You may or may not be aware of something called “Thinspo” – it’s a shortened term for “Thinspiration”, usually a tag on social media sites where people typically upload lots of pictures of women looking a bit, er, thin.
It’s a pretty popular tag over on Tumblr, and as you might imagine it’s quite controversial with no real lack of “Oh dear” reactions doing the rounds recently. I will say that a subject matter which carries the potential to attract individuals suffering from a possible lack of self esteem and a plethora of other issues are probably hot targets for scams and other shenanigans.
As a result, I can think of few things more despicable than an attempt at directing such individuals to fake news websites touting “green coffee” weight loss offers.
Here’s the Tumblr in question, which contains numerous “Thinspo” pictures (but only up to a certain point – the profile claims they broke their infinite scroll, so no archives for you).
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The blog says:
i know a lot of you followed me for awhile and we’ve all been there for each other. i know i lost a lot of weight suddenly and people(anons) accuse me of not eating. infact i’ve been eating more.
how i did it?
well my girlfriend recommended me this. i mean i seen her drop weight. she gave me this article which i’ll give you
click hereee! < right here
i tried it. almost didn’t glad i did. because it changed my life. i knew it was working when my clothes were baggy. i can’t explain how good of feeling it is every morning to get up and check the mirror and actually be excited to do it. with this that was what it was like. you’d be surprised how people treat me differently now after this weight loss too. really suggest it for you guys having trouble losing weight.
The fake news site in question that is linked from the above Tumblr has a history of supplement / pill offers, from coffee and home profit systems to Acai berry – it’s all in there. Though the page linked to from the Tumblr page currently sends users to a search engine style list of other websites, here’s an example of a different “green coffee” page they have elsewhere:
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Sending kids and teens with potentially serious body image hang-ups to fake news report sites such as this which practically beg them to sign up and lose weight is incredibly creepy, and you’ll be pleased to know the page touting the link on Tumblr has taken a long walk off the end of a thousand foot cliff.
It’s entirely possible there’s more of them lurking on various social networks though, so please be aware that no matter how controversial the subject, someone is always going to want to take advantage of it for their own benefit.
Christopher Boyd
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