Cohorted Cult

I was coming to the conclusion that I needed to eat low calorie snacks and stick at Chloe Ting workouts to lose a few stone and look like the girls that I saw online in order to feel good about myself. However, this way of thinking in a lockdown with no distractions made me start feeling like I was going insane, so I decided that enough was enough. I deleted the app for a bit, watched some Tiger King, baked some banana bread and thought about what I could do to stop myself from feeling this way because of a silly little app.  

My epiphany came in the form of taking back control of my social media consumption and beginning to follow people like me rather than following people that I wanted to be like. I have fluctuated from a size 10 to a size 14 over the years, through numerous lockdowns as well as being stranded in-between two communities that didn’t really feel right for me. I recognise my privilege as I am able to find my size in clothes on the high street. I’m not a 5’9 size 8 that looks amazing in anything but I’m also not ‘big enough’ to be a part of a plus sized community. After my short but sweet TikTok ban, I decided to try and change what was fed to me on the app. I started searching for ‘size 12 clothing hauls’ and ‘best bodycon dresses for pear shapes’ which led me towards a community of women genuinely referring to themselves as ‘midsize’. This term has now got 30 million views under the TikTok hashtag and hundreds of thousands of posts on Instagram – so what does it mean? 

After a bit of googling, a generic definition for this term is essentially the midpoint between straight size and plus size and ranges from a UK size 12-16. Although clothes in this size are available on the high street, midsized body types and clothing styles that flatter them are underrepresented in advertising, modelling and social media surrounding these stores. This means that we never really see what that top/dress/jacket etc looks like on someone without a flat stomach or that has wide hips, chunky thighs or D cup boobs. This has meant that over time, I’ve been catfished by my favourite brands and ended up returning a ton of ASOS parcels as I’m trying to buy clothes that just aren’t catered to someone with my body type. After years of this and then a spout of a fashion heavy TikTok fyp, I was left thinking that maybe I was the problem and that some things were just not going to look right on me.  

This changed when I came across an Emily Rajch (@emilylucyrajch) video in Spring 2020 of her trying on jeans for hourglass body types. I fell down a rabbit hole of her videos, as well as other creators who were styling clothes that I wanted to wear that were also my size! As lockdown continued and more and more people started making content online, I came across more and more pages (recommendations below) of women doing the same thing. From this point on I’ve never felt better in clothes or shopped more successfully, much to my bank balance’s dismay.  

However, despite my success story in finding self-love and representation the midsize community, I know there has been an element of controversy as to the labelling of ‘midsize’. By creating this middle community, it has been said that this simply emphasizes how being fat/plus sized is inherently bad and this new label creates a sense of ‘othering’ for the already marginalised plus sized community. Whilst using fat as a descriptor should be seen as neutral and not an ugly, bad word, my belief is that it shouldn’t mean everyone needs to identify with it. I don’t identify with the plus sized label/community as at my size, I don’t face the same issues that someone who is a size 18+ would face.  

I hope that as a result of the influx of midsize creators on social media as well as the #bodyposivity movement, the acceptance of this community of women continues to grow and people like me discover a bit of self-love. Although there should be absolutely no pressure to label yourself/your body in a certain way, it certainly helped me find the right pair of jeans!