The bikini bridge fad isn’t a thing, at least it wasn’t until 4chan launched a prank campaign to tell the internet that bikini bridges would essentially be the thigh gap of 2014.

Bikini Bridge Hoax

First of all, a bikini bridge refers to the gap created between a woman’s bikini bottom and her lower abdomen, usually caused when her hip bones protrude farther than her stomach.

Image-board site 4chan endeavored to make the bikini bridge the new inspiring benchmark for women looking to lose weight and achieve their ideal beach bodies. The method to making the bikini bridge go viral was outlined by one of 4chan’s anonymous users with a two-part explanation.

"Create propaganda parading the 'bikini bridge' to be the next big thing (pic related — that read “If you have time to complain, you have time to train,” or “Getting a smoother tan line from your bikini bridge”),” read part 1. “Circulate it throughout the internet. Simultaneously, we create reverse propaganda, denouncing the bikini bridge as an unhealthy obsession. This, too, we circulate throughout the internet."

Part two said: "After a fair amount of circulation has been accomplished, we circulate the images throughout parts of the internet known to be biased on the subject of weight (i.e. thin privilege, fat shaming, etc.)."

Dangers Of Bikini Bridge Fad

Without social media and its increasing power, 4chan would not have been able to make nothing into something through such a simplistic strategy and so little actual effort. Despite the media calling the bikini bridge story a hoax, bikini bridge selfies have taken the web by storm, appearing en masse on Twitter and Instagram.

"Thanks to social media, it's easy for something like this to become a trend so quickly and it's just another example of the objectification of women and their bodies," explained Louise Adams, a clinical psychologist who specializes in eating disorders and body image to The Sydney Morning Tribune. "Social media creates competitiveness between other women. We know this largely effects younger women and this is exactly who is using these sites. This is a generation who has grown up with social media and at the same time, eating disorder figures have doubled."

– Chelsea Regan

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