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Dying To Be Thin: Jennifer Lafferty
While you may feel shocked and distressed by reading this email, Celeste views it as just another part of her job. An anorexic herself, she runs a pro-anorexic website. According to the Boston Globe of August 4, 2001, over the past year, more than 400 pro-anorexia, or pro-ana, websites have emerged in cyberspace encouraging people as young as 8 to "come join us and become perfect." Pro Ana websites have created uproar in the public health community, claiming eating disorders are not disorders, but a healthy lifestyle choice. In its most egalitarian sense, the Internet creates a forum for free speech and public participation; however, when this medium creates a space to support a disorder that kills over ten percent of its victims, we must question the subject matter this forum enables. To do so, we will turn to Todd McDorman's article "Creating a Virtual Counterpublic" (in Counterpublics and the State, 2001). McDorman suggests that the phenomenal growth of the Internet has given rise to underground voices that challenge the Status Quo. Similarly, Pro-ana websites take advantage of virtual communities, using their freedom to challenge notions of what it means to be healthy. In order to asses the immanent danger surrounding pro-ana websites, I will first detail McDorman's model of virtual counterpublics. Then, I will apply his ideas to the emergent pro-ana websites. Finally, I will be drawing conclusions regarding the growth of counterpublics and the proliferation of the websites themselves. While theorizing on the public sphere, Todd McDorman takes an untraditional approach to the domain of human activity. As critical scholars deconstruct differences between public and private spheres of action, there have been the rise of counterpublics-- underground spheres where members of marginalized social groups create their own space for advocacy. McDorman argues that the Internet promotes the public sphere as an alternative to mainstream media. In order to cultivate the unique environment of counterpublic advocacy, McDorman offers three strategies: obtaining public voice, creating a resistant identity, and inviting participation. With regard to a counterpublic, obtaining public voice means taking private issues and discussing them in a public forum. The private sphere has traditionally addressed domestic concerns, personal privacy issues, and taboo topics such as teen pregnancy and anorexia. The Internet provides a medium to take the private issue and make it public. Second, Dorman offers the strategy of creating a resistant identity; part of establishing an ideology that is counter to the Status Quo. The creation of resistant identities preserves alternate ways of knowing, and fosters collectives that empower personal outlets to deal with pain. Finally, McDorman argues that once a counterpublic has been created, the group must ensure its survival. Therefore, McDorman offers a final strategy of inviting participation. Activist networks expand as technology reaches into more homes across the nation, providing stronger lines of communication and the ability to align national strategies. With this understanding of virtual counterpublics, I will now turn to pro-ana websites in order to reveal their underground voice. Initially, the Observer of August 12, 2001 contends that anorexia is a disorder that has traditionally been dealt with through private family interventions and private therapy sessions. However, the freedom of the Internet allows people with the disorder to share everything from tips on how to starve to something called "thinspirations." The July 31, 2001 edition of Time magazine explains these thinspirations are statements such as "nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels." Furthermore, several websites post photographs of famous skinny women and runway models in order to encourage web-surfers successes in their starvation efforts. Essentially, pro-ana websites use the Internet to publicly sanction and encourage deviant, deadly behavior; they obtain public voice to discuss private matters for all to view. With their public voice on display, pro-ana websites are free to espouse their resistant identity. They create a community that accepts their deviant behavior, despite challenges from the Status Quo. Participants live by the motto "Anorexia is a lifestyle and a friend," and supporters encourage their members to go about their daily lives with their best friend 'ana'. Despite constant challenges form the medical industry, and the social public, Pro-ana advocates insist on challenging dominant ideology in spreading their resistant identity. Finally, Pro-ana websites ensure their survival by inviting participation. One web-goer told Cosmopolitan magazine of June 2001 that once she joined the site, she was directed to join over 30 others and now receives over 1000 newsletters a day. Furthermore, one of the flagship websites posts detailed instructions on how to support Pro-ana sites by donating money through organizations such as Amazon.com. Similarly, once an anorexic joins one site, he or she is invited to join more and offer monetary support in order to ensure the growth and survival of the counterpublic message. Clearly, Pro-ana websites have taken full advantage of the freedom offered by the Internet in order to advance their resistant ideology. Initially, the rise of counterpublics on the Internet represents a transformation in critical public sphere today. As early as 1993, public sphere theorists such as Nancy Fraser were arguing that traditional distinctions between public and private spheres of interaction were outdated. Fraser supports the creation of sub-altern publics that discuss oppositional identities, interests and needs. Yet we must carefully consider these underground voices, as in the case of eating disorder victims. While Pro-ana websites are dangerous, they force us to address the disorder head-on. At first reaction, we may wish to censor their voice, pushing anorexia, bulimia, and countless other mental disorders back into the private sphere. However, Pro-ana's participation in the public sphere forces us to realize that eating disorders and other mental illnesses are alive and well, and gaining support for their proliferation. By forcing their voice back into seclusion, we run the horrible risk of masking their experiences and fostering the spread of the disease. We must create a healthy place for these voice to be heard and learn to listen. Only in doing so can we treat these voices not as subordinate, but as truthful--an honest reminder that disorders as such are very much a part of our world. At the same time, however, we must be careful not to sanction their actions. Furthermore, we must highly monitor the ways in which we report and critique their existence so as not to encourage further invitations to participate. Major news sources such as the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and even Oprah Winfrey have attacked pro-ana websites. While they are cautious not to report the actual web addresses of these Pro-ana websites, they freely give step by step instructions and search terms to find them. While we must listen to and respect the voices of eating disorder victims, we must also exercise critical caution. As participants in our own public sphere we cannot turn other victims on to these deadly websites. Celeste spends hours each night replying to thousands of e-mails; in one she writes, "A good anorexic doesn't die." In response to this she explains in an interview with the June 2001 Cosmopolitan magazine, "there are people who move on, some carry on as they are. And some, I admit, will die. They will just stop logging on and vanish." She pauses, "I guess then that happens it means, as a group, we have killed them."
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When Celeste, a 22-year old
Boston woman, checks her email, she is not surprised to find over 1000
messages including the following: