Like any popular web writer, Bryony Gordon gets a fair amount of weirdos. Currently a columnist for The Telegraph, Gordon's been a well-liked public figure for most of her 20s and 30s, covering contemporary culture both online and in her memoir The Wrong Knickers: A Decade of Chaos. But, one longtime reader reached out yesterday, voicing some disappointment in Bryony's recent work weight.
When the anonymous reader emailed her to express dismay over her "ballooning figure" (one he used to fantasize about, poor guy), Bryony did what anyone would and should do: She exposed the dummy.
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As evidenced by her simple reply — "Reasons not to lose weight, part 856" — Bryony is no stranger to this kind of, um, feedback. Further down her Twitter feed, she posts more bizarre and hateful messages sent from readers in recent months. An excerpt from one particularly disgruntled fellow: "Hello, STYPID BRY BRY BRYIE...FACE LOOKS LIKE A FUCKIN STUPUD IDTIO STOP BEING IN THE TELEGRAPH." We'll let you read the rest on Bryony's Twitter feed, but we will say that (spoiler!) the troll throws in a racial slur for good measure.
This concern-trolling email struck a particular chord among Bryony's followers. Getting pestered by obvious lunatics is one thing, but there's something sincerely unsettling about getting a grammatically correct email explaining how you've effectively killed a stranger's boner by becoming so fat and disgusting. "What does your husband think?" the troll asks.
Sounds like Bryony's husband is doing a-okay. In a column last year, Bryony considered the pros and cons of battling down her pregnancy weight, noting that it has little impact on her personal life or self-perception:
"I would be quite content to carry on as I am, going to the plus-size section of shops and wearing patterned tents, were it not for everyone else and their complete inability to believe that I am content."
And, aside from occasional jerks pleading with Bryony to get back down to a size they'd prefer to masturbate to, her readers seem pretty supportive. Hundreds replied with disgust and outrage to the email she tweeted yesterday. Only one man responded in support of the jerk, saying, "Seems a fair point. Fat women just are less attractive." Bryony brushed off the comment, and went back to her day. As she says, regarding trolls: "Sometimes, you've got to laugh."