'iPhone Legs' the Latest Body-Shaming Fad to Hit China

By Anna Myers

China’s web users have come up with a new online craze: the 'iPhone Legs' challenge. The test is pretty simple — you put an iPhone 6S on your knees. If it covers them, you have passed and eternal glory is yours... or something like that.

Like so many of these internet crazes, it’s just another way of making women feel bad about themselves because they don’t achieve the latest absurd beauty standard. The most recent of these was the A4 waist challenge, where Chinese women posted photos of themselves to prove that their waists were smaller than the width of a piece of paper.

The only positive aspect to the A4 waist challenge, of course, was the enormous backlash. Some women posted pictures of themselves holding up a university diploma, while others mocked the craze by posting photos of skeletons.

But not all of China's internet crazes are about body-shaming. Last year, Weibo users held a Women’s Armpit Hair Competition that encouraged women to post photos of their unshaven underarms. The idea was to encourage pride in natural beauty. And, as organizer Xiao Yue said, “the greater message here is about discussing the ownership of female body and challenging the stereotyping of femininity.”

Hopefully the 'iPhone Legs' will die down, like all of the internet beauty crazes that promote body-shaming. And we can only hope to see less and less of them in the future. 

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