In some ways, Lizzo has hit the jackpot on social media. She got Chris Evans to respond to her drunk DM. She used Instagram to crowdsource "big girl" backup dancers to join her squad. And she promotes self-love by sharing unedited nude pics of her body.
But not everyone appreciates her content for the simple smile it brings to your face. In a new interview with The Cut, Lizzo explained why some social media users try to politicize her selfies—and why that's a problem for her "Good as Hell" philosophy.
She said she's just trying to be "body normative," where the size of your body or what it looks like isn't discussed.
"I'm not trying to create a whole new movement," Lizzo, 33, shared. "I just mean what you're looking at is normal. Let's stop talking about it. This is my body, nothing to see here. Keep it moving."
She continued, "I hope that I can post the kinds of materials that I post, showing my body and showing my rolls or whatever. And people are just like, 'Okay. Beautiful picture. Next.' Instead of, like, 'Oh my gosh, a full-figured body. How strikingly political!'"
How does Lizzo feel about that kind of commentary? "It don't gotta be all of that! That is where I'm going with body-normative-speak," she said. Basically, she wants her pics to merely be ordinary instead of revolutionary.
As she captioned one nude post in April, "I wanna give y'all this unedited selfie.. now normally I would fix my belly and smooth my skin but baby I wanted show u how I do it au natural."
Despite her efforts, the Grammy winner is still seeing many problems with how bodies are talked about online, even amongst communities that aim to celebrate diverse figures.
"There's even a lot of very triggering and fat-phobic behaviors that have come from the body-positive movement," she told The Cut. "There are things like body checking, and comparing sizes, or shaming sides. Like, 'Oh, it's midsize girls' turn; big girls, you've had your moment.' Huh? It's not about a moment. It's about this system that oppresses big bodies."
Lizzo said she had to learn "the hard way" how to navigate social media.
"I'm still not on Twitter," she reflected. "I had to learn to find people who look like me, women who have bodies like mine, Black girls, girls who have hair like mine and smiles like mine. I believe that that has greatly improved my relationship with social media."