 Hi, I'm Megan, I'm a musician, YouTuber, body positive, activist and overall badass. I didn't ask for it in any kind of way. I think I just kind of fell into it by virtue of not wanting to feel like shit about my body. I started Project Lifesize as kind of a reaction to not seeing myself represented and then also I would get a lot of comments from people that watch my music saying, oh I want to do music, I want to do what you do, but I see the comments that you get and I could never do it and that like infuriated me. The idea that someone would not do something because of what someone might say on the internet. In 2014, I had a butt photo that was taken off of Instagram and it was flagged as pornography and my instant reaction was to go to YouTube and be like, this is bullshit, like there's no reason my body is more pornographic than anyone else's body, I'm in a t-shirt and underwear, like I'm showing less than I would show at the beach and it infuriated me, like I think that's kind of the basis for everything I do is I'm just angry and frustrated about something and I'm like, I need to say it and so I made this video and people shared it and then Instagram apologized and they said, we don't always get it right and they put the photo back up and I think at that point, first of all my butt's all over the news which is not something I warned my parents about in the Midwest and so I know that they were having a great time with that and I think all of a sudden I was thrown into this world where I kind of had to put some skin in the game and I had to like actually live by the things that I was saying. It wasn't enough to say, oh I really like my body, oh I feel really good about myself, I felt called to like, okay now I have to show it. Now everyone has said all of the worst things that I could ever think about myself and I have to kind of push that away and create stuff that makes people uncomfortable. I want people to be a little uncomfortable because I want them to face that my body isn't any worse than anyone else's body and my body does a lot of really incredible things and I also post so many photos the way that I do because I want people to almost get numb to seeing my body and it's not to be this immediate visceral reaction of oh that's disgusting, oh I would hate to look like that, I want them to see these beautiful photos of me and recognize that they're beautiful so that at the end of the day they have to say like okay this body that maybe I don't understand or I'm not comfortable with, I see the beauty in it and it's grown from that to being now like it's not important enough for me to just like you recognize that this is a beautiful body but so many of the comments that I get that I love are the ones that are like I'm the exact same weight as you and I think your photos are so beautiful but I can't find that for myself and so I'm a big fan of like telling people my weight shouting my weight as it were because I don't I want there to be that transparency of like this is what 300 pounds looks like and I there's a lot of good stuff that you can do at whatever size it's never held me back from anything I've had really great opportunities because I didn't look like everyone else and I stood out maybe in a bad way for some people but people underestimate me a lot because of the way I look and I use that to my advantage but I think whenever I'm going through something I'm aware that I'm not the only person going through it and for me I want to document the process I want to document the feelings and then it makes me feel less alone in the world so it is itself ish in a way of I don't want to feel alone but it also talking about things and being public about them I feel constantly like I'm not caring funny enough all this extra weight around like I get to kind of let go of things and I never feel like I have secrets I never feel like I have anything to be ashamed of because I kind of put it all out there and I don't do it perfectly like I'm constantly fucking up I think to grow up in a world that tells you you're not good enough and you'll never be good enough and you can't start your life until you reach a certain point or a certain weight or a certain size and then happiness comes I think it's impossible to do that and not have all these barriers up and I think a lot of times now I'm trying to figure out how to let people very close to me I'm a very open person like I love people I love inviting them in but there are these there are still these little there are still these little hidden corners that not everyone gets to see and I think that you know that's like 12 year old me that's the 12 year old me that was like wanted to die and didn't feel like they were seen by people and thought their entire life was me being made fun of they were never going to be anything and that's still in me like that that's something that I I tear up when I read a lot of comments from people because I'm like I know what that feels like I remember that and I didn't have anyone to look up to I didn't have anyone to say it's going to be okay and you can do amazing things and you just you just got to wait it out you just got to push through I didn't have that and so I think it's like I remember the question was but I when I think about why I make videos or why make music or why I do any of the stuff that I do it's because I didn't have someone like me and I want to be that person I find parts of myself that I didn't necessarily know were there and that I didn't think I was capable of having and so I've never felt sexier or stronger than when I'm taking these photos of myself and I don't know it just you feel like a superhero it's different so a lot of times I think when I'm when I'm posting the photos and I'm posting the quote underneath it's something that I read that just struck me in that moment so today the quote was from Candace Benbow and it says it was the sheer arrogance of it all to receive the deepest of my love and ask me to settle for your crumbs and so I left them because I was always taught you don't have to eat if you don't want what's being served I was really my feelings today due to popular demand I am now podcasting daily on anchor FM now that is a place you guys can go to ask questions you actually voice notes and then I answer your questions so go to anchor FM slash Shamboody to sign up and to have your daily questions answered I get it girl