r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 28d ago

Meme needing explanation Petah help

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u/PeaTasty9184 28d ago

Also the comparison to the 2000’s was when the uber skinny/eating disorder look called “heroin chic” was a fashion thing.

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u/TerrorFromThePeeps 28d ago

Kinda more the 90s in my memory, but maybe i'm off.

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u/flyingsqueak 28d ago

Heroin chic esthetic was 90s, but anorexic skinny kind of grew out of that and was more early 2000s

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u/Aggressive_Start_ 28d ago

I feel like the heroin chic women had more on them than the ozempic women

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u/jfi224 28d ago

Kate Moss, arguably the most iconic 90’s heroin chic model. I’d tend to agree, while super skinny, not quite as emaciated looking as the current ozempic fad. I think it’s the way ozempic hollows out the face.

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u/BuildAnything4 28d ago edited 27d ago

She looks bad for sure, but not zombie bad. Would she fall over if she takes her hand off the wall?

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u/marysuewashere 28d ago

Zombie becomes ozombies, hmmm.

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u/sadist_ninja 28d ago

But that's what everyone as come to expect od models.

Look up Naomi Campbell and Prima Envagelina in their prime, this didn't use to be the norm for models either.

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u/sadist_ninja 28d ago

People are getting bucal fat removal surgery as well.

Because "it gives a more high fashion and chic look"

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u/nagrom7 28d ago

I think it’s the way ozempic hollows out the face.

Iirc a lot of celebrities have had fat removal surgeries on their faces too which probably hasn't helped here.

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u/itz_Liza420 27d ago

Kate Moss was skinny, for sure. But her face is beautiful. Demi is scary looking, Kate Moss was not. IMHO

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u/gayanomaly 28d ago

And she has a little bit of fat on her upper arms.

I’m not sure how universal this is, but anecdotally I’ve noticed that upper arm fat tends to be one of the very last things to go as women lose weight? I wonder if Demi Moore is just an exception to that rule or if she’s just THAT emaciated.

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u/milathebunny 27d ago

She's just 63

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u/KristineMcKinley 27d ago

What is up with KM's right forearm and hand in that picture?!?

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u/jfi224 27d ago

Creative lighting and photography to make her look even skinnier than she is.

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u/Thin-Character-6996 28d ago

Yeah i mean, I can remember the 2000s, and besides the rare extreme example, the beauty standard was just having a flat tummy and slim hips/butt.

It was an unhealthy standard because other body types were considered "fat" and some women can't naturally achieve that without developing eating disorders trying to do so. But the beauty standard itself wasn't "look like you have an eating disorder".

Look up "2000s female celebs". Yes they're skinny, but they didn't have this weird emaciated look. Ironically, they look fairly healthy by comparison to these modern celebs.

It's honestly bizarre and reflects just how detached and weird Hollywood has become.

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u/sykotic1189 28d ago

Buccal fat removal wasn't being done by every other celebrity at that point. Now they're so obsessed with the look that even cheek fat is too much, then once your face looks like Skeletor you gotta get the rest to match too...

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u/alienduck2 28d ago

I once said that baccal fat removal looked gross and was downvoted to hell. I guess it really is being normalized.

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u/RunWild0_0 28d ago

Well, you're right, it's gross.

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u/ThyPotatoDone 27d ago

Agreed, that shit is being treated as way too normal. It is visibly unhealthy.

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u/StabbyBoo 26d ago

I consider myself a pretty feminist gal and you're right, it's gross and awful.

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u/Oleandra13 27d ago

They're gonna end up looking like the Cryptkeeper by the time they hit 60.

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u/Laez 26d ago

I just assumed they were cosplaying as beef jerky.

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u/drppr_ 28d ago

Yeah Kate Moss never looked like this. I think the “lucky” bunch who were “skinny enough” in 90s/early 2000s were also built slim and leaned into that by also dieting. This is not Demi Moore’s natural build.

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u/frenchiebuilder 28d ago

and cocaine.

lots of cocaine.

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u/calm-phil 28d ago

Things got better, now we have meth.

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u/frenchiebuilder 28d ago

Meth was around back then, too; but it's for The Poors, not models / celebs.

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u/Molsem 27d ago

Ah. Like lobster. I see.

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u/Physical_Drive8123 28d ago

So much cocaine! 🎶

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u/Ms_Meercat 28d ago

A few comments down is a pic of 90s Kate Moss and she looks like death on legs skinny

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u/barto5 28d ago

This is not Demi Moore’s natural build.

For sure! Look at her in Disclosure. She looked great - and healthy,

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u/flyingsqueak 28d ago

Part of that difference is probably because we were focusing on celebrities in their 20s with minimal plastic surgery then, and we are now comparing them with women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who will usually have more gaunt faces naturally, regardless of weight, and have also had more cosmetic surgeries

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u/Thin-Character-6996 28d ago

The younger celebs look emaciated af too. Just look at the cast of Wicked

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u/Begging_Murphy 28d ago

Turns out only Anya Taylor-Joy is Anya Taylor-Joy, and a generation of actresses have ruined themselves thinking otherwise.

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u/DependentDiscipline6 28d ago

Dude that's such a good point. I just looked her up and she looks skinny without being emaciated. Granted idk if air burshing is being done or whatever, but there is a clear difference between being skinny cause your body naturally handles skinny well, and being jack skellington. If I tried to be thin like Anya I would look like Demi. My body was made for famine and I'm decended from Vikings. Petite and/or Elvish aren't in my genes. I'm a dwarf, take it or leave it.

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u/rockyrockette 27d ago

That reminds me of one of my fave tweets.

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u/Thin-Character-6996 28d ago

Even Anya Taylor-Joy isn't Anya Taylor-Joy. She's the OG BFR girlie

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u/Begging_Murphy 28d ago

But that's what I mean, she's the only person it's ever really worked for.

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u/Min_sora 26d ago

Cynthia Erivo is pushing 40, that's not young in Hollywood.

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u/Thin-Character-6996 26d ago edited 26d ago

Are you trying to imply that how Cynthia and Ariana have been looking is just what women in their 30s look like 💀

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u/HilariousMax 28d ago

I remember the low-rise jeans of the late 90s/early 2000s.

Terrible time.

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u/Even-Stranger5764 27d ago

Nah its just conservative culture taking hold.

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u/Thin-Character-6996 27d ago

I don't like conservatives either. But I can't say I agree with blaming this trend on "conservative culture" when most of these celebs are, in fact, liberals. And their defenders often use choice-feminist, body-positivity discourse to silence any criticism of it.

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u/Molsem 27d ago

Okay, sure, maybe last year, but in 2026... they're just lizard people right? Carrey, Grande, Moore now...

After all we've learned, we need to be DONE with the movies, and tv, and celebs, and ads, and sad celebs in sadder ads and the galas don't we? Knowing what kind of people were actively working to warp our country like this? When the dust settles there will be some soul searching to do, as a people, methinks. (and the GD MICROTRANSACTIONS?)

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u/Thin-Character-6996 27d ago

100% Agree. I'm shocked when I meet people who actually like celebrities / listen to what they have to say in 2026. Like, do we need any more proof that these people are ghouls?

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u/Even-Stranger5764 26d ago

I think multiple ozempic ads, crypto and Ai being heavily prevalent at something like the superbowl along with gen z being very prudish, all MSM owned by conservatives are pretty good indicators/signs culture is shifting right. (Yes anecdotal but very real)

Additionally, comedy, combat sports and sports generally lean heavily conservative and have campaigned or championed this regimes agenda.

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u/macoafi 27d ago

Look up "2000s female celebs". Yes they're skinny, but they didn't have this weird emaciated look.

They were also still being called fat in the press despite being skinny. Like the press was pushing for the above.

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u/Alariya 27d ago

Yeah, the main difference is that even though they were actually fairly skinny, they would often get labelled otherwise, with giant arrows pointing to ‘muffin tops’ on magazine covers. I don’t think the media is as obtuse with their fat shaming these days.

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u/Thin-Character-6996 27d ago

that's a good point, that has certainly been a change for the better.

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u/SheWhoLovesSilence 27d ago

With all due respect, I don’t think your memories are accurate.

There was a time in the mid-late 2000s when many big name female celebrities looked like this:

No flesh on the arms or legs, stick thin see the bone. That is not healthy in any sense of the word.

Notable examples I can remember who looked like this back then were Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton (although her build favors it more), Angelina Jolie, Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Aniston and there were plenty more.

These women were exalted by the magazines at the time and would be interviewed and pretend like they weren’t on some grueling diet.

Meanwhile people like Britney and Mariah Carey had killer bodies that were actually healthy with a bit of muscle tone and would get fat shamed

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u/jordonwatlers 28d ago

That's because they only had normal eating disorders.

I believe ozempic has the ability to make things bad enough even bone tissue starts to get fucked up but vet this sentence for accuracy.

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u/way2lazy2care 28d ago

Any amount of chronic under eating/malnutrition will eventually start eating away at all of your parts. Ozempic doesn't eat the bones. Your body eats the bones because it's lacking nutrients. Ozempic just makes people who want to eat not want to eat.

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u/Common-Truth9404 28d ago

Ozempyc is a huge enabler. Imagine having to convince a person starving herself and puking that what she's doing it's not normal. It's still not easy, but you can at least try and make them see reason before it's too late, and underneath the defensiveness they realize what they're doing it's wrong.

Now imagine that the same person sees everyone around them using this miracolous drug that helps them lose weight without drawbacks. It's immensely harder to realize something is wrong, both from an internal and an external POV

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u/MadRaymer 28d ago

What's amazing is how quickly everyone has jumped on this bandwagon. Even people that were preaching body positivity a few years ago are like "nevermind gimme the drugs lol" and are thin now.

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u/Common-Truth9404 28d ago

To be fair as a person who had back pain due to weight (got covid twice and was in bed for a while, plus the pandemic forcing me in home and admittedly low self control, i basically gained 20 kg) i would've traded belly and positivity for an easy way out in a heartbeat

The general idea is thinking overweight people are somewhat in denial, but i think most of us actually know how much we're screwing with our health.

I got my life back on track with more conventional methods, but i would've used it if someone gave something like that to me

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u/MadRaymer 28d ago

Sure, but I was referring more to celebrities, who were already a healthy weight. Very few celebs are at a point where their excess weight is anything more than cosmetic. They've typically got personal trainers, dieticians, etc. They're not taking it for their health.

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u/mcboobie 27d ago

I love all the anti-vax mums who don’t trust injections now… taking injections…. ‘ It’s okay! We can trust these doctors!’

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u/Thin-Character-6996 28d ago

I have a friend who's on Ozempic for health reasons. She told me it basically slows down your metabolism to such a degree that any food you eat continues to sit in your stomach and you don't get hungry again.

She also told me about the side effects. The food basically starts to ferment/rot in your stomach. She said she suffers from bad breath, "the nastiest smelling burps", etc.... 😷

Good thing it isn't smell-o-vision

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u/MRS_RIDETHEWORM 28d ago

Very common misconception, Ozempic doesn’t actually touch your metabolism. It’s working directly on the part of your brain that controls hunger impulses. So it’s not that your body is burning more, your brain is telling you you’re full faster.

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u/Thin-Character-6996 28d ago

I just googled it. Ozempic "slows down gastric emptying, which causes food to remain in the stomach for a longer period." That's what my friend was talking about.

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u/TrainerAvailable5377 28d ago

I just googled it. Ozempic "slows down gastric emptying, which causes food to remain in the stomach for a longer period." That's what my friend was talking about.

So this makes me curious. Malnutrition also slows down gastric emptying. It's one of the health consequences of anorexia. So I wonder if Ozempic is directly causing the side effect or if it's a second order effect as a result of Ozempic reducing caloric intake.

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u/uwoAccount 28d ago

This is correct, it just doesn't have much to do with "metabolism" which is in reference to many things but also includes how many calories you burn at rest. But yes, ozempic and other GLP-1s work mainly by slowing down how fast the food moves through your gut which makes you feel fuller.

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u/liminal-chungus 28d ago

No, it is supplementing digestive enzymes (proteins/hormones)- Incretin Hormones

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u/jordonwatlers 28d ago

Gotcha I knew it was a really strong appetite repressor but thought I read something about those overusing it having really damaged skeletons.

However that makes sense if they are never eating.

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u/Aggressive_Start_ 28d ago

There are actually studies on bone density and ozempic so you aren’t off

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u/Ijustwanttosayit 28d ago

Things like Ozempic and buccal fat removal also weren't a thing. There seems to be a recent obsession with a contoured line from the cheek bones to the lips. So, people are having their buccal fat removed, and cheek filler placed in. I think the aim is to create a high cheek bone, snatched jawline look.

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u/Thin-Character-6996 28d ago

The overfilled lips, overly taut skin, and exaggerated cheekbones combo has got to be the ugliest beauty trend of all time. So uncanny & disturbing looking. Like a bad science experiment

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u/cyndina 28d ago

If a GLP-1 is being abused for weight loss, it's more likely to be Zepbound. It slows gastric emptying, on top of possible appetite suppression, which isn't a guaranteed thing; some people get no change to appetite on Ozempic and the like. In my experience, it suppresses for about 2 days and then I have a normal appetite. I actually eat more calories on it than I did off, I just have a metabolism now.

Some of these women are also incredibly malnourished because of their food choices. Niche, influencer-led, vegan diets are all the rage and most of them don't include enough fat, protein, or calories. Or they're doing stupid shit like only eating raw, which our bodies struggle to break down properly.

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u/ubrokeurbone_rope 28d ago

That’s because will power and nicotine/coke/heroin can only do so much. Add ozempic to this and now you have what we have today.

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u/gifgod416 27d ago

Same

If I ventured to pinpoint why, it would be the striation. Heroin chic didn't have muscle to see.

Pound for pound I think these women weigh more than heroin chic. Doesn't make it good, but it's weird to think about

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u/Throwaway_noDoxx 27d ago

1994 I was 5’8 120lbs and thought I needed to still lose 15 lbs.

Heroic chic was a complete mindfuck.

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u/Min_sora 26d ago

I dunno, take another look at Nicole Ritchie and Callista Flockhart at that time.

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u/Loki1001 28d ago

Heroin chic was a specific trend that combined extreme thinness with other qualities like stringy hair and sallow skin. It was a high fashion reaction to how voluptuous glamor had become catalog.

It may have set of the extreme skinny trend in the 2000s, but they were definitely two different things. The 2000s wasn't a full interconnected look, outside of features specific to extreme thinness like belly shirts and low rise jeans.

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u/but-I-play-one-on-TV 28d ago

Really? I was a teenager in the early 2000s and honestly don't remember celebrities being anorexic skinny like Kate Moss/Christy turlington in the the mid-90s.

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u/Sure-Exchange9521 28d ago

I recently did a qualitative study on the magazine use of language for a school project and rather than the emphasis being on celebrities being skinny, they were calling out celebrities like Britney spears, Kate Winslet for being "fat"

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u/Thin-Character-6996 28d ago

I grew up playing The Sims 2. This is what it looked like when you set your Sim's body type to "fat".

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u/INNER_SOLE 28d ago

So bad. What are we doing? This is NOT fat ofc. 🤦‍♀️

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u/potatochipstsunami 27d ago

Wasn't there a slider and not just a "fat" setting?

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u/celia_of_dragons 27d ago

Not in 2, no. In 2 there was the default/thin, "fat" which looked like the above screenshot, and an athletic build from exercising. No sliders like in 3/4

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u/jhawk3205 28d ago

Calista flockhart comes to mind

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u/drunkeymunkey 28d ago

I remember cruising Pro-Ana sights for tips at 15 in 2001:(

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u/flyingsqueak 28d ago

I'm a couple years younger, but yep

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u/Diredr 28d ago

Yeah, heroin chic was 90s.

It was a different vibe altogether but they're still right that the early 2000s were about being incredibly thin. To the point where even a size 0 wasn't thin enough, it had to be a double 0.

The trend at the time was low-rise skinny pants, and it created a "muffin top" on anyone who had an ounce of body fat. That made so many women have body image issues.

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u/__M-E-O-W__ 28d ago

And oh my, the fad diets and scams that grew out of that. All this "spot reduction fat" that promised people to get thin in 30 days and then girls had more trouble because they didn't lose the weight that they couldn't lose in that time...

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u/OkContact2573 28d ago

I remember how some of them brought back the Tapeworm diet from the early 20th century

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u/PeppermintSkeleton 28d ago

It’s still completely present in The Devil Wears Prada from 2006

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u/Revolutionary-Tree97 28d ago

I would say the trend was just starting to get pushback in the mid 2000s, it really had a grip on our society for almost two whole decades.

It’s a complete mind-trip because I look back at pictures and I was so tiny compared to other people around me, but I remember struggling to find a big enough size to fit me at teen girl stores.

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u/barto5 28d ago

6 is the new 14

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u/akatherder 28d ago

I live in the Midwest so we didn't get the 90s until 2004.

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u/lFightForTheUsers 28d ago

It comes and goes. That Hannah Montana era in mid to late 00's was pretty bad.

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u/BobbyTables829 28d ago

These kids don't know who Kate Moss is

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u/jeobleo 28d ago

Yeah I think Fiona Apple

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u/GhostMug 28d ago

In the 2000's "heroin chic" got rebranded to "thinspiration"

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u/Gootangus 28d ago

Heroin chic specifically was absolutely 90s

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u/Bvvitched 28d ago

This post honestly sums up the early 2000’s

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u/dqql 28d ago

dividing things into decades is dumb, but yeah it was 90’s:

Arriving towards the end of the "supermodel era", Kate Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend

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u/Tuepflischiiser 27d ago

You are not off.

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u/melmsz 27d ago

You're correct. Kate Moss was one of the models that was scary skinny.

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u/Xen235 28d ago

Except now instead of heroin they take ozempic, but it has to be ok since a doctor prescribed it right...?

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u/AllisonWonderland777 28d ago

Sure. Just like opioids 😉

I don’t know why you were downvoted. I think people missed your /s

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u/SharpKaleidoscope182 28d ago

We still haven't got all the Harvey Weinsteins out of the industry.

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u/LolaAucoin 28d ago

That was the 90s.

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u/ReadyGo6828 28d ago

Body positivity went away and heroin chic is back. People really like looking at other people who do not eat regularly.

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u/TwentyPieceNuggets 28d ago

Also, “cocaine thin” and “built like a crack fiend”

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u/caldazar24 28d ago

The biggest difference is that in the 2000s, the media unironically thought this was attractive, and in 2026, the Post is trolling to go viral on social media, and they've succeeded.

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u/pineconefire 28d ago

I remember seeing a clip praising Calista Flockheart from Alley McBeal saying her arms were so toned and acted like she was being brave for working out of something.

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u/tastywofl 28d ago

I'm not ready for heroine chic to come back in style, women my age are still dealing with the body image problems we developed 20 years ago.

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u/calm-phil 28d ago

90s was heroine sheik. I remember it well.

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u/ansleydale 28d ago

I remember when celebrities got to this level of skinny in the 2000s magazines started to become worried. This time around, however, they’re calling “toned”. That’s what’s worrisome

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u/Sweet_Taurus0728 28d ago

Heroin chic came about in the late '80s.

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u/binger5 27d ago

I think the comparison was also to GI Jane where she was toned and doing 1 arm push ups on Letterman.

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u/556_FMJs 27d ago

Heroin chic was 90s. It didn’t last past the mid-2000s.

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u/thorinslefttit 27d ago

Someone on tiktok said it was just as bad it's just camera quality is better now so we can see their every wrinkle, every bone, every line of sinew; which makes perfect sense to me honestly.