Let’s Talk About You, 2023 Edition
Discover more from Burnt Toast by Virginia Sole-Smith
Let’s Talk About You, 2023 Edition
We’re Cup of Jo with an agenda!
Thank you to the almost 1,000 of you who responded to our second annual Reader Survey last month! This community has grown so much (there are now over 35,000 of you!) since the last time we did a reader survey, I thought it would be fun to report once again on who you are and what you want to do here. A lot of you are new here even since we announced the survey (hi Cup of Jo friends!) so if you haven’t taken it and still want to, we’d love to hear from you. Anyone who fills it out by Friday will be entered in our Two Years of Burnt Toast Giveaway.
Who You Are
You are 88.7 percent white, which is a SMIDGE of an improvement over last year’s 91 percent, but we clearly still have more work to do here. 94.2 percent of you are cis women, which also doesn’t surprise me—but trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming folks, I’m so glad you’re here! (The 0.8 percent of you who are cis men are also fine.) A little over 30 percent of you are queer. 78 percent of you are between the ages of 25 and 45, which makes sense since we have such a strong parenting focus. But I’m delighted we have people ranging from 18 to 75 reading this—and dismantling our ageism will continue to be an ongoing conversation here.
Not surprisingly, we once again do best on body diversity—we are almost evenly divided between straight-sized (51.4 percent) and some flavor of fat (48 percent). There were a ton of write-ins for this one, which makes sense. My favorite: “I have a body.” Good news! This is the newsletter for you! I don’t take lightly though, that this level of size diversity makes Burnt Toast somewhat unusual. We are not a closed community just for fat folks—those exist and are vital but as a small fat, I’m not the right person to run one—but we are emphatically not a watered down body positive space where thin white ladies with one visible stomach roll are all you’ll ever see.
Corinne puts so much thought and care into choosing diverse images (as best we can given the volume of images needed, and the depressing limitations of stock photography). And I consider platforming marginalized folks to be a primary mission of the podcast. If you’re here as a straight-sized person, I hope and trust that means you are working to unlearn your anti-fatness and willing to center and learn from the fat folks who do a ton of valuable labor in our comment sections. This is also why I don’t allow numbers, dieting, and other pro-intentional weight loss conversations in the comments. Your body is your business; but my business is keeping this space safe for all bodies.
Over 65 percent of you are parents, step-parents, grandparents, or another form of caregiver, and the ages of the kids you’re raising run the full gamut. (So yes, more teen-focused content is on my to do list!) One interesting twist: 71 percent of you said your kids are straight-sized. A common misconception of my work is that it’s only for the parents of fat kids. Some folks at my publisher even worried that calling the book FAT TALK would mean parents of thin kids wouldn’t buy it. So I love seeing how clearly that is not the case—but again, this also means we’re holding a lot of different needs together in this space. Parents of fat kids are facing a different kind of hell in terms of judgment and stigma and need extra support keeping their kids safe. Thin kids need body autonomy too. But they also need to learn about thin privilege and how to avoid weaponizing it.
A bunch of you are anticipating becoming parents, but a good 17 percent of you are child-free and staying that way. I see you and this newsletter is for you too! Because we’ve all got some re-parenting to do around body stuff. And/or maybe you’re just here for the clothing recs and plant talk? It’s all good.
Where You’re From
We are 33.9 percent East Coast, 17 percent Midwest and then fairly evenly distributed around the rest of the country. We are also from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Mongolia, South Africa, the Netherlands, Qatar, Dubai, Pakistan, India, Singapore, and (of course) the United Kingdom.
Where You Are With Diet Culture
30.7 percent of you said you’ve deliberately and completely divested from diet culture. A (more honest/realistic?) 60.8 percent of you said that you’re working on it. Lots of you talked about navigating diabetes and other medical conditions that make you “diet culture vulnerable,” as one reader put it. Several of you say you’ve never consciously dieted but are now reflecting on how a decade-long commitment to organic food or twenty years of veganism is maybe more rooted in anti-fatness than you thought.
There is no “perfect” we’re shooting for here, no gold standard of anti-diet living you need to achieve. I explore our cultural discourse around these questions because I find it a useful way to name and navigate anti-fatness. Our individual choices matter way less than our commitment to collective change. But, bodies are inherently political.
And 2.8 percent of you said “I’m still dieting but curious about the work you do.” So I will once again say: Welcome. There is no prerequisite to showing up here. You can still be dieting, still be active in your eating disorder, still be wishing yourself thinner and be adamantly opposed to anti-fat bias and the harm it causes. You can also just be curious about living a different way.
What You Think About Burnt Toast
Obvious caveat that anyone taking the time to do a 50 question survey is probably already biased in favor of this project. (Thank you, I love you.) But it’s always fascinating to hear what you’re most connecting with (or not).
What you love best: The reported essays continue to be your favorite. Mine too! And I have so many big questions and topics I want to explore this way; stay tuned for a lot more of this come fall. The most popular reported essay so far this year is Michelle Obama is Not Coming To Save Us. Though I realize I didn’t distinguish personal essays from reported pieces clearly in this question and let’s be real: The most popular piece on the newsletter right now is What I Wore On Book Tour.
What you love least: Understandably, 21.6 percent of you are done with book promotion. Hey me too! Except not, because I’m an author and promoting books is in my job description (finalizing a Seattle event for late fall as I type this, stay tuned!). And I firmly believe writers should never apologize for promoting our work—or getting paid for it. But we’re out of high book promotion-as-newsletter-content season, which will mean more time for both personal and reported essays and the other stuff you really love.
Almost tied for least popular was Friday Threads—21.4 percent of you picked that as a least favorite and it came up a lot in the comments. Which is why we revisited that format recently, and I’ve sharpened the layout based on your feedback. I totally get that discussion threads just are not everyone’s bag—but they are a hit with enough of you that we’re going to keep doing them.
In terms of the topics we cover here: Untangling weight and health and debunking diet culture claims were the (expected) most popular picks. You’re also very here for conversations about perfectionism, navigating diet culture with relatives, parenting in diet culture and the mental load. 33 percent of you would love less gardening content, to which I say: Not a chance! Ha. But no, this will never be a gardening newsletter. You want more pieces about parenting in diet culture, more on weight/health science, more cultural criticism, and more size-inclusive fashion, and we can do all of that.
In terms of tech/logistics: You’re all VERY lukewarm on Substack Notes. (I’m also still… figuring it out. Would be more thoroughly all in if Substack would put more guardrails around trolls there.) But a lot of you love the app. Same. Commenting feels so much less clunky there, and I’m a big fan of using it to read the newsletters I subscribe to, because yes, inbox overwhelm is real. But thank you to the majority of you who feel like three emails per week from me is the right amount. (And if you’re in the minority, remember you can always read solely in the app, or go to your account settings and opt out of whichever categories you don’t want.)
What You Think About the Burnt Toast Podcast
One big change I’m proud of: Last year, 60 percent of you said you only read the podcast transcripts and never listened to the audio. This year, only 36.5 percent of you said that! And almost 50 percent of you are listening one way or another (we’re in your email, in the Substack app, and also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts).
Plus—almost 19 percent of you found Burnt Toast through the podcast (vs starting with the newsletter and then branching into audio) which is really exciting. I totally get that podcasts aren’t for everyone and a lot of you came here as readers and want to stay that way. But we work really hard to make the episodes sound great (plus it’s my biggest operating cost) so I’m pleased so many of you are noticing!
You like guest interviews the best (followed closely by Indulgence Gospel with Corinne, of course). Our experiments in community episodes (like this one) were the least popular— which may mean we just haven’t hit on the right format, or may mean we should stick with what we’re good at (conversations!). There were a lot of votes for more structured conversations, a la Maintenance Phase and You’re Wrong About, and maybe more narrative.
Your podcast guest wish list included many requests for a few folks we’ve already heard from, so if you haven’t explored our archives, have fun:
And yes, obvs, I’ll keep working on Lizzo, Oprah and Michelle Obama. (You also made tons of realistic suggestions that I’m excited to get booked!)
Why You’re Here
I’m a healthcare provider and anti-fat work is CRUCIAL to the wellbeing of our community. I come here to learn to be a better provider and a better ally!
I love all of it - the questions, the research, the clothes, the plants, the support, the community. There’s an alchemy to what you have going on that’s hard to distill into individual ingredients.
This community has meant everything to me, both in my personal journey divesting from diet culture before having kids, and now as a parent of two little girls figuring out how to show up for them and myself in a way that aligns with my core values and beliefs about food and bodies. And this reminds me I am not alone!
Often I forward an email after I've had a conversation or interaction that feels anti-fat but I'm struggling to articulate why. As a grad student in a healthcare profession, I see anti-fatness around me all the time in my curriculum, classmates, professors. I see my role as a student and future practitioner as starting to break up those lines of thought and introduce other ways of thinking about health. You are helping me learn, grow, and have the necessary vocabulary to spread the body-liberation gospel. Thank you.
I like that there is not a hard and fast definition about what Burnt Toast is truly ABOUT. Like yes yes smashing diet culture and anti-fat bias. But also jeans that fit! And feeding children the best in orange crackers! And gardening, why not! I think you (VA and team) cultivate a 'Cup of Jo with an agenda vibe' and I am here for it. Money well spent and I feel like I see where it goes. The last part is not a requirement for me to support a writer but if I ever need to go cut my newsletter budget it wont be here because there are so many touchpoints I enjoy.
You are navigating anti-fatness in the world and parenting yourself and not telling people what to do from an authoritarian know-it-all perspective. I open everything because of your authenticity and the sense of community you’ve created.
I love having a constant intelligent anti-diet presence in my life. I find it gives me strength and a feeling of fellowship in dealing with all the anti fat bullshit norms in my life
Burnt Toast makes me feel supported and seen. It gives me best practices for raising my daughter and talking to my husband about diet culture. I love being here.
Not to be ridiculous, but -- you have truly changed my life. As a fat woman married to a straight-sized man, parenting a straight-sized child, with mostly straight-sized friends and no fat community to speak of... I just felt kind of alone and weird. Burnt Toast really feels like a PLACE for me. I appreciate it and you so so much!!
This is the part of the survey where I realize: You all get what Burnt Toast is and can be, even better than I do. And that’s true whether you’re on the free list or the paid list, but I’ll admit, it’s especially great to hear from folks on the paid list explaining why they think BT is worth their $50 per year. Believe me, I know how saturated the newsletter market is now. I know it’s not feasible to give every writer you love $5 per month. So this isn’t a sales pitch, so much as a thank you.
Let’s Talk About You, 2023 Edition
Burnt Toast works as a "touching stone" for my life, my work, my parenting. In the past, I used to judge myself for not being "finally fixed" from diet culture. And only recently have I realized (thanks to reading BT) that the pressure weighing down on all of us to be thin is exhausting and downright inescapable. It is everywhere. (I live at 7,500 feet elevation, in relative obscurity, and even out here, I STILL run into the mental pressure to be thin.)
The voices I hear are all so sneaky and slimy—and they normalize distrusting myself at nearly every goddamn turn. I realize now that building in touchstones like BT is part of my self-care plan, not because I need to be indoctrinated with anti-diet spiels, but because I deserve to hear from people who aren't actively trying to make me hate myself.
As an aside: I do wonder if BT has a place for body-trusting professionals who aren't explicitly working in anti-diet spheres. Two reason I'm asking: one is that, when I do seek out professional/creative help, I can pick up on someone who actively hates their body even if we aren't doing "body work" and this makes me very sad and tired; and two, because as an editor, I'd love to have a way for other writers to know that they can bring their stories to me and my work as an editor is grounded in full confidence that they know what they are ready to say. Not trying to pitch myself here. But also, trying to stand up and say, I'm an editor and I innately trust bodies and I think this matters in relationships beyond the physician/patient dynamic. 🫶
I'd love to see some writing. Or some discussion done around being fat in fitness spaces. I'm a yoga teacher and pilates enthusiast. Since covid I find it incredibly hard to find places that feel safe for me. I even find my own students' discussion around their bodies hostile towards larger beings or added "pandemic weight.." The pandemic was a long healing time for me with food and movement. And I guess I don't see a lot of discussion like that