4Chan, the Internet lovechild of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, has a history of playing pranks (some funny, others not) and trolling people, but the site and its users really outdid themselves this week. 4Chan and Reddit users reportedly launched a new body-shaming campaign called Project Harpoon that wonders: "If the Tumblr fat acceptance/feminists make a big deal over photoshopping video game characters to make them look fatter than what they are, why don't we photoshop their own photos to make them thinner, more attractive, and, well, normal?" The stunt uses the hashtags #ThInnerBeauty and #SkinnyAcceptance (and a newly created website at thinnerbeauty.org) to spread images of women Photoshopped into skinner silhouettes, like this one of 23-year-old model Pauline:

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Let me first say that while I do not want to give 4Chan's Project Whatever-the-Fuck any more attention, as a writer of the Internet — specifically a writer for a women's magazine on the Internet — I feel that it is my responsibility to take a few moments to check in with my fellow #ladies and let them know that they have every right to be pissed off by the group's new body-shaming campaign.

It's not as if Photoshopping women to unrealistic standards is anything new; sometimes ads get so overzealous that they erase entire limbs, turning women into paraplegic alien lifeforms. But the so-called campaign is particularly heinous because it targets everyday citizens without their permission, and because it is an attempt to get back at those who have pointed out that female video game characters have unrealistic body types. Worst of all, it does this under the guise of being body positive. In one post, Project Harpoon wrote, "We aren't here to mock or ridicule overweight individuals. We are here to help them overcome their problems. We love them and we want them to know they can love themselves, too!"

On a Reddit thread that called attention to Facebook's banning both Project and Operation Harpoon, the most upvoted comments read: "It seriously bothers me this is 'offensive' and 'horrible' but when the opposite is done it is 'empowering.'" Another commenter found the whole thing "really funny," writing, "These people claim that being overweight is beautiful, empowering, and that they're comfortable with their bodies. The basic premise of #ThinnerBeauty is that a lot of women would look better (and otherwise have happier lives) if they were thinner, right? So if they're so happy with themselves how can the assertion that 'thin = better' piss them off?"

There are a few reasons why the two campaigns are entirely different: First, while females make up nearly half of the gaming population, they are not represented as equals. There is a long history of women being oversexualized or having stereotypical roles in games. Feminist artist and video gamer Angela Washko, who studied sexism in World of Warcraft, for example, found that men who choose female avatars tend to do so because even in fantasy realms they want to check out asses and boobs. She wrote in Creative Time Reports:

Women now have to "come out" as women in the game space, risking ridicule and sexualization, as more than half the female avatars running around in WoW are played by men (women, by contrast, are rarely interested in playing men). Unfortunately this is not because WoW is an empathetic utopia in which men play women to better understand their experiences and perspectives; WoW merely offers men another opportunity to control an objectified, simulated female body. When I ask men why they play female characters, I've repeatedly been told: "I'd rather look at a girl's butt all day in WoW," "because it would be gay to look at a guy's butt all day" and "I project an attractive human woman on my character because I like to watch pretty girls." I found these responses, which were corroborated by a study recently cited in Slate, disturbing to say the least.

The objectification of the female form contributes to a space where women feel unwelcome; the sexism of these spaces is palpable (I'm talking about you, #GamerGate), and that's all the more reason it needs to change.

Also, to use #SkinnyAcceptance as an underlying principle of this campaign is misleading and deceitful. Those behind Project Harpoon are seeking to take down women and their self-esteem, not lift them up. Our society largely prefers and values skinniness, to a degree that can be damaging to young girls. The reason campaigns like #LoveYourLines and #EffYourBeautyStandards exist are because most women are not totally secure with their normal, totally average, flab-in-all-the-wrong-places selves, and these movements help women feel like they're lovable even as they are.

The basic premise of #ThInnerBeauty is not, as the one commenter stated, that women would be happier if they looked like this. It's that male gamers would be happier looking at women who look like this. And that's why it reeks of sexism.

So to any women who've been targeted by this inane campaign, I hope you have the same reaction as Paulina, who told BuzzFeed:

To be perfectly honest, when I saw my photo, my first reaction was to laugh because they described me a 'depressed chub.' That couldn't be further from the truth!"

Paulina, you fucking rock.

Follow Prachi on Twitter.

Prachi Gupta Prachi Gupta is an award-winning journalist based in New York.

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