Am I Ugly?
So this is kind of awkward but it's been on my mind lately and I know it's probably nothing but I've gotta ask. And be honest, because I need someone I can count on to tell the truth. Okay, so…do you think I look ugly?
Ugh, this is so embarrassing! I've just been getting this vibe recently that everyone is making fun of me behind my back. Like they're always whispering to each other about how ugly I am. Maybe I'm being totally paranoid, but sometimes I'll pull up at a stop sign and notice people staring at me and laughing, and I could swear they're saying mean things about me under their breath. Is that insane? Become an Onion member while it's still optional. Click here.
I'm probably overthinking it, but last week I drove by a school and these kids were making the puke gesture and pointing at me. I just pretended not to notice, but honestly, it shook me to my clunky, stainless-steel core. I always assumed kids thought I was cool because I'm metallic and futuristic and everything, but apparently not, because why would they make that gesture unless I actually made them want to puke?
Am I really that hideous? You'd tell me if I was, right?
I'm really starting to wonder, because people have walked past me on the sidewalk and called me things like a nasty old corrugated roof on wheels. And then yesterday this guy tapped his girlfriend on the shoulder, turned in my direction, and said, 'Looks like a Transformer took a shit.' I know he was talking about me because the only other car on the road was a cute little Mini Cooper, and they don't look like any kind of shit, never mind a Transformer's shit.
This may sound weird, but sometimes when I'm driving down the street, I'll roll past a storefront, see my reflection in its window, and think, 'Hey, I look pretty sleek.' That's what happens on a good day. More and more, though, when I catch a glimpse of my super awkward body all I can think about is that maybe I'm not sleek or beautiful at all. Maybe I actually look stupid as fuck.
On the one hand, I know that's just a negative voice in my head. But on the other, a guy who saw me in a parking lot this morning didn't even bother to lower his voice when he said I looked like a dishwasher fucked a Robocop.
By the way, have you noticed that literally no other cars look like me? None. They're all curvy and inviting and then there's me. My dashboard is made of fake marble, for Christ's sake. I used to tell myself it made me unique and that was a good thing, but it isn't, is it? It's just really fucking tacky. And why is my rear door heavy enough to chop people's hands off? Like WTF? Why? I hate it. I'm disgusting and I should just die.
Seriously, I'm a rusty, busted-
ass trapezoid that no one would find attractive unless they were blind or immature or desperate. Who else would drive me but some desperate pig with terrible taste who wears sneakers with his suits and blogs about crypto and only wants to take me to strip clubs?
Screw it. I'm so sick of this fucking piece of shit life. The next time I'm in full self-driving mode, I'm going to speed down the highway and crash into everything I see. If I'm going down, I'm taking all the cruel, name-calling assholes with me.
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The modern narrative around fitness is that it's not just about being thin — it's about being strong, healthy, and fit at any weight. But underneath all that is an enduring truth: People want to look conventionally attractive. Those attitudes feed the tricks that have long plagued the fitness industry. People get duped by supplements that supposedly burn fat while they sleep and vests that claim to sculpt abs while they sit on the couch, not because they're actually trying to improve their fitness levels, but because they're looking for a shortcut to an aesthetic goal that's often unattainable. "There can be a lot of misinformation, a lot of gimmicks or gadgets or supplements where they make some promises and there is no evidence, no data, to support them," Bartfield says. Social media doesn't help the situation. It places unrealistic aesthetic expectations in front of us all the time — and lets companies sell us endless ways to attempt to achieve them in 10- or 15-second video bites. My Instagram knows that I'm fitness-curious and weight-conscious; it's filled with ads for weight-loss drugs and quick-fix fitness gear. I regularly exchange various hacky fitness ads with friends. The (very skinny) elephant in the room here is the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Exercise can be arduous and hard. Going to the gym often isn't an instantly gratifying activity. Beyond the overarching purpose that is long-term health, you don't really noticeably accomplish anything with a single run on the treadmill or one set of squats. It's natural that people would rather skip to the fun part of nailing that summer body without sweating it out in a spin class on a frigid day in March. "People are wired for these fast, easy solutions, and your brain naturally goes toward the area of least resistance," Verebes says. The (very skinny) elephant in the room here is the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy (which is the same as Ozempic) and Zepbound (Mounjaro) that really do seem to deliver miracles. They help people with obesity lose weight and, as long as they keep taking the drugs, keep it off. For many people, these drugs can make a real change to their lives. These pretty miraculous drugs may have people looking for miracles elsewhere, which obesity doctors and fitness trainers warn against. GLP-1s need to be accompanied by healthier diets and exercise routines, especially since they can lead to muscle loss. Being thin is not synonymous with being in great shape. "We certainly do not want people to think that you can lose weight, and that equals health," Bartfield says. "There's the idea of nutritional quality, the idea of body composition, right? Maintaining muscle mass." In what would be shocking news to my younger self, I genuinely enjoy exercise. As a person who also likes to eat and drink a fair amount (a fact that would not be a surprise to younger me), I work out most days of the week as part of a perpetual balancing act. But I'm also not immune to the appeal of shortcuts. In my 20s, I tried to work while sitting on an exercise ball, but I had to stop because I couldn't stop myself from slightly bouncing up and down as I typed and making myself nauseous. A few years ago, at the advice of my mother, I spent a couple of thousand dollars on CoolSculpt, which, as far as I could tell, had little effect. I've gone farther down the GLP-1 "microdosing" research rabbit hole than I'd like to admit, though the price tag always scares me off. I don't want to work out with no work, but I'd like to work out with less work. Fitness isn't as easy as diet and exercise. It's also not something that people can hack their way into. To reap the benefits of exercise, you kind of have to exercise. That doesn't mean running a marathon, but it doesn't mean vibrating the fat cells away, either. The good news is that the simplest stuff is cheap or free — go for a walk, lift a weight, find an activity you like. The bad news is that it requires time and effort that a quick-fix mentality doesn't allow for. In the days after my little EMS suit adventure, I was a little sore, indicating the device probably did something. But I won't be going back. The price point was not within my budget — membership at the studio I went to was $225 a month, and you can do it only once a week, which means more than $50 a class. Plus, as mentioned, the intermittent shocking really was not for me. I'll be doing things the old-fashioned way, one weight and stride at a time, until an ad inevitably gets me once again, and I'm testing out the 2026 version of the vibrating belt. Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy. Read the original article on Business Insider
