Nicole Arbour first garnered a modicum of Internet fame with her video “Dear Instagram Models,” which gained a lot of traction on Facebook as the self-appointed comedian expressed her opinion on girls who are prolific on the photo-sharing social network.
Nicole’s definition of what constitutes an “Instagram model” was vague, but she mainly suggested that it was girls who post photos of themselves onto Instagram and who “get paid” as a result. “It’s not modelling if it’s just modelling your own titties,” she claims in the video, after stating that while she has posted “sexy photos” on Instagram, she also wants to show that she “can be awesome, and smart, and good at shit, and also be a hottie.” I would suggest that it is difficult to convey all of these personality traits on a photo-sharing social network, but Nicole continues to say that girls “only need a couple of promo photos, that’s it” before stating that posting any more makes them a “free fap factory” for men.
It was a weirdly disjointed message to send out, especially considering that her own Instagram page is littered with the images she vilifies, along with evidence of her “getting paid” for using her account such as the below image of her advertising a beauty product:
But while Nicole’s hypocrisy put a few noses out of joint when the Dear Instagram Models video went viral, one of her latest videos titled “Dear Fat People” made her the top Facebook trending topic earlier this week, when YouTube decided to pull her account as a result of the negative backlash she received.
In the video, which Nicole posted to Facebook alongside the caption “What we’ve all wanted to say to FAT PEOPLE,” she embarks upon the age-old argument that it’s a good thing when we make fun of fat people because then maybe they’ll stop being fat.
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She expresses her viewpoint by engaging in a conversation with herself, in which she also adopts the role of someone who is offended by her comments and who is battling on the side of “political correctness.” I’d more accurately describe that side of the argument as “common decency,” but Nicole appears to have decided that she is at war with those who are offended by everything, with everything in this instance being “people who disagree with her thinly veiled encouragement of bullying.”
The video sees Nicole adopting the typical viewpoint of those who want to justify their bullying of overweight people, with her trying to hammer home the point that those who are obese are killing themselves and that by ridiculing them, her cruel comments are somehow providing some sort of service. “Fat shaming, who came up with that? That’s fucking brilliant.” She says, adding: “Yes, shame people who have bad habits until they fucking stop! Fat shaming! If we offend you so much that you lose weight, I’m okay with that.”
It’s become a common argument on the Internet that anyone who stands against people such as Nicole making damaging comments online is part of some sort of political correctness brigade, with the word “censorship” being banded around freely and often wrongly. Indeed, Nicole launched into her own claims of censorship when her YouTube account was allegedly pulled by the site’s parent company Google, writing: “Censorship is the only real blasphemy. Thanks for all the cheers and being fellow bad asses not afraid to just speak your mind and joke about everything.”
While Google eventually put her YouTube channel back online, if they would have pulled it for good, they would have been well within their right to do so and no, it would not have been an example of them somehow stifling Nicole’s right to free speech. Nicole has used YouTube to upload her videos, and if YouTube disagreed with the content she had uploaded being hosted on their site, then they can choose to no longer be affiliated with as a company.
The controversy surrounding Dear Fat People inspired the uploading of another video to Nicole’s YouTube channel, titled “Most Offensive Video EVER,” in which she claims that “keyboard warriors are trying to murder comedy.” But here’s the thing: people opposing Nicole’s views and comments are not “trying to murder comedy” – they’re offering their opinion, just as Nicole is doing. Free speech doesn’t mean that you can say whatever the fuck you want without facing any repercussions; free speech also extends to those who want to argue against your opinion, and yes, it even extends to companies such as YouTube who may decide that they don’t want your call to arms for bullies being broadcast using their platform.
Comedy is subjective, of course, but I’d wager that Nicole openly advocating bullying oversteps a very significant line. Comedy can be offensive, rude, and crass, but someone talking into a webcam for 6 minutes about their obvious disdain for overweight people? That isn’t comedy.
Nonetheless, Nicole keeps fighting for her right to be cruel online, like a living embodiment of an Internet comments section, writing on her Facebook wall: “Everyone doesn’t have to like what you’re doing for you to do it. Do YOU team. Just do YOU.”
But Nicole isn’t some rogue forward-thinker battling against a system trying to oppress her views; she’s a bully with a victim complex, trying to convince people that her personal liberties are being encroached upon by those who have acknowledged that she is a bully.
