The article mentions that the weight limit won’t be strictly enforced—“I think people will be self-selecting, practical and safe,” Department of Transportation policy director Jon Orcutt told the tabloid. All of this is a far cry from stats reported by New York Magazine last year, which states that the bikes can accommodate riders up to 6-foot-8, and come equipped with “heavy-duty tires” and locks that are “pretty much bombproof.” For what it’s worth, a website called “quickBMI” calculates that the ideal weight for a man standing 6-foot-8 is between 203 and 249 pounds, so tall Citi Bike riders had damn well better be in fighting form before even thinking about hopping on.
If I get called a manatee, I know the person speaking is not referencing the fact that I eat a lot of vegetation and enjoy swimming, although both of these things are true. It’s inevitably a reference to the manatee’s perceived fatness, because their fatness is ostensibly the most central feature of the species (as can be socially true for fat people as well), and the hyperbole is meant to make me feel badly about myself. You’re so fat you’re not even a person anymore. It doesn’t work, because I know better.
So while there are definite problems with these animal analogies, and while I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to feel their feelings about it, I just can’t get worked up about the whole deal. Sometimes life is too short to think of a manatee as anything but a rad thing to be compared to. You can call me a manatee anytime and I’ll take it as a reminder to connect with my zenlike inner sea cow self — something I should do more often anyway.
Stanley writes, “A lot of rules are being broken in romantic comedy,” referencing Wilson getting the handsome groom in The Bachelorette. Dude, one limited release comedy does not equal a broken rule; it’s just that we haven’t seen that since Hairspray. And, as Lindy points out, it’s still all about her weight.
OR, do fatties gravitate toward each other based on a biological impulse to pool information about where the best pie can be had in their local community? (OK, I made that one up.)
“Size is a subject of considerable controversy in fashion, but it is equally so in American life. What is big? What is too big? What is not big enough?”
