...And sometimes a hoax is REALLY not a hoax!

A friend of mine sent me a Huffington Post article today detailing the latest news about the Kenneth Tong promoting-anorexia story, which I posted about yesterday. Apparently Johann Hari, a columnist for the London Independent, interviewed him before he came out with the statement that it was a hoax. Based on their original conversation, Hari has asserted that this was NOT a hoax and that Tong is only claiming this now because he is scared of being legally liable for hurting people.

The full story is available here, but below is just a taste of why this whole thing made me so angry:

Women should "get thin or die trying," and you can "never start too young." It is better for a girl to "risk [her] life dieting than be sub-par by being a plus-size." Remember: "Hunger hurts but starving works."
"The words lunch, breakfast, and dinner should now mean nothing to you, you have eaten enough for a lifetime. Stop. You are disgusting."

Sometimes, a hoax is not just a hoax.

I am absolutely disgusted that this @MrKennethTong character, who was promoting "managed anorexia" on Twitter last week, has turned out to be a hoax. If there is one thing more disturbing and harmful than declaring curves to be ugly and encouraging women to starve themselves to become a size zero, it is an elaborate "experiment" designed by some dude to prove a point to another dude about "harnessing the power of social media" on a global scale.

Whoever this person is in real life, he should be truly mortified. Instead, he has posted an apology for "offending people," made a donation to a UK charity, and will now proceed to appear on several talk shows and likely get rich and famous for his efforts. Listen up, asswipe: you didn't just offend those of us who happened to stumble upon your Twitter posts, which some have compared to "spewing excrement". You literally caused at least a few dozen women to starve themselves to the point that their bodies are likely permanently damaged, to say nothing of their mental health. Eating disorders are NOT something for you to play with.

If anyone wants to read the "statement" that was posted today, I've pasted it below (I suspect it will be taken down soon). He has already deleted the tweets that he originally posted -- all that's left on the @MrKennethTong page are things he has retweeted from other people -- but even those are enough to give an idea of the general public opinion of this issue.


Kenneth Tong
On Tuesday 11th January 2011, @MrKennethTong said:

I think it is time for to come clean. The whole size zero thing is a hoax. It came about after an interesting discussion I had with a friend of mine. The discussion centered round whether it was possible, to go from nowhere to be a globally recognized figure within a week harnessing the power of the internet and specifically Twitter, which I have always maintained is a better medium than national TV. My friend said it wasn’t possible. I said it was. To prove him wrong, I decided as a hoax to promote via Twitter something that was universally appalling, I chose managed anorexia. I would like to make it clear, I chose the subject as a hoax as I knew it’d be appalling to men and women. The campaign has worked; I have been a Trending topic on Twitter for over a week. I am scheduled to appear on TV, the Press and Radio shows, over the course of the next week: Grazia, Telegraph, The Sun, The Sunday Times etc. Now it’s time to come clean and stop the bandwagon. My honest personal opinion on managed anorexia is it is an disgusting and illogical idea. It is a mental illness. It cannot be managed. To all the people I have offended as part of this scientific experiment, I would like to apologize to you and to show my sincerity I will making a sizeable donation to beat: the leading UK charity for people with eating disorders and their families. Furthermore, I have decided to auction my custom Apple iPod Nano watch on Ebay, the proceeds from this will be going to the charity, beat.