#DropTheTowel: A Body Positive Beach Body Campaign

Protein World's "Are you beach body ready?" advertisements have caused outrage this summer with their fat shaming marketing tactics, but the body shaming ads have led the way to many more empowering efforts by body positivity proponents. Joining the movement to end "beach body" shaming, Wear Your Voice Magazine launched #DropTheTowel, a new self love summer campaign for which the publication has orchestrated photo shoots with 10 different people from all walks of life: Diverse body types, skin colors, and genders are represented to try and remove the stigma of only certain people being allowed to don a bikini at the beach.

It's incredibly refreshing to see a body positive campaign that isn't solely focused on removing beauty standards surrounding weight. #DropTheTowel seeks to show that everyone is beautiful, in or out of a bikini. Not unlike the artist who bared her bikini body on the subway or the similar Instagram-led campaign by All Shapes, #DropTheTowel is fighting back. Although the action of body shaming by Protein World was inarguably despicable, the aftermath of positivity and self love movements has been truly inspirational.

The campaign doesn't just wish to spread its own photos across the webisphere, either, but actively encourages everybody to take part by posting a photo (sans towel) and hashtagging it with #DropTheTowel. By doing this, Wear Your Voice is seeking to add more images to its all-inclusive imagery based movement and to prove once and for all that every body is a beach body.

Whilst the magazine did solo shoots with each of its participants, the group shots are the most powerful of all. A group of humans celebrating not just their own non-conforming beauty, but celebrating each other's as well. Often in these kinds of movements, you see groups of plus size women celebrating their fatness together. In this campaign, you get to see a group of diverse people celebrating each other's differences.

Although the "are you beach body ready?" advertising campaign actively body shamed under the guise of marketing, the outcome has been spectacular and shows exactly how to take a negative state of affairs and turn it into a positive one. Whether it's a large scale project like starting an Instagram movement or simply refusing to allow the shaming to get you down, campaigns like #DropTheTowel prove that nobody deserves to be body shamed. And there are people out there trying their hardest to make sure said body shaming isn't allowed to continue for much longer.

Images: Wear Your Voice; wearyourvoicemag, nataliemeansnice/Instagram