Gen Z Were Struggling To Wrap Their Heads Around ’00s Beauty Standards, So Lizzo Came In To Share An Important Message

When older people used to talk about life in their times, the youth could roll their eyes, safe in the knowledge that these were just memories obscured by the passage of time. But for the last two decades, the combination of the internet and digital photos has made seeing the past more straightforward than ever before.

So when Generation Z learned what some considered “thick” (or “thicc,” to use modern parlance) in the early 2000s, many expressed outright disbelief at the body standards of the time. So American rapper Lizzo made a TikTok that ended up going viral to educate the youth on body issues and how society talks about them.
More info: TikTok

"So right now there's a thread on Twitter. A reminder of the women we used to consider thick in the 2000s and this is LisaRaye. As you know, LisaRaye is beautiful. In the early 2000s, she was considered the definition of thick. Another one of our 2000s thick icons is J.Lo, whose booty was super duper duper praised for being juicy and big and thick and dump-truckish."

"As well as these video vixens right here who were notoriously known for being thick, to the point they thought their bodies were fake, people were accusing them of having fake bodies back in the early days. However, I noticed in the comments that people don't believe these tweets. There are people who are like, 'Y'all just be saying anything. This isn't true. This isn't thick.' And it's important to note that a lot of these people were not born yet. Or they were babies in this era."

"I'm not here to convince you that beauty standards were different. And I'm not here to convince you that this was considered fat in the early 2000s and that this beautiful body was considered unhealthy in the early 2000s. What I am here to do is just remark on how quickly the conversation in culture can change. All it takes is 20 years to completely erase an ideal, a thought, a pattern, a behavior, and the way we treat people. The way we talk about people. And that's important to remember moving forward. To avoid erasure and also to get rid of some of this toxic behavior that we praise in culture now."

"It doesn't take much to reshift a narrative and to change a paradigm. Being an early pioneer in the body-positive movement and watching it evolve to body neutrality is humbling. It's an honor. Watching the definition of thick go from J.Lo to Beyoncé, to Tacarra, to Precious Lee has been a dream to watch. This is a reminder that there's always going to be a new conversation. There's always going to be a new fight, and every movement offsets the next movement. The status quo is meant to be pushed, it's meant to be evolved. So, if you feel like the outlier, or if you feel like you're not like everybody else, keep being yourself and watch the world catch up with you."