Project Harpoon: Plus size model Tess Holliday demands users boycott Facebook and Instagram accounts fat-shaming women

Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr accounts under the name ‘Project Harpoon’ are sharing images of plus size men, women, models and actresses manipulated without their permission to make them look slimmer, often with the hashtags #thinnerbeauty and #SkinnyAcceptance. 

Melissa McCarthy, Holliday, Rebel Wilson and Ashley Graham are just a few of the women who have been targeted by the account. It is not clear who is behind the campaign, although there is evidence it may have emerged on 4Chan, which has a history of users trolling and shaming women. 

Holliday, 29, rose to fame with her #effyourbeautystandards campaign, which promotes body positivity, making her inclusion even more absurd.

"It's abominable that this [Facebook page] is using my image without permission to promote themselves," Holliday told E! News.

"This kind of hit piece is exactly why I started #effyourbeautystandards. I am asking my followers to boycott this [page] and any others like it. Loving yourself is the most powerful message we all need to stand behind.”

The Facebook page describes itself as a “collaborative art project open to interpretation” and links out to a Reddit “thinner beauty" thread. 

A description on the Reddit page explains: “Here at ThInnerBeauty we provide people with visible, achievable health goals. We do this by showing how much more beautiful they could look if they made the difficult, lifelong commitment to a regimen of personal fitness.

“This is a place where we can manipulate photos to highlight the difference between how they are and how they could be.” 

A photo posted by @project_harpoon on Aug 19, 2015 at 6:48pm PDT

Yet despite comments such as “fat acceptance is death acceptance” and “from Miss Piggy to Miss Pinup”, the accounts insist they are not about fat shaming. One post from a user claimed: “Being three cheeseburgers away from a Mcheart attack isn’t perfection. I am here to help these misguided women!”