes later they’ll turn around and complain that women judge them on height). It’s still not their duty to loudly pass judgment on anyone’s appearance, nor to define for the rest of the world what beauty and attraction should be.
What’s really driving their rage is the thought that a non-conventionally attractive women might feel good about herself without permission from men, and the fear that other women might decide to follow suit. As usual, it’s all about loss of control. They can try to cover it up with fake concerns over women’s health, but it’s pretty easy to see how insincere and uninformed they are about the relationship between fertility and body shape. (If we’re talking evo psych, wide hips = easier childbearing).
@ Prophet309
You are right that we should not normally attack people based on their looks even if it wasn’t forbidden by the comments policy. I certainly wouldn’t do so normally, but (you knew that was coming didn’t you, sorry) Peterson’s attack on Yumi Nu was solely about what she looks like, ie he opened that door, and I think that makes a difference. The other difference that makes me comfortable attacking his looks is that he is punching down, which is always unacceptable. However I’m sorry if anything I said was upsetting to you and will consider any future comments like the one I made yesterday more carefully.
This woman judges men on height and looks and doesn’t fucking care who complains about it.
@TyrantBitchGoddessStacey
Well, we all judge who we find attractive, but most adults know the difference between “preference” and “universal constant.” We’ve talked on this topic before, and I appreciate that you know the difference and – perhaps most crucially – you don’t judge other people for finding other types of people attractive to them.
That’s what I find most annoying about Jordan Peterson – not his physical appearance, but his ego. It takes a lot of ego to believe that you are some sort of Grand High Poobah Arbiter of “what is sexy” for the world, or even for a culture.
And again, “what I find sexy” is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Even before I met Mr. Parasol, my “what I find sexy” list included a certain height, eye/hair color combination, long fingers, baritone voice, etc. Him meeting these criteria certainly contributed to the attraction, but the bonus features that sealed the deal were non-physical things like intelligence, sense of humor, compassion, etc.
We can probably all make a good guess as to what’s on JP’s “what I find sexy” list, and if he stuck to saying “this is what I find sexy,” we wouldn’t mind. But he’s gotten so used to being a Grand High Poobah Arbiter that he’s forgotten how big the world is, and that it consists of more than his fans.
@ Vicky P
For me, there’s a fair bit of difference between ‘finding attractive’ and ‘being attracted to’.
Like one is sort of objective; I can recognise that someone is say conventionally attractive; or more pertinently, someone who ticks the boxes for me in terms of appearance (which is not necessarily the same thing)
But that’s a ‘necessary but not sufficient’ condition before moving onto the subjective element.
It’s weird what can be a deal breaker. I doubt anyone is interested in my personal life so I won’t go into detail. But there have been occasions when someone has said or done something and you see them in a whole new light. It can be anything, a witty quip, a cute gesture, or just finding out something interesting about them. Once it was just the way someone insisted on eating a banana “No! It’s the proper way. It’s the monkeys way.” She was so earnest. So that made me fancy her now. She furrowed her brow a bit at now, but she was cool. Although she is now universally known in our circle as ‘monkey girl’.
Conversely, someone I did like can say or do something that’s suddenly a complete turn off. I’ll give the example of incompatible world viewpoints or similar. That makes me sound less of a snob than ‘used wrong grammar’.
@Alan wrote:
That’s a useful distinction, Alan, and now that you’ve mentioned it, that’s something I’ve felt as well. It’s just that for years now I’ve been attracted to the same man (Mr. Parasol, to nobody’s surprise) and I haven’t really been looking elsewhere.
There are many different ways in which he’s gross. My point as you know is that my life choice is that physical appearance comes first. If it’s a cis man and he’s not attractive to me then I don’t look any further and don’t even bother with seeing if he attitude and values are admirable whether he’s a kind person. I live this way and am so ruthless about it as a way of making a life-as-art artistic statement about the revulsion I feel for NiceGuy-ism.
Just like you said, if another woman is happy in her relationship, I’m happy. Mr. Parasol is your Mr. Parasol and good for you two while I play with my pet guys and demand their worship and good for us. And the creeps and NiceGuys can fuck off.
@Worshipful Bitches Becky and Stacey: Aww, thanks! You get me.
@all: “Beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the bone” as the saying goes. JP is ugly right down to his marrow. (And, it goes without saying, should fuck right off into the sun)
And then he threw a whinefest. The master of personal responsibility didn’t have a single moment of self-reflection where he thought perhaps he had been rude, and could have phrased his idea better, making clear that he wasn’t intending to be mean to Yumi Nu (which obviously would have been a lie but come on) but instead was just expressing (stupid) concerns about obesity. No, everyone else is toxic because they disagree with me.
As Vaush pointed out, he even got right-wingers (people outside his fans) correcting him. And, of course, the idea that so many of these conservative types wouldn’t in fact be deeply enamored with Yumi if she gave them any attention is itself laughable.
But that “authoritarian tolerance” line is important. Because he doesn’t mind the authoritarian part. He minds the tolerance part. That’s what needs to be hammered home against people like him.
@Fred B-C
Yeah, all of that, but please don’t platform Vaush. The guy’s a complete piece of shit. See here for instance (CW for child abuse and animal abuse apologism, and a whole lot of other evil stuff): https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBluePill/comments/ovdrfg/vaush_has_a_very_disturbing_preoccupation_with/
At absolute best he’s an edgelord, at worst he’s telling on himself.
No, scratch that, there’s also a bunch of people who he’s actually IRL abused. He’s a scumbag, end of story.