I was 12. The internet was a weird place back then. No Instagram. No TikTok. Just dial-up tones and curiosity that had no boundaries.
Nicole was 20. She was 5’7”, weighing around 115 pounds. She wore striped violet briefs from Victoria’s Secret. Same as me.
In 2000, the Victoria’s Secret Angel wasn’t just a model. She was an idol. A thin, perfect lie I found by stealing catalogs from the back of my mom’s secret closet.
Then I clicked into “The Spark.” It was this weird news site. Predecessor to shows like “My 600-lb Life” or “The Biggest Loser,” but wilder. Cruder. One of its contests was “The Fat Project.”
That’s how I saw her.
Editors picked two thin kids. Nicole. A guy named Eric. The challenge was insane. Gain 30 pounds. 30 days. Prize? $3,000 and total online humiliation. They weighed themselves every day. Took photos in ratty underwear. Just for the clicks.
Nicole came from Haleyville, Alabama. A former homecoming queen. Her bio said she was tired of people judging her looks. She wanted to “ruin them.” She said people only looked at her face. So she wanted to get disgusting. See how they reacted.
After school I’d rush home. Climb onto the desk. Boot up the HP. America Online whined.
I watched Nicole eat.
“That’s all anyone ever looks at.”
They fasted first. To start light. Then they gorged. Pizzas. Liters of Coke. Donuts filled with crème. Chinese food left over in plastic bags. Photos posted the feast. Then photos of her belly. Taut. Flat. Even on a couch, she had no soft spots.
Mom yelled. Dinner. I logged off. Pulled my shirt up. Pinched my stomach. Calculated calories.
It wasn’t liberation. It was a funhouse mirror. The moderators mocked them. Called them fat. Insulted their morals. Nicole sought freedom by surrendering her thinness. The internet turned it into a circus.
I was in small-town Appalachia. West Virginia. They called it Chemical Valley because the rivers poisoned with spills. School meant shelter-in-place drills. Not for tornadoes—the mountains stopped those. But for factories leaking toxins along the creek.
We went to a fundamentalist Christian school. Curvy road at the end of nowhere. Safe. Sheltered. As long as you stayed in line. Jesus loved you. But don’t linger on grace. Don’t feel free.
Freedom happened on screen.
Day two. Nicole wore baggy overalls. Aisles of the grocery store. Little Debbie Cakes. Pop-Tarts. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Margarine. She gained 3.5 pounds in 24 hours. Mostly water, mostly gas in the intestines, the editors said.
But soon it changed.
Underwear tightened. Belly button popped. Two red arrows drew eyes to love handles.
It thrilled me.
Her thighs touching. Belly spilling over elastic. No apology.
One night Jessica slept over. TV flickered blue on her tear. She confessed she struggled with the sin of masturbation. I asked what that meant. She looked at me. Superiority in her eyes.
“What do you mean — masturbation?”
I lied. I knew about boys. But girls? I trailed off.
She explained it. PG-rated lust. Men in her head. Then she asked, “Do you know what I mean?”
“Oh. Yes.”
I didn’t know what she meant. Until I looked at Nicole. Until her body grew. Then I did.
Every afternoon. Dial up. Click. Nicole stuffing whipped cream into her mouth. Arm in a bag of chips. Pizza whole in mouth.
Some days she posted cellulite. Dimples on pale skin. Numbers on the scale went up. I felt disgust. But also pleasure. A tight coil in my chest. This is what I would look.
She wasn’t empowered. She was exploited. Confessional media loved to strip people naked and call it art.
Photos zoomed in. “The dark side of Nicole.”
Why dark? She ate what she wanted. Was she darker because she was heavy?
Near the end she wore the same bra and panties. Gut zoomed in. Knees. Fingers.
“She used to be a queen,” the caption said. “Now even her jewelry doesn’t fit.”
Star tattoo on her hip stretched out. Looked like a snowflake by the end. Distorted.
Nearly 25 years passed.
I’m no longer 12. But the surveillance remains.
Social media turned bodies into products. Monetized views. Filters and AI blend reality. Fantasy is free.
Girl mental health crashed. Eating disorders spiked. Body image became a currency.
We had body positivity for a second. Brief respite. Then the culture swung right. SkinnyTok. Ozempic. Diet culture returned with vengeance. Women’s rights shrank. Some married women might not even be able to vote now.
As rights shrink. Bodies shrink.
I feel lucky. I was the voyeur. Not the object.
Now I protest bedtime by scrolling. Reel after reel. Women point cameras at guts. Thighs. Arms. Looking for likes. Cash.
The game hasn’t changed. Just the stage.
The darkness isn’t in their bodies.
