Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.
“I’m such a fat chud” is a phrase many of us have heard plenty of times, whether in comment sections or in person. While it is supposed to be a joke, it is hardly funny.
Fat jokes are not a new thing. I grew up with “Yo Mama” jokes, most of which were rooted in fatphobia and all rooted in misogyny. There are plenty of movies where the comic relief character is a fat person who eats a lot. There are even movies where the whole plot is laughing at fat people, like “Norbit“ and “Shallow Hal.”
The fat jokes from my childhood — the 2000s and 2010s — were based in mockery of others. But today, they are more self-deprecating. People will say they are “bigbacked” after they eat dessert. They will say they are a “fat fucking chud” after messing something up.
It seems like we have realized that making fun of others for their body size is a mean thing to do; it reflects poorly on the joke maker. But self-depreciation has always been an acceptable form of humor. Supposedly, it cannot be mean if it is about yourself.
But fat jokes in any form perpetuate fatphobia.
The fat jokes from 20 years ago are very obvious because the joke is always “haha, fat people” in some variation. In “Shallow Hal,” the joke is “haha, fat people being desirable.” In “Norbit,” it is “haha, fat people being sexual and demanding.” Even in “Wall-E,” the joke is “haha, fat people are stupid and helpless.” These jokes are pretty clear in their bias — they make fat people the butt of the joke by playing into stereotypes and harmful ideas, therefore reinforcing those ideas.
Today’s fat jokes are different. They appeal to new, harmful ideas that have evolved in the 2020s from the 2000s, stemming from moral failure and discipline, repeating the rhetoric of diet culture.
The first time someone made a “big back” joke about themselves in front of me was in 2024. The idea is that someone is fat for eating stereotypically unhealthy food like McDonalds, pizza or cupcakes. I was a freshman then, still trying to reconcile with the fact that I was a college student. The friend who made the joke was considerably thinner than I was.
This joke reiterates that certain ways of eating are better than others or more virtuous. It repeats rhetoric that has always existed in diet culture: eating something outside of your diet is you being bad; it implies that fatness is inherently bad.
But “big back” jokes are on the way out. Comedy is ever-changing. The more recent fat joke is, “I’m such a fat fucking chud.” This joke is often made when someone messes up. You drop something. You spill your lunch. You break a glass. It also reinforces the diet culture ideation of fatness being equivalent to a moral failure. If you call yourself fat after messing up, you create a false equivalency between failure and fatness.
Fat jokes have always existed but have never been funny. Instead, they are a method of repeating and recycling fatphobic rhetoric that harms everyone, perpetuating diet culture and fatphobic myths. It is time to stop making them.
Reach Audrey Weishaar at letters@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.
