Skip Navigation
Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
BmeBenji @lemm.ee

What do you think of the term "short king" as a term that's supposed to champion body positivity for men?

Body positivity is such a strange concept to me. There's efforts to reclaim words while simultaneously calling them bad if used as an insult. Ideally, people wouldn't be offended by someone describing their body with common descriptors, but socially there is so much value attributed to certain body types that it's almost impossible to avoid having an emotional response of some kind to various descriptors.

For example, It's not bad to be fat, but calling someone "fat" is almost universally considered a bad thing. The same definitely seems to go for the idea of being "short."

I'm asking this question because I can't put my finger on why but something seems to be different about the use of the term "short" from the use of the term "fat." I think that part of it is how, to me at least, the term "fat" is so generic and hard to nail down to a discrete definition, implying that the word really doesn't have a clear connection to reality. On the other hand, height is a single-dimensional number. You either are above a certain threshold, or you aren't.

I recently learned that May 6th to May 10th is "short king week" because it's 5'6" to 5'10" which then prompted me to search for the origins of "short king" and apparently the person most-credited with popularizing the term is Jaboukie Young-White who claims the term was meant to include all men under 6 feet tall. The average adult male height is 5'9" leaving men considered roughly average to be called "short" which is still considered an insult by many.

I dunno. As a term that was intended to champion body positivity compared with how the term is actually used, what do you think of "short king?"

109 comments

  • I'm 5'6" and find the term childish and insulting. It's not the short part, it's the king part. I am not a king, I'm a regular guy working a regular job.

    "Body positivity" is garbage. People should be honest and support healthy lifestyles. Twisting reality to make someone comfortable is detrimental to their physical and mental health.

    I don't understand the reasoning but, across the board, it seems today's culture is very quick to accept literal delusions in place of reality for the sake of feelings and "mental well being".

    • I think that you have internalized a version of body positivity that lies on the most extreme end of what is meant by that phrase. Body positivity - be comfortable with who you are and do not put down on others due to their body.

      The odds are that I am significantly fatter than you. The odds also favor that I am significantly stronger than you, even if you lift weights. I can also probably walk all day much farther than you can.

      Would it be healthier if I lose body fat? Absolutely. Have I tried for 20 years to do that? Yes. I am not ignorant regarding nutrition. I am not lazy. I am not overall lacking willpower. I am fat but otherwise healthy.

      Body positively means that my doctor treats my body fat as what it is - one aspect of my overall health. He does not assume that every problem I have is because I am fat, even though changing that would improve some aspects of my health.

      Body positively also means that I am not going to hide when I go to the beach. I am going to go shirtless and enjoy myself. If you do not find me sexually attractive, that is fine. If you are going to shame or mock me for my body fat, then you are an asshole. If I catch wind of you mocking me, I will quietly estimate how many times your bodyweight I will deadlift on Monday. If you choose to mock the scars that cover parts of my body from extreme, life-saving surgery, I may feel the need to firmly educate you on exactly what sort of asshole you are.

      Body positively often conjures the image of a morbidly obese girl on OnlyFans who lets people pay to watch her binge and intentionally get fatter while she says being purposefully inactive is just as healthy as hitting the gym. The real versions of that person are extremely rare, but their radicalism, vociferous nature, and platform make their voices much louder in comparison. Their argument is also easy to find flaw with and mock, so they get used as if they are a typical example of body positivity.

      You are right in that the woman I describe above needs help and is not behaving in a safe or healthy way. I also understand why you might think that is the norm. She is not, though, and I would encourage you to look deeper at the meaning of the "movement."

      The "you" above is generic and based on broad assumptions. You, the reader, might be stronger than me and have way more endurance than me. You also might be fatter than I am. The odds are very good that you are also not an asshole. My point was to call out variances from the norm as convenient examples, of which I have plenty in both directions.

      • If you’re a hundred pounds overweight, you should not be comfortable with who you are. People who support or celebrate morbid obesity are bad people.

    • I agree that we should strive for people to be healthy. But there's a lot of evidence to suggest that shame not only is ineffective but can actually have the opposite effect.

      Besides, I think you're being pretty reductive. Health includes both physical and mental, we should take steps to improve both of these. And I get the sense that you specifically take issue with body positivity specifically around fat people, as I assume you don't think being short or tall is unhealthy. In which case, you're ignoring the economics of it (at least in America, there are a ton of government subsidies for corn, incentivizing businesses to load up our food with corn syrup).

      The issue is complex and so would any solutions. At least in America, we need to deincentivize the production of unhealthy food, better access to healthcare, and cultural shifts as well. And I'm sure there's a whole lot I'm missing.

      • If you’re ashamed for being overweight, that’s something that should motivate you to lose the weight. Embracing being fat and blaming others is not healthy, it’s delusional.

        There’s also a ton of government subsidizes for other fruits and vegetables. Don’t blame the government for your poor eating habits. Learn to prepare real food. It’s healthier, cheaper, and more abundant. You don’t need to deincentivize producing unhealthy food, you just need to choose not to eat it.

        This culture of supporting people who are overweight is making us all lose sight of what a healthy lifestyle looks like. As generations spend less time working physically and more time sitting, our diets should be moving towards far less calories. Instead, we’re being made into nothing more than consumers who click a button to have bad food delivered to us while we sit on the couch.

        The only complex issue is how we got here. It’s not complex to make healthier choices. I’d argue it’s easier than what we’re doing now. To quote Michael Pollan, “eat food, not too much, mostly plants”.

    • Body positivity" is garbage. People should be honest and support healthy lifestyles

      Feels like you are falling in to the same critism trap that catches "Pride" events, lots of people say that they can be proud of lots of things, not nessecarily an indentity or sexuality.

      But pride is more about not feeling shame for things you can't control. Body positivity is about way more than overweight people, but being happy of who you are regardless of any stigma.

      It's not my place to say people should like "short kings", I truly couldnt care less about individuals liking or disliking a given term. I just feel your reasoning would be better built upon infantalizing without attacking people that are fidng zen outside of unfair cultural stigma.

    • Do you think short people are living an unhealthy lifestyle?

    • Fucking amen

  • I recall a tweet from a ways back-

    sometimes you have to be a bit mentally ill to get mentally well so if thinking naruto would be proud of you for brushing your teeth is what gets you to brush your teeth well grab that toothbrush dattebayo

    If calling yourself a short king lets you kick your insecurities ass well then here's your crown my dude 👑

  • I think that “championing body positivity” for any class of adult humans is undignified. I think that doing a special extra thing for people in order to reverse the polarity of a judgment about that aspect of them is cruelly mocking them for that aspect of them.

    Perhaps there’s something about that short guy that’s actually awesome, and doesn’t require childish lies and role-playing to communicate.

    If someone called me “small dick king” I would hate them forever, despite whatever positive intentions they might have had when they said it. Do not make my weakness the key point of my persona, even if you include that awkward attempt at “positivifying” it. Just call me “Intensely Human, master wordsmith” or something that’s actually positive. Don’t treat me like I’m a five year old, using keywords to remap my negative qualities into positive ones.

    The whole idea of using a term, that’s special to short men, to “champion” (verbing nouns is horrible) body positivity in short men, makes me feel nauseous.

    If we want to respect short men, let’s do so in action, not in word choice.

  • I'm a relatively short guy at 5'6". My take on this is firstly that I dislike being called "king" because it sounds patronizing, especially by someone who knows nothing about me (that just feels insincere). Secondly, I'm comfortable, even happy, with my height. There have been many times I've been glad that I wasn't taller. It's kinda funny watching taller folks hitting their heads on things and complaining about cars being too small.

    With my shortness being accepted by myself, someone else randomly pointing it out by explicitly calling me a "short king" in an effort to promote body positivity makes me think that in order for them to be recognizing shortness as a potentially negative trait means they likely thought of it as a negative in the past and are now patting themselves on the backs for being "enlightened" and subtly shaming others who still haven't "evolved" to their level. It feels like less of a compliment and more of a circle jerk.

    Also, I don't feel like shortness needs any championing. Going back to the topic of obesity in the discorse of body positivity, I think it's a great idea to treat people as people regardless of weight. But I think the implied premise stated by OP is flawed in this regard. I do think being happy with being overweight is different than being happy about being short. There are no apparent benefits to being overweight, since it generally increases risk factors in all kinds of medical issues. With this in mind, body positivity regarding weight should focus on encouraging others to lose weight without shaming them. The same is not true of being short. Besides the impossibility of people making themselves taller even if they wanted to, there's no negative to a person's well-being or quality of life because of it.

    I can't remember any time in my life that I've ever been called short as an insult either. This post just seems to be attempting to fix a non-issue. In summary, I would rather no one speak the words "short king" at all. Just go with "you're such a badass" if you wanna give a compliment.

    • There have been many times I've been glad that I wasn't taller. It's kinda funny watching taller folks hitting their heads on things and complaining about cars being too small.

      6'3" guy here. Every time someone says "wow you're tall" I say that it's not that great. 6' is plenty to reach high shelves and stuff like that I think, but I struggle with leg room in public transport. I think that's more annoying than needing a ladder once in a while. Also I often feel my hair touching the roof in smaller cars.

  • 5"10 isn't short anyway. I think it's average? "Short king" is trolling 100% of the time. I won't call it gaslighting (a term I do apply to "big dick energy") because it doesn't seek that level of psychological invasiveness. But it's not intended as a compliment. It's trolling. Don't feed the trolls.

  • Personally I do not let internet trends affect my behavior out in the real world. Why is that? Because if I use the term "short king" anywhere in the real world, 99% of people won't know what I'm talking about. Until you hear a real person say it (that means not on lemmy, not on twitter, not on dating apps, etc. or people you meet through these platforms) you can assume that there is no real impact to be had there. I think we give way too much credit to the internet for affecting real life trends. Most people don't care about these cute terminologies people come up with, and neither should you. The term was made to get someone attention, not to make short people feel better.

  • as a 5'7 person, I can't control my height. Therefore, it isn't something that I should feel bad about. it's the same way I feel about the color of my skin or any other physical or mental things I have going on that are 100% out of my control. it's a difficult way to address my shortcomings (pun intended), but once you start just accepting these are things that cant be control, you start feeling better about yourself. I've cut out a lot of people in my life that made me feel bad about uncontrollable things, and it's made me a much better person. I'm still on that journey to improve every day, too; it'll never stop

    I think the trap many people fall into is getting caught up and comparing themselves to other people. I can't imagine if I woke up every day and compared myself to some of the wealthiest people in the world... I'd get depressed so fast!

    as for the term short king, that's absolutely hilarious to me, I approve of its use lol.

    I think that part of it is how, to me at least, the term "fat" is so generic and hard to nail down to a discrete definition, implying that the word really doesn't have a clear connection to reality.

    well, there's a clear definition as to what is considered to be overweight, and if someone fits that category, it's up to them to decide how they take it. it's a lifestyle choice for that person, in my opinion, and I know plenty of people that are happy with their larger size and others that would like to bring their weight down. but comparison will always make someone feel bad about themselves if they dont take the comparison as constructive criticism.

109 comments