Media and Ambivalence| Is It a Fit or Is She Just Skinny? A TikTok Hashtag as a Site of Ambiguity Around Fashion, Gender, and Women’s Bodies

Abstract

Between early 2021 and 2023, the hashtag #IsItAFitOrIsSheJustSkinny gained popularity on TikTok. The hashtag is primarily associated with videos in which plus-size women assemble and try on outfits previously worn by thin women, inviting their followers to judge whether the assembled outfits are objectively fashionable or are only considered fashionable when worn by skinny women. The videos mostly claim to critique the fashion industry for its lack of size inclusivity and historic promotion of thinness, although most creators argue that it is not their intention to “skinny-shame.” Nevertheless, the structure and premise of the videos invite judgment of individual women, their bodies, and their fashion sense, subjecting women’s appearance to increased scrutiny. Employing critical discourse analysis, I aim to demonstrate how #IsItAFitOrIsSheJustSkinny videos assimilate women’s dissatisfaction and anger with the discriminatory aspects of the fashion industry into happy, palatable expressions of postfeminist aesthetic productivity, where empowerment is constructed in terms of access to fashion labor and proficiency in it.