How to survive a Twitter storm

Tanya Gold published a piece about a plus-size mannequin one Sunday. By Monday morning the internet had gone mad and was out for her blood

It was my fault. Sometimes I write glibly. I make an argument for myself and forget that people read it. It still surprises me, after 20 years of writing, to think that I have readers: that my internal monologue is out and about in the world. I do not think about them. If I did, I couldn't write anything.

In June, I wrote a piece about Nike's obese mannequin, which was displayed at the London flagship shop to publicise Nike's new willingness to sell clothes to overweight women. It makes me laugh now to think I insulted a mannequin - how, on that day in 2019, we came to discuss human rights for mannequins. I said it was a cynical doll from a cynical company that is no friend to women. I said that the normalisation of obesity frightens me, because I can see the outcome of addiction to sugar in myself. I said that the "fat acceptance" movement is an abyss of denial. I said the mannequin was "gargantuan" and "heaving with fat". I said it might get diabetes - if it had flesh. I said that if it ran, it would ruin its inhuman knees.