Unfortunately, I’m on wikiFeet. For those who don’t know, wikiFeet is a foot fetish website dedicated to sharing photos of celebrity feet. I found myself involved in 2019, before I would describe myself as a celebrity. A friend forwarded my rating to me, insisting I “made it.” The idea that someone would spend time and energy staring at my feet is beyond me, but it’s true – I’m featured on a website that averages over ten million visitors a month.
I do not judge the sexual orientation of wikiFeet community members. But personally, my sexuality is that no one ever looks at my feet. To my horror, I learned that my wikiFeet rating was two stars, classified as “okay feet.” While “okay” isn’t technically an insult, it’s not a compliment either. I hate my feet. Also, I hate other people’s feet. In my opinion, feet are just ugly hands, and hands are not that cute in the first place. But while I have nothing wrong with disdain for my own limbs, having strangers comment on my ten toes as anything other than “perfect,” “beautiful,” or possibly “exquisite,” is a hate crime that should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. of. This may seem like an irrational reaction, but you’re wrong, stupid, and, shut up!
I’m very self-conscious about my appearance, partly because I’m a woman who happens to be conscious. Every piece of media I’ve encountered since birth has made me hate every part of my body. It didn’t help that I was an ugly duckling. When I was a child, my hair was dry and brittle, and my mother insisted that I chemically straighten it. Every six to eight weeks, she would slather my head with “Just for Me” alkali-free conditioning cream relaxer, which burned my scalp. My natural hair breaks at the comb—the reason Lil Wayne rapped about being “tougher than Nigerian hair” in “A Milli”—and my loose hair snaps if the breeze blows the wrong way. Worst of all, my hair looks nothing like the beaming kid on the box, which makes sense—according to a recent trending topic on Twitter, the kid on the box isn’t using the product. When I use it, my hair becomes too flat and brittle to support the hat, which is probably the best remedy for my shame.
I have severe eczema. The skin above my upper lip has darkened and scarred due to my bad habit of nervously licking my lips. I looked like Steve Harvey with a mustache that I couldn’t shave off. I also have discolored rings around my eyes. Years later, this discoloration would make me look like I was always wearing wispy eyeshadow, but at twelve, I looked like King Julien the lemur in Madagascar.
I have body odor. As an adult, I’m known for smelling as fresh as a tropical beach after a storm because I’m surrounded by candles and perfume. However, when I was a kid, I wasn’t familiar with the concept of deodorant. For some reason it was never explained to me. Not to blame me, but my mom refused to buy me products that acknowledged that I had hit puberty and instead told me to rub my armpits harder. One problem for smelly middle schoolers is that people will actually comment on how you smell. The most memorable conversation I had about my stink was when my sixth grade teacher, Mr. [REDACTED], pulled me aside in gym class and asked me if my parents had died. I was confused, but pleased, and told him that wasn’t the case. He responded, “Well, tell your mom to buy you deodorant.”
I think, in Mr. [REDACTED]In reality, the only logical explanation for my body odor is that I was an orphan and my parents died in some freak accident, resulting in me being neglected. I’m not sure I would subject an eleven year old to such direct questioning about emotional trauma, but public schools are underfunded and sometimes you get what you pay for. I will reply sir in a few months. [REDACTED] He constantly reminded the class that he owed us a pizza party, which he had promised us if we had good attendance all week, but as an underpaid teacher he probably couldn’t afford it – which was My fault.
I had other insecurities. For example, my clothes.When my mother didn’t want me to have a traditional education gel (Nigerian headscarf), I’m wearing high-water pants from Marshalls and an unlicensed graphic tee featuring non-Disney characters but slightly off (for example, the dog on the “101 Dalmatians” sweatshirt is missing his signature spots ).When Nelly’s Air Force One boarded billboard In the chart, I don’t have designer sneakers, but rock and roll orthopedic shoes. Although Manny Santos in Degrassi: The Next Generation encouraged young millennials to wear thongs, I always wore granny panties that were well above my waist. All of this resulted in my classmates laughing at me for not processing this in real time due to what my therapist described as habitual dissociation.
None of these things were more difficult than being one of the only dark-skinned kids in my class from kindergarten through high school. Before I became familiar with the liberal racism that would one day become the subject of my comedy, I learned that even marginalized people had hierarchies of class and color. When I was in public school, I was one of the only black people in a group of white-skinned Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Colombians. This invites ridicule because children are both unimaginative and shockingly rude. Things didn’t get any better in private school, where I was one of the few black kids to inherit wealth in a sea of Kennedy-esque blonds and brunettes.
Once, in fifth grade, Mrs. [REDACTED] Prompted me to give a talk on “my point of view”. I did a stand-up comedy routine and recited all the nicknames I’d been given, like “Ducky” and “Africa.” At the end of the tense five minutes, my teacher silenced the class and said, “This is so sad.” She then quickly changed the subject and never acknowledged the “point” again (or continued what I was saying described harassment).
This is a theme in my life. I share funny stories only to have my audience strongly warn me not to repeat them. It’s a funny but actually sad story. In celebration of Grandparents Day, my second grade teacher, Mrs. [REDACTED], asked her students to draw things we enjoyed doing with our grandparents. All of my grandparents have passed away, and I politely conveyed this information to the teacher, but she insisted that I draw how I would treat my grandparents if they were still alive. I drew a picture of four angels pushing me on a swing. I thought it was hilarious, even though friends told me not to repeat the story. Now it’s in print forever!
But back to my feet. I thought I was ugly for a long time, and then suddenly I found myself on wikiFeet against my will in the form of a photo of me from college on a beach in Lake Michigan wearing a peach bathing suit from Forever 21. I remember posing myself, deliberately burying my toes in the sand, trying to hide them. I’m not hiding my steps from the world; I’m using my feet to protect the world. But the sand failed me, resulting in a photo on social media where my feet were not fully exposed.
