All about that reality

I'm on Meghan Trainor's side

Meghan Trainor arrives at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015
Meghan Trainor arrives at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015 mctcampus.com
I was scrolling down my Facebook feed, and I came across a link to an article about Meghan Trainor. Before I clicked it, I read the comments from the folks who had shared it which read something to the likes of “finally, someone said it” and “I never really liked her anyway.”

Now because I’m nosey, I had to click it and see what exactly made them say this, especially since—here’s the plot twist—the comments were made by men!

So someone decided that they would pick apart the lyrics to “All About That Bass.” The song was meant to uplift girls on the “bass” side. The writer and website will remain anonymous because I don’t give credit to people who don’t deserve any, but this “writer” took these lyrics apart and only used what would make their case.

The case was to justify that Meghan Trainor used this song to “shame and degrade skinny women”. Not only is that completely false, but it’s typical that when the stereotyped embrace themselves, it’s considered degrading and looked down upon.

The whole song is upbeat and meant to encourage the girl who doesn’t believe her body is okay the way it is. The writer has decided otherwise when suggesting that Meghan’s going about “body positivity” the wrong way. The way I see it, she only brought attention to what we already know.

By singing, “I see the magazines working that Photoshop. We know that shit ain’t real, come on now, make it stop”, all she does is bring attention to the fact that no super model or hot-to-trot celebrity has a photoshoot without editing the pictures before publishing.

Raise your hand if you’ve seen the side by side shots of models before and after the Photoshop edit. If you watch America’s Next Top Model often, then you have. Don’t front.

This person calls Meghan “A walking contradiction,” and they don’t respect her or her ideologies. Why? Are they mad because she wasn’t afraid to call out what she sees? What America forces us to believe—that being skinny gets you on the cover, and being plus-sized gets you in the back towards the ads.

Never mind the fact that in the song she says, “Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches hey, now I’m just playing I know you think you’re fat, but I’m here to tell you every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top.” Contradiction? Skinny shaming? No.

We all have that friend who weighs 110 soaking wet, but considers herself fat. The reason why she does is irrelevant. I’m sorry, but a girl whose biggest jean size is six can’t expect me and my size 22 to be like “Mhm, girl yeah, you could stand to lose a couple pounds.” I’m confident in what my body image is, but that’s insulting to hear and Meghan Trainor just put it in a song.

Now I’ve said all this to say that this song was for encouragement to plus-sized girls, but from the lyrics and the video it was clear every single body type should be embraced. At the beginning they’re separated and comparing, but at the end their dancing together. There’s nothing wrong with one more than the other.

I know this song is on my workout playlist, and the first time I heard it was when I needed to the most. I love this song. So A+ Meghan Trainor. I’m all about that bass just like you.