Jordan Peterson driven from Twitter after swimsuit comments
Psychologist and conservative online personality Jordan Peterson has announced he will leave Twitter after receiving backlash for remarks he made about “curve model” Yumi Nu.
Nu, who has walked runways and appeared in Vogue and various fashion campaigns, made her appearance as Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s first Asian American cover model - which Peterson seemed to take issue with.
“Sorry. Not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that,” he tweeted on Monday.
As of publication, the tweet has received over 62,000 likes and nearly 5,000 comments - including plenty of people questioning why he felt he needed to share his opinion.
“Why do men feel it’s their duty to publicly pronounce their view on the attractiveness of women? Couldn’t you just keep it to yourself?” one person tweeted.
“I love your talks … but this comment is beyond disgusting,” another said.
“You may not even know on how many levels this is disturbing. Try interviewing more young women on your podcasts. You’ve got a lot to learn. Until then, stop criticising women’s bodies.”
Nu, who is half-Japanese, previously told NBC Asian America of the societal pressures and body-shaming she’s faced as a model with Asian heritage.
“I felt like I was less worthy for being Asian because I felt like an outsider for being so tall,” she said.
“All I wanted to do was be white, to be white enough to fit in and not be called Godzilla.”
Meanwhile, Peterson has since announced he will be leaving the social media platform as a result of the criticism, despite going on to continue posting.
“The endless flood of vicious insults is really not something that can be experienced anywhere else,” he wrote in a tweet following the initial comments on Nu.
“I told my staff to change my password, to keep me from temptation, and am departing once again. If I have something to say I’ll write an article or make a video. If the issue is not important enough to justify that then perhaps it would be best to just let it go.”
Since his departing tweet, the psychologist has retweeted various posts and articles about teachers being allowed to not use students’ preferred pronouns, Democrats controlling the internet, and fighting back against Disney “going woke”.
Image: @jordan.b.peterson (Instagram)