More Than 900 "Violent, Abusive" Comments Were Left On A Woman's Bikini Photo

Back in April, plus size blogger Callie Thorpe tweeted a British Vogue article in which she — along with the likes of Bella Hadid and Kendal Kardashian — was featured for wearing the summer's hottest swimsuit trend.

She, of course, was excited and kind of shocked that a fashion brand like Vogue would put her, a plus sized woman, alongside super models. In July she tweeted out the article again, saying, "To all the people who called me fat, ugly and treated me like trash because of my weight growing up ... Catch me on Vogue with your WCW."

That tweet has since been deleted because it, and a post from Yahoo! about her tweet, was attacked by people who left "violent, abusive" comments about Thorpe's body, she said.

Thorpe released a video to her YouTube channel on 16th July detailing the abuse, and calling for more conversation about the way plus sized women are treated online.

"I was really proud of it," she said of the Vogue story. "And I still am really proud of it. But [then] I scrolled onto some really nasty comments about me that — they were just so awful that I couldn't even get them out of my mind after I read them. There were 900 comments, and pretty much all of them were vile."

Thorpe has been blogging for the last 5 years, but said that this instance on online hate was the worst she's ever faced. As a plus sized woman who puts images of her body online and is open with her life, though, Thorpe is no stranger to online abuse. But instead of just letting these 900 comments get her down, she made the video to highlight how differently people of size are treated.

"I often think when I see people talk about the fact that body shaming happens to everybody and I'm like, 'It absolutely happens to everybody, but if you want to see some real vile shit, then take a look at how fat women are treated online. And especially fat women of colour."

She hits back at the commonly held idea that these people are just trolls, and that we should ignore them. She, for one, is tired of having to ignore hateful comments about her body.

"It is absolutely insane to me that if we just call someone a troll and that makes it okay. But some of the stuff these people write is ... just violent, nasty shit that no one should ever see."

Thorpe brings up an important point. While we often suggest people avoid the comments — not because we think it's okay that people have written nasty thing, but to salvage their own mental health — ignoring a problem never makes it go away.

There may not be an effective solution to curbing comments like the ones about Thorpe's body, yet, but we can at least stop pretending they don't exist.