Is a portmanteau of gaslighting, which is where one acts to interfere with another's grasp on reality for their own gain, and yaasss, which is an insufferable turn of phrase coined when a very camp gentleman shouted it at Lady Gaga circa 2011, and is the preferred term of approval of something allegedly empowered or empowering for a certain very annoying brand of American - "yaasss queen!" being how it is usually deployed.
So basically, yasslighting is where people who have unhealthy or low quality habits get around and enable each other by claiming that those habits are, in fact, empowering or stunning or brave, rather than fucking stupid. It's sometimes referred to as toxic positivity.
Yes, you guessed it, the predominant use of yasslighting is in, of course, body positivity. One of their number has a moment of sanity or reality and decides that being a great fat wobble bottom isn't such a hot idea after all. They decide that they might want to not have the fifth donut or actually have some exercise. They may be prompted by the fact that they struggled to get up a flight of stairs, felt out of breath just normally, can't fit into their otherwise very large clothes, are starting to worry about the beetus, or similar. What invariably happens if they will approach their fellow fat activists and ask whether they might want to, you know, take steps to be less colossal. The other fat activists will then crowd around and tell the Doubting Thomas in their midst that they don't need to do that, that they are just fine and dandy the way they are, and they should stop doubting themselves and nourish their body and stop worrying about such things. After all, they're perfect and joyous the way they are, so why change it? Don't they feel empowered? Are they not smashing the patriarchy After enough of a session of this, the waverer will be brought back into compliance with the group, and all will be well with the world.
Apart from the fact that the wavering person is still morbidly obese and thus at risk of all manner of appalling things as a result.
Yasslighting isn't just limited to fat activism though it's where it is most visible. People can be yasslit into other dubious courses of action, like staying with a cult, excessive alcohol consumption ("you don't want people to think you're boring, do you?"), risky sexual practices, and similar. There is a temptation to think that because a course of action aligns with your social or political goals, you should be sacrificing your own wellbeing for that goal, or not thinking properly. The people who are in charge of those goals know this, and encourage yasslighting as a form of groupthink. If you've seen the hashtag #BeKind then you have seen yasslighting in action.
(IN24/2)