Glass And Peace

Thinspo and Blood

It was later that evening I prevented a suicide.

Still fuming as I arrive back at the apartment I grab a beer, snap open the laptop and pull up my Twitter feed. I frequent a number of hashtags - the Twitter equivalent of chatrooms - there are hashtags for everything but most evenings I can be found arguing pointlessly with American conservatives on #guncontrol, attempting to reason with anti-vaccinationists who believe jabs cause #autism and imagining the sentient robot singularity on #artificialintelligence.

This evening however I am bored with the usual haunts. What was it Caprice said a few nights ago in between ball-bustings? "Not as freaky as browsing the #thinspo hashtag..." wasn't it? How bad can it be?

I type #thinspo into the search box. I see pale pink sticks. No, my mistake they are people, mostly female, with impossibly thin limbs, accented by awkward joints and jutting bones. I read the text accompanying the skin and bone models.. "Beautiful...", "Perfection", "why can't i look like this?" all hashtagged #thinspo of course, and some bear the additional tag #thinspiration.

I get it, this is what experts call a "problematic body image" forum. A hangout for anorexic teens fawning over size zero models. I find it achingly bleak. I sadly scroll through post after post, jaw gently dropping at the painfully thin parade, itself lauded by a Twitter army of fans; the skinniest models in the most awkward poses getting the most likes and retweets and effusive praise.."Oh she's gorgeous, look at the rib def" "elbows that could cut paper luv it :@" After swiping dismally down the grim gallery for a few minutes I'm about to move on - I have unfinished business with a right-wing nut job (RWNJ) regarding the 2nd Amendment over on hashtag #2A - when a tweet catches my eye.

"Not now, not ever, no more trying. Too hard. 100% done w/ life. #amcutting Bye #thinspo"

Now I'm sufficiently familiar with teenage dramatics to read their texts and tweets with a healthy pinch of salt. My own Lily at 12 is already prone to histrionics: "Maybe I'll just not come back" is a favourite threat, never carried out. But this tweet nags me. "done with life" and a reference to self harm? In the present tense?

I check the account profile. Our depressed #thinspo fan is called @lilCatbleeds and her profile picture is a stylised photo of a scrawny kitten dripping blood from its paws. "17, cute and skinny but not yours, not anyone's, not ever. #bulemic #thinspo #thinspiration #cutting.

Ouch. I know kids over share online, but here she is openly admitting an eating disorder and self-harm habit, right there in her Twitter profile. It unnerved me, but not nearly as much as her next few tweets.

Im on WiFi, Twitter is in livestream mode so I'm now treated to @lilCat's tweets in realtime. And it's a disturbing slide show. First, we get a close up of a razor blade and the phrase "my deliverance #amcutting". I'm transfixed. Is this real? Is she going to do it? Is she just seeking attention? Won't her friends stop her? I frantically check her account, surely her followers will see this and intervene? Zero followers. What? Even I've got 150 and I wasn't even trying. A new "egg" account gets at least a dozen spambot followers within a day. I check her timeline for clues, and there it is. "Blocking everyone, fuck u all, u cant help me now don't even try it's happening #amcutting #endingit "

She has deliberately blocked all her followers. Nobody she knows can see these tweets unless they are searching the hashtags, and that's a longshot. Nobody is going to intervene. My Twitter app pings. A new tweet from @lilCat, with a photo attached. And it's red. So very fucking red.