ON TUESDAY, ESPN Magazine released a series of covers for their annual Body Issue. Celebrating the athletic form, the covers feature people like Venus Williams and Michael Phelps in the nip. However, one cover in particular has gotten people talking.
Prince Fielder, a baseball player with the Texas Rangers, has inspired a conversation about male body acceptance and a hashtag celebrating the bigger man, the aptly named #HuskyTwitter.
The cover initially attracted some mockery and not-so-kind comments. (Including from Cuba Gooding Jr. who decided to weigh in and compare Fielder’s body to “two midgets in an arm-wrestling contest.” Sigh.)
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However, the internet soon rallied with countless tweets supporting Prince Fielder coming in.
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The cover also inspired the birth of a new hashtag, #HuskyTwitter, where people celebrated their love and voiced their appreciation for bigger men.
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For his part, Prince Fielder had this to say to ESPN Magazine:
A lot of people probably think I’m not athletic or don’t even try to work out or whatever, but I do. Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you can’t be an athlete. And just because you work out doesn’t mean you’re going to have a 12-pack. I work out to make sure I can do my job to the best of my ability. Other than that, I’m not going up there trying to be a fitness model.
#Husky.
