WEDNESDAY, May 30, 2012 — The woman in the photograph stands in the rain in a gold bikini, hailing a cab on a New York street, her back to the camera.

The photo (left), taken by professional photographer Substantia Jones (her pseudonym), was meant to convey that big is beautiful. Jones started a Web site to promote her Adipositivity Project, a series of artful photographs of female bodies considered overweight by conventional standards. "Trying to change attitudes about the aesthetic validity of big women, one fat fanny at a time," Jones writes.

But blogger Mike Pomranz — who writes for the Comedy Central show Tosh.0 — misappropriated the photo, posting it on his page on the Comedy Central Web site and asking readers to create captions. Soon, it was noticed by Jezebel, a sometimes irreverent Web site geared to and about women.

Pomranz's post on Comedy Central drew a barrage of comments, mostly unflattering, making fun of people considered overweight by conventional standards. "She'll get picked up soon," writes one commenter, according to Jezebel. "I see a garbage truck coming."

Critics reacted swiftly to Comedy Central and Tosh.0, the network's highest-rated show, hosted by Daniel Tosh, that averages 3.7 million viewers in its fourth season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"Over and over, fat people are the butt of jokes, and it must stop," blogged playwright James Carter, who used his Web site to exhort others to protest Tosh and Pomranz. To have Tosh.0 "or anyone steal these photographs for the explicit use of mean, snarky jibes continues a cycle of bullying culture... It’s angry, spiteful and hurtful."

A Habit at Comedy Central

The Comedy Central-Tosh page was taken down. But other pages — with titles like "Giant Fat Baby," "Fat Guy on a Plane," and "Fat Gunman" — remain, all making fun at larger bodies.

"This next video will not help this girl's self-esteem issues," scoffs Tosh on a Comedy Central video titled "Fat Girl Gymnastics." The girl attempts a vault, falls short, appears to land on her head, and crumples into a heap outside the safety mats. "Springboards can only do so much. They're not magic,” Tosh observes. “She deserves points for fitting into that leotard."

Comedians poked fun at humans since there were stages and spotlights, but the Internet adds a new dimension: Online pictures and video have the potential to reach a vast audience — the amateur video of the girl attempting and failing a gymnastic vault, and possibly hurting herself, got 111,064 views online after the show aired. And people can comment anonymously and remain unaccountable for what they write, without considering the consequences for the person they're insulting or making the butt of jokes.

Does the Web Make Us Meaner?

When people can't be easily identified online, they engage in behaviors they wouldn't in normal social circles, says Sam Gosling, a University of Texas-Austin psychologist who specializes in online behavior. "Even if they're not anonymous, they sort of feel anonymous because it's not face-to-face."

Online personas and communities can bring together people who have negative feelings about certain health conditions but don't know how to express them, Gosling says. "You may have a negative feeling about anorexics that you can't really voice," he said. "If another character is voicing it, you can retweet it or follow it, and a community forms that's bound together by a shared value."

Gosling adds that the pithy, fast nature of Twitter has made it a domain of playful, but sometimes hurtful, banter. "When we see a comedian, they're able to say things in that context — ageist things, sexist things — they couldn't say in an everyday context. Similarly, Twitter could be a domain for characters like these, whereas it might be considered inappropriate on Facebook."

A 'Fat Girl' Who Wasn't Either

Twitter is the domain of choice for Fat Girl — a round-faced, obese black woman in a pink spaghetti-strap tank top — who boasts nearly 40,000 followers. She brags about the amount of food she consumes — "I tweet while eating" — and writes in an over-the-top way about food that conveys obsession and gluttony: "I need to clean out my necks but I'm afraid of what I might find" and "I ate Precious."

But Fat Girl is not a she. The real person behind this Twitter handle is a 17-year-old boy from Virginia, a 5-foot-5-inch, 123-pound high school teenager of Asian background who aspires to be a body builder. (Everyday Health has withheld his name because he is a minor.)

"It's just funny," he says, shrugging off the phantom fat girl. "Fat people have got to realize they need to change their eating habits." He said he hasn't received any negative feedback on his handle.

Jones says the swimsuit model in her photo was threatened with rape and murder in the comments on the Tosh site, and calls for a line to be drawn “between humor and cruelty.”

“Not only is it hurtful and dangerous, but studies have shown that shaming fat people is undeniably bad for their health,” she says.

"People think it's funny," says Fat Girl’s originator. "I can see how people could be offended, but if they're offended, that probably means that they need to lose weight."

Humor at the Expense of Others

Tammy Colter, editor-in-chief of Obesity Help magazine, says she believes health conditions such as obesity shouldn't be a source of amusement. "Fictional characters or not, the disease of obesity is no laughing matter," Colter says. "It is estimated that over 300,000 people in the United States die each year due to obesity related illnesses ... We know all too well the impact of discrimination against obese members of society."

Golda Poretsky, 34, who blogs at BodyLoveWellness.com, says one of her issues with the Fat Girl Twitter account is that "it promotes the idea of health conditions as being within your control and something that can be made fun of. A lot of people struggle with their weight, and people make assumptions about what that says about your habits or who you are."

“I don't see how humor like this helps people feel better about their bodies, but maybe it does for some people,” Poretsky says about a Tumblr called Fat Girl Problems. “To me, most of the posts are jokingly referring to things that fat people deal with in a fat-hating society, like not being able to find clothes that fit them and constantly going back and forth between dieting and binging.”

The Negative Power of Stereotypes

Indeed, some comedians, such as Monique, use their personal weight issues as a source for stand-up. But Poretsky says she believes that the Fat Girl Twitter page is a mean, rather than a kind-hearted look at obesity. "I really enjoy Monique," Poretsky says. "She also promotes this message of confidence with her body, that it’s okay to be sexy and fat. Also, she’s talking about her own experience, and that's very different from making up what you think others’ experiences are."

Although she disapproves of the content posted by Fat Girl, she said it doesn't make her feel bad about her weight: "I don't feel hurt by it because, to me, he just seems like a hateful person who is looking to capitalize on stereotypes. That angers me and disgusts me, but it doesn't hurt me."

The 17-year-old creator of the Twitter handle says he didn't choose an African-American woman on purpose; he searched on Google for pictures of overweight people and found the one he used for Fat Girl particularly humorous. "It had nothing to do with her being black," he says.

Julia Starkey, a 37-year-old black woman from Boston, is unconvinced. She says she is offended by Fat Girl, not just because of the fat-hating language, but also because of the racist tone she believes it takes. "The language he's using is awful," she says. "It's faux ghetto. He's using [the n-word] constantly, which is obnoxious and offensive.”

"He's also portraying fat people as being smelly, as constantly eating, as poor and unhealthy,” she says. “Being fat doesn't mean you can't bathe. It doesn't mean you are constantly eating food. Being fat means you're fat. That's it."