Project Harpoon: Anger Over Body-Shaming Facebook Page Grows [Updated]
Update: Project Harpoon was shut down by Facebook and has now arisen as Operation Ahab.
The internet is up in arms at Project Harpoon, a Facebook page where images of larger ladies are Photoshopped to what the owners of that page believe are more acceptable dimensions.
What originally started out as Operation Harpoon — a page which was taken down by Facebook as being a “violation of community standards” — has continued in the form of yet another Facebook page, Project Harpoon.
People are angry. They say that the Facebook page is body shaming and is taking people’s images without permission and editing them to make the celebrities and other women look slimmer.
.@Tess_Holliday slams #ProjectHarpoon for making plus-size women thinner using Photoshop http://t.co/BgiZQOxcYw pic.twitter.com/woEqqyLi9u
— HuffPostUK Lifestyle (@HuffPoLifestyle) August 21, 2015
Rather ironically, when they make the posts on their Facebook page, they stress that comments should not contain any “hate speech” or “shaming,” but visitors to the posts consider them to be hate speech in themselves.
The people who run the page appear to have a problem with larger-sized ladies. They take their photos and, using Photoshop, make the women look slimmer. Even celebrities have come under the “knife,” including popular actress Melissa McCarthy (pictured top) and Meghan Trainor (pictured below).
Meghan’s Photoshopped image carries the caption, “Meghan Trainor might be a lot more popular if she was what the industry wanted her to be!”
Plus-sized models have also been hit, including Tess Holliday (pictured below) who has had several images edited on the Project Harpoon page.
Holliday told US Magazine, “I think [the Facebook page] is pathetic, and their Photoshop skills are seriously lacking.”
“I actually laughed out loud [when I saw the pictures of myself]. The versions of me smaller aren’t even anatomically correct and my limbs are all stretched out like I’m made of Play-Doh. It’s ridiculous.”
While the Project Harpoon Facebook page is currently liked by 11,369 people, and they also have a following on Reddit and Twitter, many of the comments on every post slam them for body shaming, saying the edited photos make people feel terrible about their own bodies.
Facebook users say that the Project Harpoon page is “perpetuating a standard that is completely inaccurate” and is “crossing the line morally.” Many comment simply saying, “This is disgusting. Shut this page down.”
According to the Mirror, owners of the Project Harpoon Facebook page claim to be “a collaborative art project open to interpretation,” but many commenting on the posts say that their interpretation is anything but artistic.
While many celebrities feature among the edited photos, other images appear to have been selected randomly online and edited to suit Project Harpoon’s standards of beauty.
The post below was captioned, “Its [sic] said that pregnancy means you have to eat enough for two.”
Some posts have the caption, “From Miss Piggy to Miss Pinup.” The hashtags #OperationHarpoon, #InnerBeauty, #ThinnerBeauty, and #SkinnyAcceptance are used throughout their many posts.
The latest addition to Facebook is a brand new “ANTI Operation Harpoon” page which has few followers as at today’s date, but judging from the comments on the Project Harpoon page, that might change soon.
[Images: Facebook]
