The Moo Deng Conundrum

How can a deeply fatphobic culture fall in love with a "little bouncy meatball?"

There’s a subset of large animals that are considered fat. Whales, elephants, cows, and pigs are in that subset. So are hippos. These are all animals to which I - a fat woman - have been compared. And not in a cute, aww-I-made-you-my-screensaver way. In a hateful, you’re-disgusting way.

So, when Moo Deng started to trend, I felt both excited (I claim “true” fan status, as my love of pygmy hippos dates back to meeting the late Monifa on a trip to Sydney) and also slightly bewildered.

Wait, haven’t the news media been reminding us daily that “thin is in?” How can a culture that is so deeply fatphobic fall so deeply in love with a super cute, slippery, “bouncy meatball” when the idea of being either bouncy or a meatball themselves terrifies them? How can reporters and content creators claim that “we are all Moo Deng” when most people would sooner do basically anything to avoid being compared to a hippo in real life?

This is the Moo Deng Conundrum.

I think one part of the Moo Deng Conundrum is that we as a culture have vastly different attitudes toward fat babies (whether animal or human) than we do toward fat adult humans. Babies are considered cute when they’re fat. However, at a certain age, fatness transforms from something endearing and non-threatening to something that is reviled and judged.

I think the other part of the Moo Deng Conundrum is that we long for the freedom of being a fat baby animal: you get to be bouncy and have rolls, and - hey - everyone still loves you.

No one tells you that you’ve “let yourself go.”

You don’t have to live in fear of your family body-checking you at Thanksgiving.

No one will swipe left on you because your Moo Deng body is trending.

I believe Moo Deng represents our collective longing to escape fatphobia.

That desire for freedom is real, and it’s deeply, deeply powerful. It’s also deeply, deeply threatening to both ourselves and to the culture as we know it. We’re afraid of what might happen if we got to be unconditionally loved no matter the size of our body because we’ve never lived in a world that’s given us that. Both we and the culture don’t want to change because change means the threat of losing control. The ego doesn’t like that. Systems don’t like that.

So we de-claw or de-fang that longing through setting our sights on a fat baby hippo that lives in a zoo, rather than changing how we feel about ourselves or how we feel about the millions of fat adult humans all around us who are living through unnecessary medical discrimination, who are being paid less or refused jobs, who are being shamed as Moo Deng is being worshiped.

Our love of Moo Deng, I think, represents body positivity and fat liberation. These things are possible, but it’s going to require that we not play it safe. We don’t have to settle for wishing we were Moo Deng. We can be the Moo Deng we wish to see in the world.

xo,

Virgie

---

Come with me on a week-long body positive writing retreat in gorgeous, seaside Dubrovnik, Croatia - June 2025!

---

VOLUMINATI is my newest Substack vertical for paid subscribers. It goes live in November. Twelve smart-as-hell audiotextual essays delivered monthly.