“Rethink Your Weekend” Is The Skewering Of Instagram Diet Culture We Always Needed

Ally Perry • Writer and Editor

Feb 1, 2022 6:00 PM EST

No matter how many times it gets repackaged and remarketed, there's no getting away from the fact that diet culture is a load of crap. Not only can they promote a miserable attitude to food, the majority of people who lose weight by dieting gain it all back, and then some.

Sure, most of us need to move more and eat healthier, but the way we are told we can properly do that often leaves a lot to be desired. It was bad enough a generation ago, when magazines shilled bizarre crash diets like they were going out of fashion; now, plenty of people get their guidance from the more demented corners of social media.

Without doubt, one of the main culprits in this is Instagram. The home of countless ill-advised photo edits, it has contributed to the poor body image of millions. As a result, it's no shock that certain corners of the platform provide some absolutely insane advice. There's the comparisons of calorific, processed lunches to perfect, Whole Foods sourced meal prep that probably costs triple the price, and there's the intermittent fasting promoters, that sometimes suggest not consuming calories for up to eighteen hours a day. Worst of all, there's the food swaps, which have the audacity to suggest that courgetti and cauliflower rice will live up to the real thing.

Diet Instagram doesn't want us to give up all our pleasures, though. In fact, it thinks that it's a great idea to get even more wasted than we usually would on a Friday night. This seems to be the conclusion of the infographic that kickstarted the "Rethink Your Weekend" meme. It advises that we can lose the pounds if only we stop washing down all that deep fried food with a beer, instead swapping the pair for some good old-fashioned hard liquor and an insubstantial looking green salad.

It may be less fatty, but it's also the potential precursor to a night you probably won't remember much of. It gets even better with all its different meme versions, which suggest even more delicious alternatives to that terrible beer 'n' nugs combo. There are plenty of things out there that are fewer calories, and some would argue a much better time (assuming that you stay alive to tell the tale). While many have spent years pointing out the ridiculousness of these accounts, it's only now that we've gotten around to memeing about it.