A Hater's Awful Skateboarding Comment Brought the Whole Internet to This Girl's Defense
When La'Shaunae Steward, a 20-year-old from Summerville, South Carolina, finished DIYing a trendy frayed hem on the denim skirt she bought at a thrift store, she couldn't wait to show it off with an #ootd on Instagram. She paired the skirt with cute plaid boots and a black tee that reps Thrasher, a skateboarding magazine she loves, then snapped a series of pics.
She posted the first one two weeks ago.
Last week, she shared a second photo.
La'Shaunae was pure slayage, but one troll couldn't handle it.
He screenshotted her Instagram and posted it on Twitter last week with the comment, "So does she eat skateboards cause she sure as hell doesn't ride them." Ugh.
"I don't really use Twitter, but one of my friends told me about his tweet," La'Shaunae recounted to Seventeen.com. "It kept blowing up, and people kept reposting it and attacking me."
The mean comments hit La'Shaunae especially hard because she's dealt with ignorant remarks about her body since childhood.
"In elementary and middle and high school, I was always bullied for being bigger than everyone else or for how I dressed or talked," she recalled, adding that other people's perceptions have made her timid about trying new things. "I've been wanting to learn how to skate," she admitted, "but I've always been scared of being too fat for it."
That's when something beautiful happened.
People rallied in her defense.
People don't find this funny @fuckvisuaI
- dAESha (@DaeshSamdol) March 16, 2017
Viral vlogger Quinta Brunson liked a few of her photos. And the model Reece King bumped La'Shaunae's killer style to his 80,000 followers.
poppin skin, cute hair clips, lit hair, sharp eyebrows, bomb eyeshadow, cute outfit & you wanna diss cause of weight & a t shirt you lame af https://t.co/oycwa9sPla
- Reece King (@reeceking_) March 17, 2017
Hundreds of people then flooded La'Shaunae's Instagram with messages of love and support.
"AN ICON TBH ILY SO MUCH"
"You're slaying every part of this outfit don't listen to anyone's [s***]"
An artist even cartooned her as a badass skater chick.
Now La'Shaunae is using her online fame to speak out against sizeism.
"A lot of people assume that being fat means you're automatically unhealthy," she said. "I'm not unhealthy. I go to my doctor's appointments, and there's nothing wrong with me."
La'Shaunae says the hate - and the resulting flood of social-media love - has left her newly empowered to put herself out there.
"This makes me want to skate even more," she said. "It makes me want to wear even more Thrasher gear. I have some skater friends. I think I'll go to the skate park with them soon."
Hannah Orenstein is the assistant features editor at Seventeen.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram!
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