A 29-year-old woman from Los Angeles was furious when she discovered that Instagram had removed a butt selfie she had recently put up. The tasteful photo captioned: "Booty appreciation #honormycurves #effyourbeautystandards" just showed Meghan Tonjes posing in a pair of black bikini briefs and a T-shirt. There was nothing provocative or inappropriate about it. So how come Kim Kardashian and people like Jen Selter can post cheeky pics of their butts for days and normal, plus-size women can't?
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Tonjes claims she received an email from them notifying her that the image was taken down because it violated the site's nudity rules. Really? Mind you, her photo showed less skin than a lot of these celebrities show on Instagram. Have you not seen that super sexy belfie Kim Kardashian posted a few months ago? Or all those butt pictures Jen Selter posts on a daily basis? This is so unfair!
That's why Tonjes who weighed 321 pounds at her heaviest and has been posting pictures of herself slimming down to motivate and empower her followers, is accusing Instagram of double standards. She created this powerful, eight-and-a-half-minute long video on YouTube, titled "Dear Instagram," where she addresses the issue.
"I've posted photos along my weight loss and transformation of me in my gym clothes, in underwear, just photos of parts of my body that I'm super happy with and I'm super proud of and I've embraced getting older," she says. "I have pride for my curves. My still very fat body, I like a lot."
The video practically blew up on the internet getting more than 80,000 hits. So it was only a matter of time before Instagram realized they messed up. The photo-sharing site issued her an apology on Wednesday and restored her belfie picture to her account.
I think what Tonjes did was brave and admirable. We live with enough double-standards in this world to then have to deal with Instagram implementing them too? Clearly, her photo was taken down because she's overweight and doesn't have a butt like Kim Kardashian's or Beyonce's and that's just WRONG! I'm glad Instagram recognized they made a mistake and restored the photo. And I hope this is the last time anything like this ever goes down!
Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV-SbPN2JYM&list=UUw1UfxJnp1HVvh_QzSbGkog
Images via YouTube
