You know what doesn't make sense? Telling someone they don't belong with their spouse based on their appearances. Nevertheless, those are exactly the sort of comments TikTok influencer Alicia McCarvell faces on a regular basis. Recently, though, Alicia decided it was time to address the situation. Not long after she and her husband, Scott, participated in a TikTok trend, her video went viral, and she immediately suspected it was for all the wrong reasons.
When we say the video went viral, we really mean it. It currently has 41 million views on TikTok, so we're not too surprised Alicia realized that something was up, and once she did, she made another video calling out commenters claiming her relationship with her husband "doesn't make sense" because she's plus-size and he's super fit.
Alicia's original video was exactly like so many others.
Alicia, who has 5.4 million followers on TikTok and more than 800,000 on Instagram, decided to take part in a TikTok trend with her husband. They filmed a transition video of themselves getting ready for a night out, first fresh out of the shower and in towels and then all dressed up, with the entire thing recorded from the perspective of looking into a mirror.
It's been done before and by lots of couples, so it shouldn't really have gotten so much attention.
Its popularity wasn't a mystery to Alicia.
Alicia's been sharing her relationship online for awhile and has been subjected to all sorts of comments and opinions from Internet trolls, so she wasn't particularly surprised. "My video went viral, and I know we all know why," she said in another video she posted in response.
"It's because, by beauty standards, we don't make sense," she continued. "The world looks at us and immediately values Scott more than me."
People try too hard to rationalize their relationship.
"And since we don't add up, people try to add things to my side of the equation to make it make sense, by saying things like, 'Oh, she must not have been fat when they met,' or 'Oh, she's gotta be rich,'" Alicia explained. "Or they try to decrease his side of the equation by saying things like, 'He must be gay,' or 'He fetishes fat women.'
"We've been made to believe that someone who is physically fit like Scott, could never in a million years be in love with or compatible with a fat woman, and that's solely because the world has literally taught us that we have to value our worth on our bodies," she said.
Not only does Alicia get comments about her relationship, but women also DM her husband.
Perhaps even more disturbingly than the rude comments Alicia gets not just on this video but also on lots of posts featuring her husband, is the fact that women will actually DM Scott and try to lure him away from her.
"A woman slid into Scott's DMs and said, 'you should be with somebody who looks like me,'" Alicia explained. "She was thin and by beauty standards, a 10 out of 10. Here's the thing though, me telling myself for the majority of our relationship that I'm not worthy of his love because of my body is the exact same thing as this thin woman telling him that she is worthy of his because of her body."
Alicia believes we've all been conditioned to think this way.
"I'm undervaluing myself and she's overvaluing herself. We've both been made to believe that our value lies in our body," Alicia said. "I get asked this question all the time: 'Do you get jealous when people hit on your husband?' and my answer is always 'No.'
"Most of the time, people are put off by this or confused as to why not. That's because when people typically slide into his DMs, they're leading with their body first and on the scale my husband values, how well my body fits into the beauty standards is not on the top of his list."
Alicia and Scott have been together since high school.
They have been a couple since they were teenagers, and as she mentioned, she's already dealt with her insecurities regarding the difference in their appearances. Presumably, they encountered at least some of the criticism and questions long before social media.
It seems to us that she's well-equipped to tackle the topic, and we admire how confident and secure she is about herself and her marriage. Like so many of us, we're sure it's taken her a lot of work to get there.
The impact she's making is huge.
Alicia's been inspiring people to love and accept themselves just the way they are for years, and as her social media following has grown, so has her impact. She got so many comments of support and encouragement on her response video, but it actually goes far deeper than that.
Last year, Alicia posted a video about a letter she received from a 16-year-old follower who says that Alicia is her "hero." "I had a follower send me something she wrote and the title reads 'who my hero is'. I immediately started crying because I knew what was coming and I wasn't ready and I don't think I'll ever be ready," Alicia wrote in the caption.
"This is the coolest thing anyone has ever sent me. For so many reasons," she continued
The teen's letter explained that Alicia has helped her work through her body image issues and toward becoming a more confident person. We can only imagine that alone makes putting up with all the Internet trolls well worth it.