Awful Facebook Group Photoshops Thin Versions Of Plus-Size Women

Update: Both the original Project Harpoon and the follow-up Operation Harpoon pages have now been taken down. Continue to our original story below to learn more about the controversial project. This post was originally published on August 20, 2015. Well, humanity, we've reached a new low. A Facebook group that photoshops pics of plus-sized women is claiming to show the error of their "misguided" body-confident ways, reports The Daily Mail. Project Harpoon, which calls itself a "collaborative art project open to interpretation," launched on Facebook earlier this month and has since added a new page, Operation Harpoon. On the left is the unaltered photo, and on the right is the (often hilariously bad) altered version, which shows the woman as a thinner — and, the group insists, healthier — version of herself alongside the hashtags #SkinnyAcceptance and #ThinnerBeauty. And, of course, the posters ask that none of these women be shamed for their new, unrequested skinny figures. The group started with women who are famous for their curves — including Meghan Trainor, Melissa McCarthy, and Tess Holliday — and then moved on to altering photos of non-famous women and men on the internet. This was all, of course, without these people's permission. (One user-submitted example is below.) However, according to The Daily Mail, the project reportedly began on notorious trolling site 4Chan and is affiliated with r/thinnerbeauty. So while we are disgusted, we aren't necessarily surprised. "In current societal fashion, a recent trending surge of 'pro-obesity' and 'fat acceptance' have paved the way for many people to renounce exercise and personal healthcare in general," the group claims on its Facebook page. "This page aims to only show that being skinny is okay as well!" Wonderful, huh? The thing is, as we have written extensively before, you can't tell anything about someone's health from just his or her size. Instead, the best thing you can possibly do for your health is to accept who you are right at this moment — whatever size or shape you may be. As Lindy West put it, "You can't take good care of a thing you hate." So let's all just move on and grab an ice cream cone. It's hot out there — and so are you.