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Largely because I make a point of visiting trashy websites and gorging on banal articles about inherently banal people (who star on banal reality TV programs) I routinely happen upon stupid and depressing things. Stupid things, mostly. But depressing in their stupidity, and depressing in their capacity to influence young sparks who don’t read trash discerningly (the importance of which I cannot stress enough).

One of my bigger gripes (and there are, admittedly, several) which tends to manifest itself in loud, guttural sighs and strings of verbal abuse thrown at the computer screen ending in ‘you stupid dick insert journalist’s name‘ concerns the issue of weight. More specifically, the contradictory and rather fluid definitions of fat, skinny, anorexic, comfort eating, overweight, dangerously thin, baby weight, slender, petite and the magazine world’s most overused word next to feud, curvy, all of which depend on how many copies of the magazine/newspaper in question needs to be sold.

The predominant issue with the media and weight right now (seeing as they’ve started the slow crawl on from lauding high functioning anorexics, fifteen years after Kate Moss kicked the movement off) is that there are no cut and dry definitions everyone subscribes to and consequently perpetuates. No one can make up their minds what’s fat and what’s skinny and when to call someone ‘voluptuous’ and when to call them out for ‘packing on the pounds’.

When Jessica Simpson wore those ill fated high waisted jeans and then got snapped on the-angle-that-is-no-one’s-friend she was, in turn, stunningly curvy, a poster girl for normal women and overweight. And not necessarily according to three different publications, either. She was all of these things over the period of a few weeks in the same magazine (and/or its online compatriot).

How bloody confusing is it to see Jessica’s boobs and booty described as ‘normal’ and ‘refreshing’ and ‘feminine’ and ‘curvy’ – all high positive things we aspire to emulate, and then see her popped on a spit and absolutely roasted, to the point Eminem reworked his comeback video to have her defecating a burger and Barack Obama felt the need to comment (and we all know that inherent in the world’s most powerful man needing to comment on your weight makes the whole issue bigger than Ben-Hur, cue ‘weight issue’ puns).

So, imagine the tears of joy that sprung to my jaded eyes when, the other day, I discovered something. Discovered is perhaps the wrong word, considering I read comments on the end of articles almost as voraciously as I read the articles themselves. It was more I realized that people aren’t as easily influenced by stupid headlines and even stupider editorial as much as we think they are. People, amazingly, do think for themselves. And you’ll find these thoughts in the comment boxes – albeit alongside needless vitriolic spats between people with odd monikers, and spam porn. But the gems are there. The bright sparks. The bright, discerning, sparks.

Take, for example, a recent article singing the praises of Miranda Kerr’s apparently unparalleled curves. Now, Miranda is lovely looking, something the world beyond Portmans shoppers can now appreciate. But she is about as curvy as my feet. As I read the article, which centered on her recent shoot for Victoria’s Secret, I felt sort of buried beneath the overuse of the word ‘curves.’ And then I began to wonder, perhaps Miranda is curvy, perhaps I have just never understood the true meaning of the words ‘curves.’ Perhaps all my friends with little waists and generous hips and breasts are not curvy, they’re morbidly obese and I have just never known it. Perhaps my world has tilted off its axis. Nevertheless, I muttered through my tea cup a few times, called the reporter a dick and demanded to know where they got off portraying a cruskit with breasts as the zenith of female voluptuousness. And then I read the comments. Thank God. ‘What curves?’ was the predominant refrain, and I felt like a benevolent earth mother encouraging her children to go forth and question more.

Kim Kardashian was recently ‘humiliated’ after photos of her were ‘leaked’ online before they were airbrushed. She was exposed as having, most unexpectedly, cellulite. Thus, she was revealed to be human. Which is totally weird, because I had this idea that she really wasn’t human, that she didn’t actually have skin, she was just covered in a sheath of plastic that doesn’t grow hair, spots or indeed cellulite. Turns out I was wrong, she does have cellulite on her thighs (I think about 5-6 dimples) as these un-airbrushed photos so cruelly exposed. I have to be honest, not many people really cared because not many people were really surprised that a woman in her twenties had cellulite. But Kim bravely fought back. She shed a few pounds and staged a paparazzi photo shoot on the beach in which her pins were revealed to be cellulite free. Go Kim.

There are obviously a few things wrong here. Cellulite can’t just disappear, we all know that, no matter how many pounds you shed. So there’s some sort of trickery going on, potentially something that comes from a can, plus a good relationship with the snapper whose photo you ultimately okayed for the press. All that aside, what I actually fixated on was Kim’s face. Absolutely chock full of make up, like Marge’s when Homer shoots her with the make up gun. And I thought to myself, God, that’s a lot of face for the beach. And is your hair styled? Simultaneously as I was having these thoughts, I was reading the photo captions from the journalist. ‘Kim looks natural and fresh faced, frolicking on the beach’ was the overarching theme, and so I began muttering into my tea ‘where do you get off claiming kohl brows, nude lips and faux lashes with hair so lacquered it’s not moving an inch in the breeze, constitutes fresh faced?’

A quick scroll down to the comment box revealed I was not alone. Readers had their bullshit glasses on, for both the cellulite and the make up blather. Predominant thought was Kim looked great in the un-airbrushed snaps, there was nothing to bounce back from, and she looked great on the beach. She didn’t have to prove anything, and she was far from fresh faced, just so you know. So proud.

The obvious logic is, media puts it out there, people read it, and a particular myth, lie or wild exaggeration is perpetuated. And so we get angry and have long winded discussions and Twitter debates on the responsibility of the media (which, don’t get me wrong, exists and is absolutely worthy of discussion). But it helps to see the media as the stupid (or, more diplomatically, the not so intelligent) producers and us as the savvy, discerning consumers – rather than us as gullible robots and the media as the all powerful Influencer. Because as readers and members of the public we really do hold a level of power, and we do have the ability to discern and form opinions based on our own life experiences and our own accumulated knowledge. We can’t forget that.

Don’t believe me? Read the comment boxes. ***

To get you started …

If you have some time to kill, here’s a fabulous place to start .

*** Do bear in mind, however, you’ll have to cut through a little bullshit yourself. Remember, the key word is discerning.

Image of Jessica Simpson by simplistic.designs on Flickr

Image of Miranda Kerr by Aznviolaguy on Flickr