Lucy Mountain

[Fineapple]

I want to like her but she has that thin privilege going on while trying to stress that exercise is not for weight loss. Well, for some people it has to be.

 

[Corona]

I don't know what it is about Lucy but I just find her so incredibly irritating

 

[hellogrrrl]

I was a big fan of Lucy's: bought her Aflete guides (were actually quite good), had her (typo ridden) cookbook and was trying to persevere with the (very shitty) app she released. The Facebook group was a key factor in me being willing to part with my money to support her, it provided helpful advice and what I felt was a relatively safe space to discuss specific issues.

Now all of a sudden Lucy has decided to close the group 'for her mental health' after being upset about being (rightly) called out when she tried to capitalise on people's affection for the group, and essentially get free labour for something she either didn't have time for/couldn't be bothered to do herself? What about the mental health of followers who relied on and benefitted from the Facebook group it cost her next to nothing to run and complimented her business?

I immediately cancelled my App subscription and will not be engaging with her content anymore. I'd be interested to see how many others have done the same. You can't expect to make £100,000s and not give something back. Really disappointed as she did used to be one of the good ones.

 

[littlewonder]

I don't think most of the people there understood the issue. I'm not against volunteer work. I've volunteered in a soup kitchen for several years now because I know their funding is extremely low. I know who's funding defo isn't low though... it's a different deal giving out food to low income families AND working for free to moderate a massive facebook group while the actual CEO of the company is preaching how important it is to love yourself and not settle for less while at Mykonos. I guess this is just the harsh reality (we live in a society...) because so many clever people do unpaid internships and are paid with "experience" and are esentially being robbed.

ABSOLUTELY THIS! The volunteer work offered will benefit her brand regardless of nobs trying to be pitched as a ‘community’. People saying ‘it’s not like she is a huge corporation’ is exactly how people get away with this shit and hoard their wealth instead of actually redistributing it to more marginalised people who could’ve benefited from extra income on a flexible basis.

She lives on her own in a 1 bed flat in London and has been on at least two holidays in a global pandemic - are they seriously saying she couldn’t pay a couple of people national living wage for a couple of hours a week? I don’t know her finances so maybe she can’t but then you shouldn’t be asking people to do it for free it’s the denial and defensiveness that really grates on me - at least own up to it.

Would she spend 1-4 hours a week, every week doing a truly thankless (and likely emotionally exhausting) moderating job as a favour to another brand in exchange for a product worth about £3? I doubt it, but then why is her time worth more than ours? She might not like it and might find it uncomfortable when people call her out on this, but I saw no one being genuinely nasty. Being called out on your shit is often the only way we learn and do better - she would benefit from actually thinking about why she got the reaction she did instead of getting defensive and putting it down to negativity/“everyone’s out to get me”.

My favourite comment was ‘I have PAID someone to consult with me’ and someone replied with ‘well done for doing the bare minimum as an employer’ amazing

 

[thepantsqueen]

It all kicked off yesterday on her Facebook group. She has been asking for volunteers to help manage her Facebook group in return for a free subscription to the app and people are saying she should pay for their labour

 

[rdemp]

Lmao she’s soooo smug about it but she’s said nothing of meaning at all????

Like genuinely what is she trying to say in this poorly-written ramble shamble?

Is the entire crux “I’ve gained weight and I feel sad about it” ? My thin white body has changed an imperceptible amount pls feel sorry for me ??

If so, how does that fit in with her whole brand of body positivity and acceptance? Could it be that ….. she loves being thin …….. and she’s only preached body positivity because it became profitable to do so …….. the Lucy we know and love ??? the self-serving, hypocritical, only-woke-when-it-serves-her fraud ….. being self-serving, hypocritical and only woke when it suits her ???? surely not ….

 

[littlewonder]

her latest stories about online social justice culture don’t seem to apply to what’s been publicly going on with nobs… no one (as far as I know) is “cancelling” Lucy, or not giving her a second chance or expecting ‘perfection’ - she just doesn’t listen to constructive feedback and takes it as personal criticism and then got shitty when people rightly said that it isn’t good enough

I don’t agree with pile ons or nasty personal comments but I fucking hate the weaponisation of “cancel culture” that people wield in order to either 1) gaslight marginalised people who have spoken up and/or 2) try and dodge any kind of valid criticism by saying ‘I am a flawed person, we all are’ - fuck off???

we don’t have to have a fucking tantrum and cry when someone tells you that something you’re doing is problematic and harmful (unpaid labour, getting cross when someone asked her to caption her stories properly, not acknowledging her privilege etc) - you don’t necessarily have to agree with what other people are saying but why not use it as an opportunity to learn from it, know your audience and do better?!?

there is a difference between people being blunt/straight to the point and being nasty/unreasonable, and tbh marginalised people shouldn’t have to provide influencers with palatable, politely worded education on why they should give a fuck about the people they’re earning a profit from (and in some cases exploiting)

The longer she keeps passive aggressively posting about it, the more she’s proving people’s points and she’s really pissing me off now.

Throwing around ‘the dehumanisation of people online is concerning’ is really fucking rich of her to say when plenty of her followers experience actual dehumanisation on a systematic level (e.g. medical racism/accessing disability support).

TLDR: someone telling you pay your staff is not fucking oppression omg

 

[éman]

I have no particular time for Lucy and I find her message extremely confused but this last page does kind of perfectly exemplify the bind that our generation of liberal women have got ourselves into with this stuff - one person saying she only features WOC as tokens, and within a couple of posts she’s criticised for boosting the business of “another white woman”. This is kind of facile, really, because literally nobody can win along these parameters. If you feature POC you’re a cringe tokenist trying to curry favour but if you feature a white person you’re not committed to racial justice? I mean, what?

I say this as a woman who is not white and with one first gen immigrant parent: close to 90% of this country is white. In some areas it’s not far off 99%.By definition the vast majority of businesses in this country are owned by white people. It’s not weird if the majority of your friends and acquaintances are white. For most people it’s more or less a statistical certainty.

If people are going to be punished or criticised for that then they can hardly be blamed for tokenistic gestures.

 

[emily287]

I would encourage everyone on this thread, reading or commenting, to unfollow her and unsubscribe from her app. Continuing to give her your following and your hard earned money is sending the message that you're on her side and that you stand by her dreadful behaviour.

Same, I use to give Lucy my hard earn £££ because I use to genuinely think that she stood out as an authentic content creator which I now understand was just her entire brand the whole time and we have all been duped lol.

I one stage I enjoyed the NOBS fb page back in circa 2018/19 and use to get really good advice from the people on there but it changed into a big cesspit of people who had clearly never been told to stfu irl. (Just m' humble opinion) But I suppose there's a reason they are all fans of Lucy lol.

OMG YES TO THIS! The Facebook group ended up being filled with the most awful advice, it felt like it was only one step away from someone posting 'I just killed my boyfriend's mum now he's saying he's going to break up with me' and the comments being like 'Omg red flag girl he's bad' 'Get yourself a new boyfriend!' 'You do whatever you need to do to make yourself happy'. It was TOXIC and filled with terrible, terrible advice, of course they would follow their leader no matter what she does.

 

[littlewonder]

in the group someone had commented that it’s ‘ableist’ to be against volunteer work because disabled people can’t always work??? huh? I think it’s ableist that people don’t value disabled people’s contributions, time, energy and labour enough to pay them simply because they often can’t work 9-5! Is my labour not worthy of payment because I’m disabled and can’t work a 40 hour week? I wouldn’t be able to use the fucking nobs app even I wanted to! A social media moderator job with flexible hours, wfh and deciding what you can contribute would have been PERFECT (if it was paid ofc) for anyone who struggles with how rigid companies are and are on poverty wages as a result - like disabled people or people with caring responsibilities (etc).

these sorts of jobs are literally how we can diversify spaces but it’s clear that there’s no interest in doing that volunteer work is free labour no matter how you try and spin it

 

[emily287]

So true! I do agree too many women use filters on their photos these days but it all seems so performative coming from her

so when she came out with her podcast and it was all middle class/posh white women with little to no diversity I was just done with her then. She wants to be seen as being progressive and ~different~ but actually doesn't do the work.

I mean, just stop using filters etc? Just stop it. She's an influencer with a cult following (ha), people would notice. Sometimes silence speaks louder than shouting.

See, here's the thing with the podcast, if she wasn't trying to come across as 'inclusive' then it's fine. There's nothing technically wrong with three white women creating a podcast to talk about their middle class opinions on things that don't really affect them. I personally don't like the podcast, I find it vapid. But some people would like it and that's fine.
However, when a large part of your brand involves talking about diversity and inclusivity, it's glaringly obvious when she misses that completely and that should have been picked up on. But witnessing her behaviour with people commenting on the Facebook page (even the one comment that said something along the lines of 'Lucy is great but let's check our parasocial relationships, she did fuck up', Lucy completely went for her) I imagine she's very difficult to work for as she won't take any criticisms.

 

[littlewonder]

Totally agree to all of the above - it’s a really creepy advert and I don’t get why they don’t even speak?!?

I love that she says she hates diet culture but the last few years in the first week of January exploits and benefits from it by releasing an advert saying ‘fuck New Years resolution diet culture, buy my exercise and recipe app - it is totally anti diet culture’

the app itself might not promote diet culture but you’re still profiting off it by releasing new versions and/or heavily advertising and discounting at this time of year, don’t pretend that you don’t know exactly what you’re doing and who you’re specifically targeting??

Like it’s fine, it’s a marketing decision and can be justified by saying you’re trying to reach those customers at this time of year when people are more likely to be thinking about exercise thanks to diet culture, but it just feels odd to not acknowledge the slightly ironic timing of these releases. Idk if I explained that well

 

[Aaaass8989]

Hey all! Glad to have found this space, I was one of the people speaking out against Lucy’s unpaid labour/slave approach. I then also tried to remind people that the whole ‘let’s send Lucy positive messages’ crap was just going down a toxic parasocial relationship that is weird af.
I then got jumped on by Lucy for making her feel ‘deeply uncomfortable.

Shes also now shared screenshots of a WhatsApp chat that has been taken wildly out of context.
I’m done.

 

[Tilly87]

I find her very unrelatable to be honest. She is a very slim female who obviously doesn't have issues with weight, talking about how diets don't work, screw calorie counting, if you want to eat all the chocolate do it, etc and it's hard not to think "well that's easy for you to say"
Might be wrong but I just don't connect with her content, however well meaning.

 

[thepantsqueen]

Maybe I'm being too nit picky but...I feel like she uses POC for promotion and that's it. She doesn't have any black or Asian friends it seems in her real life and she doesn't ever seem to boost the profiles/account of POC. All I see is her hiring models but that's it.

A lot of what Lucy does seems to be bare minimum to just avoid being called out

 

[emily287]

It’s very ironic that she’s become exactly what she was so against when many people followed her. She fails to acknowledge that she is incredibly privileged, she is navigating the world in a size 8 body, she’s white, conventionally attractive, well-educated, stable income, family money and an enormous flat. She fails to recognise this privilege and she also fails to use her large platform to lift up POC, disabled influencers or essentially anyone who doesn’t look like her. Her podcast is the epitome of this, three rich, thin, white women who think the world needs to hear MORE of their views on things. After BLM she was quite good with doing the takeovers, however I would assume that once she realised this wasn’t benefitting her she stopped. It’s also worth noting that almost her whole team was white, except for one WOC who was in an unpaid position.

 

[emily287]

Exactly. she also used (in my opinion) different ethnicities and larger women as tokens to show people "look how I diverse I am!" But racist comments went massively unchecked in that group and if you said something you'd get accused of bullying. So instead of actually paying people to do something about it she closes it instead? Bullshit

And to add, Lucy definitely had a set of cliquey "ultra fans" that she used at her disposal. Made them feel like they were her friends but really they were free labor to her.

Omg you are saying everything I'm thinking ! I would agree with this. The photo shoot for the launch of nobs app couldn't have screamed 'performative activism' any louder really. Instead of just popping them in front of a camera, she was in a position to really make a difference for people of colour, disabled people and others and uplift them and amplify their voices. However she accepted free labour from two WOC who moderated the group (notice how the rest of the PAID team was white?!), and didn't step in when one of them was subjected to such severe racism in a WhatsApp group that she had to leave.

Similar to how post-BLM she did a lot of takeovers but once they stopped serving her a purpose she stopped them, or when she allowed her social media team to post that (very very very poorly researched and misguided) post about Juneteenth. I once saw a comment that said that if a POC spoke up about their experience in the group their post was often deleted or the comments were turned off. But THANK GOD that her and her skinny, white, privileged friends made a podcast to talk about their feelings on all these issues because what the world really needs right now is more opinions from skinny white women

 

[emily287]

I have no particular time for Lucy and I find her message extremely confused but this last page does kind of perfectly exemplify the bind that our generation of liberal women have got ourselves into with this stuff - one person saying she only features WOC as tokens, and within a couple of posts she’s criticised for boosting the business of “another white woman”. This is kind of facile, really, because literally nobody can win along these parameters. If you feature POC you’re a cringe tokenist trying to curry favour but if you feature a white person you’re not committed to racial justice? I mean, what?

I say this as a woman who is not white and with one first gen immigrant parent: close to 90% of this country is white. In some areas it’s not far off 99%.By definition the vast majority of businesses in this country are owned by white people. It’s not weird if the majority of your friends and acquaintances are white. For most people it’s more or less a statistical certainty.

If people are going to be punished or criticised for that then they can hardly be blamed for tokenistic gestures.

I completely understand your point, however you're slightly missing mine.

I have no issue with her posting about feminism and fitness however I believe if you are going to be a white woman posting about feminism you need to be regularly sharing content from POC / disabled / trans creators. Lucy seems to pick and choose when she shares content from creators and not just her own body, and also takes zero accountability for the fact that her body shouldn't be the face of body positivity.

People like her are the reason why marginalised bodies are being pushed out of the space that they created (let's not forget that the body positive movement was created by fat, black women long before Lucy even knew what it was), since slim white women have hijacked the trend it means if you search for bodypositive on Instagram, guess what?! It's all WHITE women!

I live in a town filled with mostly white people, and I have mostly white friends as a result however, I regularly share content from marginalised creators on my Instagram (be that their account or their business etc) because it takes me literal minutes to find them instead of another white woman. The only reason she doesn't is because she can't be asked to go out and find those creators. It doesn't benefit Lucy, so why should she care?

 

[bree2020]

I want to like her but she has that thin privilege going on while trying to stress that exercise is not for weight loss. Well, for some people it has to be.

I think she's great. Yeah, she has thin privilege but she has addressed this a number of times (from what I can see) and it's better than preaching fitness for aesthetics bs. Just because she's in a smaller body it doesn't mean she's obliged to post about bulking and cutting and workout routines to grow a fat ass. She's an influencer who doesn't use her physique to sell stuff which is admirable. I think she's a breath of fresh air - more influencers should follow her example.

 

[kissfm]

The boots she got herself as a Christmas prezzie are around 350ish euro loool to think this girl was stingy enough to not pay a “volunteer” and I’ve actually supported her by subbing to her bugged ass app and thought “she’s not a regular influencer, she’s just like me” 🥲