Haters gonna hate, but this woman doesn't care.
A beauty blogger from Grand Junction, Colorado, known as Cailey Darling posted a photo of herself on Instagram rocking a swimsuit from GabiFresh's Swim Sexy collection on May 18 and quickly heard from trolls who felt the need to comment on her appearance. The next day, Darling responded with another swimsuit photo and an important message for the body-shamers.
"Once I started actively trying not to judge others based on appearances, I slowly started to see beauty in the people around me," she wrote. "Soon enough, I could look at a body like mine and see beauty where society told me I wouldn't find it."
The day after that, she posted yet another swimsuit photo and wrote that hateful comments won't keep her from living her life "unapologetically." Darling told The Huffington Post she decided to respond to the trolls with a series of swimsuit photos to show that their hateful words won't affect her and that she has no plans of backing down.
"I want people to see me still standing and believing I am beautiful even though people tell me I'm not," she said.
In one of her captions, Darling noted that she sometimes directly responds to people who leave hateful feedback on her photos. She clarified to HuffPost that she responds to the positive and uplifting comments more often, but that she does choose to interact with some trolls. She said she learned from other women who defended themselves online and now wants to help inspire others to stand strong as well.
"I get messages all the time from people who thank me for responding to troll comments because they never knew how to stand up for themselves in that situation, and now they have a good idea of what to say when faced with bullying," she said.
The beauty blogger emphasized that if she does respond to trolls she doesn't mind commenting on their "self-loathing, or hatred," but stressed that she doesn't attack the way they look as they do to her. The beauty blogger is on a much more important mission.
"I am here to change minds about bodies, not to shame any other types of bodies," she wrote.
H/T Cosmopolitan
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