The worst body culture moment of 2024

"Bad built" isn't the clapback we think.

(Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/Getty Images)

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In May, far-right conservative Republican (and cantankerous dork) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sparred with Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett during a House Oversight Committee meeting. As tensions escalated, Greene snarked that Crockett’s “fake eyelashes” were affecting her ability to read. Later in response, Crockett suggested that Greene has a “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body.” Crockett’s insult became known as “B6,” which Crockett trademarked and slapped on merch called “The Clapback Collection.” The internet, of course, absolutely slobbered all over this. Left-leaning Instagram pages and official Democratic Party accounts alike meme-ified it, it was used in remix tracks, and ostensibly progressive people celebrated it as a slam dunk against the relentless cruelty of conservatism/Trumpism.¹

I think, though, that B6 and the response to it was the most disappointing moment in body culture this year because it’s demonstrative of a huge problem within it: Even the people who say they are accepting of and positive about all bodies aren’t, actually, when it suits them not to be — which in this case is when they feel called to signal their anti-conservative bona fides, even if that comes at the expense of principles they allege to hold dear.

The B6 clapback isn’t a slam dunk against the relentless cruelty of Trumpism. It’s just another example of the relentless cruelty of a culture that upholds a particular female body type as ideal: One that is slim, delicate, and “feminine” in a traditional, stereotypical way.

After Greene insulted Crockett’s lashes, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can be heard responding: “Absolutely unacceptable! How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person!” As much as it pains me to see, because I think Greene’s actions and words suck major ass and Crockett seems cool, attacking the physical appearance of another person is exactly what Crockett went on to do.

Greene’s insult about her eyelashes was racially motivated, Crockett rightly pointed out, telling the Dallas Morning News that her critics frequently attack her “fake nails, hair, or eyelashes.” Of course it was; Greene is a racist. The compulsion to give ghouls like her a taste of their own medicine is entirely understandable; cruelty is, after all, the language they speak. But this is why making the world a less garbage-fiery place is deeply uncomfortable: We have to be willing to resist the temptation to dole out the same bullshit if we want to make the case that such bullshit will not stand.

This is the same thing I took issue with in my post about small dick jokes and insults:

If we’re cool with small dick jokes or the phrase “small dick energy,” we’re cool with the idea that a smaller penis does or should contribute to insecurity and shame, that it does make a person “less of a man,” that it does mean they can’t please their partner. Is this really what progressive society believes? Is this really what we want young people — those with penises and their partners — to think as they grow up?

Progressives can yap all day long about how that’s not what they want young people or anyone to believe, but then they go and throw a sneering, childish, body-shaming post like this up on Twitter amid their anti-billionaire, #CeaseFireNow, advocacy-for-the-homeless tweets, and 21,000 people agree with it. This hypocrisy is just as much an issue in our body culture, I think, than the fact that an asshole like Greene said an asshole thing that an asshole would say.

If you run out and buy a B6 T-shirt or share posts about how hilarious it is, what you’re doing is suggesting that you’re cool with the idea that a relatively muscular female body is aberrant. As a woman who has a muscular, stocky, square-ish shape not dissimilar from Greene’s, the B6 thing doesn’t make me all Yaaass, get her ass! even though Greene deserves to get got where politics and policy are concerned. Rather, it makes me feel like everyone takes it as a hilarious given that a body like mine is gross — why else would it be lauded as such a perfect insult?

Regarding the “butch” of it all, consider this post on the r/butchlesbians subreddit from a few months ago. I’ll let some of the posters there speak for themselves²:

“… the response, the memes, the jokes and laughing…by democrats and leftists no less! That part has really upset me and feels more blatantly homophobic than the comment itself. MTG is one of the worst people on the planet but the response to this really worries me and makes me really sad. It’s things like this that make me the tiniest bit more concerned about walking through the world as myself.”

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“Why is it okay then to imply that looking like or having a body like ours is an insult. … I think a lot of the hurt for me personally has been seeing the "progressive" community at large (i know not everyone but still) embrace this and kind of sacrifice us as a people and a community for the sake of a shallow political jab. … I think your post isn't late either because still when I search for butch related merch to wear to queer events this is one of the first things that pop up. It still stings every time.”

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“Every time someone says "butch" like it means "ugly," someone in the world learns to hate their own beauty. Jasmine Crockett didn't start that, but that's where her brain went for insults. It's just kind of... there, like everything else we have to endure until straight, cis people put the effort in and learn to live with us without insulting us.”

People might argue that Crockett’s insult was hypothetical, it’s only about Greene and #NotAllButchBodies or whatever, but the fact is that appearance insults — whether Greene’s towards Crockett or vice versa — have collateral damage. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t care. But shouldn’t the people who oppose her and all she stands for?

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I keep thinking about Ilona Maher, the U.S. Olympic rugby player who captured the heart of a nation this year in part due to her body- and self-acceptance messaging. As a tall, muscular, broad-shouldered woman, Maher said she’s faced all kinds of criticism about her size and shape, which is why she makes videos showing that even as an elite athlete she still has cellulite, isn’t lean all over, and weighs 200 pounds. In late summer, Maher landed the cover of Sports Illustrated, and people (myself included) rejoiced that such a body type was garnering visibility and celebration.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all, though, if the same people Yassss-ing Ilona — because body acceptance and positivity are generally seen as a “liberal” thing — were pumping their fists in the air at Crockett’s B6 clapback. My question to them would be: So which is it? Is a big, muscular, athletic, broad-shouldered, thick-legged woman “bad built” or not?

You don’t get to say it depends, or sometimes she is and sometimes she isn’t. The context you’re considering might change, but the woman’s body doesn’t. Whether you’re sharing a picture of Ilona with a bunch of heart emojis or a B6 remix with a bunch of cry-laughing ones, she sees you. She wonders whose side you’re really on.

1. That Democratic leaders continue to embarrass themselves by doing things like turning clapbacks into merch instead of taking more meaningful actions that would have kept Donald Trump from becoming president again is precisely why so many of us cast our votes for Kamala Harris like this.

2. This is also a good article about this.