CELEBRATING BEAUTY IN ALL FORMS

Forget body positivity. Lizzo, the singer-rapper turned style icon, is using social media to advocate “body neutrality” and she’s doing it just like she does everything else—fiercely.

The goal is to get people to embrace a more inclusive definition of beauty and to decrease pressure, as Lizzo said earlier this year, “to show a digitally distorted version of ourselves, reinforcing the idea that our beauty in real life is not good enough.” And she’s using Twitter and Instagram as her megaphone, with posts showcasing her curves, her fashion sensibility, her twerking prowess and her point of view. Then there was the unedited nude selfie in April, posted when she announced her involvement in Dove’s Self-esteem Project. More recently, she’s posted video clips admonishing “the haters” in her latest single “Rumors” (sample lyric: “While you’re spending all your time tryna break a woman down/ Realer shit is going on, baby, take a look around”) and of her appearance at Art Basel, where she created a painting with her behind and appeared onstage in a white-sequined leotard with the words “The Body” emblazoned on it.

Lizzo’s message is one of self acceptance and ultimately, as she told Essence in a cover story out this month, she’d like to help shift the cultural conversation away from how people look to their inner beauty. “It’s exhausting,” she said. “And that’s the point. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. We should be neutral about bodies.” —D.H.