The Myth of Tuberculosis Fashion : Victorian History Debunked

Comments · 672

• VL

  @vlogbrothers · 2 years ago

  This is a great video, and a super helpful series of corrections. I've linked to it as the pinned comment on the Crash Course video. Thanks. -John

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• JU

  @julianpeppers1889 · 2 years ago

  when u talked about fashionable body ideals fluctuating btwn being &quot;delicate&quot; (thin) and &quot;suggesting fertility&quot; (curvy) it just brought me back to growing up in the 00&apos;s when being above 110 pounds meant you were considered fat and unattractive, to the 2010s when &quot;thicc&quot; became fashionable and everyone wanted a big butt after having mocked them for a decade &nbsp;<br><br>people never change, huh

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• HA

  @hatorigirl1202 · 2 years ago

  The idea of shifting beauty standards to unhealthy traits reminds me of &quot;heroin chic&quot;

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• PH

  @PhoenyxV · 2 years ago

  Men in 1830s fashion plates got a full on Barbie silhouette going on.

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• CU

  @CuleChick11 · 1 year ago

  Its oddly comforting that &quot;Everyone Freaked Out about Everything&quot; is a repeating historical cycle and not a new thing.

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• BC

  @bcase5328 · 2 years ago

  Fainting, they failed to account for smoke, pollution, and leaking gas as a contributing trigger.

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• AE

  @aeolia80 · 2 years ago (edited)

  For those that may be on the fence of believing Nicole about how bad TB is still in the world, I have lived on 3 continents so far in my life, one major move was to Kansas, yes, Kansas in the US, before I moved I was advised to get a TB test done (at the time it was this injection under the skin in the hand and if you had a reaction you had TB), I had the same procedure done 2 years later when I moved back home to California. Then 10 years later I moved to Korea, and I was required by the government to have a digital x-ray done when I first arrived then every other year for my particular visa to check for TB, then 5 years after that I fully immigrated to France and again for my particular visa the government required I have a digital x-ray done to check for TB. TB is extremely contagious and there are strains that are antibiotic resistant, so it makes sense these governments would check for it.

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• WI

  @Wildemoonacres · 2 years ago

  During the holocaust if you were in a camp or ghetto that had a TB outbreak you got a certain number or symbol tattooed on your arm by your is number. Then when people were freed or got out they still had issues finding housing or passage on boats because of that extra marking. <br>My Oma and Hupa tried to get out and come to America 8 times and finally got boat passage for all four of them and were about to be turned away because my Hupa had that additional marking on his ID number. But they were warned that it was being checked so my oma and Hupa went into the bathroom and he lifted his skin and she cut his tattoo out of his forearm with her sewing scissors.

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• SE

  @SewlockHolmes · 2 years ago

  As soon as I heard that part in John Green&apos;s video, I was like &quot;someone hook him up with the CosTube community!&quot; I&apos;m glad you&apos;re addressing this and I hope the folks over at Complexly hear about it.

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• SW

  @sweetpotatfry9001 · 2 years ago

  The &quot;scientific&quot; pictures of the scrunched up organs of women who wear corsets always crack me up because our organs shrink and shift when we are pregnant. What do they think a woman&apos;s lungs and intestines look like when she&apos;s 9 months pregnant? Pregnancy messes up your internal organs more than any clothing.

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• FE

  @fernandagonzalez2019 · 2 years ago

  I watched John Green’s video and cried out your name and Bernadette’s

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• AC

  @acecat2798 · 2 years ago

  Like most people, I watched John Green&apos;s video and thought it was pretty good except for the 19th c fashion part. I think that attributing fashion emphasizing a small waist to the romanticization of TB is a gross oversimplification. Elizabethans didn&apos;t romanticize TB, and their fashion tends to emphasize a long, flat, thin torso for women. Early 19th century Regency people did tend to romanticize TB (see: the death of John Keats), and their fashion doesn&apos;t focus on the waist at all. <br>The idea that higher hemlines were what made shoes an article of fashion (and that this is only due to TB romanticization) just doesn&apos;t click with the timelines. We have many ornate shoes from long before the 19th century-- 18th century Europe loved dainty shoes and clocked stockings, for example.<br>Green is right to call out how absolutely awful it was that Victorians romanticized TB-- a miserable and deadly illness. And he&apos;s right that we need to pay more attention to the history of health and disease, and stop acting like TB is a solved problem. But the romanticization wasn&apos;t the cause of all things fashion-- that&apos;s an answer that relies on stereotypes about the Victorians, which doesn&apos;t hold up to much scrutiny.

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