Why is everyone is losing their minds over Beyonce’s F(at) U(pper) P(ubic) A(rea)?

#Trending.

Welcome to our new column. Here we’re going to unpack trending topics and explore how amazing or ridiculous they are – as well as why they came to be #trending in the first place.

Let’s start with Beyonce’s FUPA, shall we?

The first question you may ask is WTF is a FUPA, and that’s a fairly legitimate question to have.

So, basically every journalist in town read Beyonce’s Vogue interview, gasped audibly when they thought about how many #clix it would garner them that day, then immediately Googled ‘FUPA Urban Dictionary’.

Ok, yes, fine. That was me.

But before we get to the definition of FUPA, I’m going to take you back to the start of all this #trending FUPA malarkey.

A few days ago, my feed became overwhelmed with the news of Rihanna’s questionably thin eyebrows on the cover of British Vogue. Queen B was having none of that, so within hours US Vogue released Bey’s much-hyped September issue interview so that she could bury all the news of Rihanna in the ashes of social media. (I blame those 2005 rumours about Jay’s affair with Rih Rih. Bey is definitely the grudge-holding type.)

Anyway, back to Bey’s cover. It was basically the same as Rihanna’s, sans the ’00s oh-god-what-did-I-do eyebrows (YES I SAID IT, THE COVERS LOOK THE SAME), but the issue contained one single nugget of amazingness…

BEYONCE LOVES HER F(AT) U(PPER) P(UBIC) A(REA).

“Whenever I’m ready to get a six-pack, I will go into beast zone and work my ass off until I have it,” the divine mother of all feminists said, handing down the Lemonade gospel. “But right now, my little FUPA and I feel like we are meant to be.”

Ok… cool. That’s lovely. Beyonce accepts her body for what it is: a body that grew and birthed two friggin’ babies at once and maybe looks a teeny amount larger post-event. But I guess I want to know one thing – WHY IS EVERYONE LOSING THEIR MINDS ABOUT THIS?

Firstly, Queen Bey is by no means the first famous woman to preach to us about body acceptance. It’s an important message, yes, but don’t we all know it intimately by now? Can’t we recite this by heart? And doesn’t it continue to evade us as we bitch to our friends about how we’ve been to six Barre classes this week AND GOD DAMN IT I STILL DON’T LOOK LIKE A SUPERMODEL WTF.

We’re all getting played, according to my husband. He knows nothing about Beyonce TBH, but let’s humour him for the sake of argument and listen to a straight white man’s point of view for once. (JK, we always listen to them because #society hahaha oh god).

Hot husband take: Beyonce never talks to the press. So when she finally speaks, everyone loses their shit and pretends like it’s the most important thing that has ever been said. It’s like she’s the stoic, wise mother hen, handing the hoards of parched Beyonce-lovers sage advice like a $10,000 glass of Lemonade after an executive desert sauna.

[Yes, that WAS a Beyonce / Arrested Development mixed metaphor, thanks for coming.]

It makes sense. We won’t tell him (please don’t), but he’s probably got a point; the endless silence from the Bey camp does leave us begging for any small amount of Bey news. I mean, have you ever noticed that she doesn’t even caption her Instagram posts? What is with that? WE NEED YOUR LOVE / NEWS KWEEN OF THE FLOWER CROWNS.

Meh. Me and my FUPA – which I unwillingly accepted longggggg before this whole Bey situation, BTW – are sauntering back to the dark corners of the internet, only to emerge in five more years when she utters a single sentence to a reporter on the Met Gala red carpet.

See you then, folks!

Follow Bianca’s FUPA at @_thesecondrow or listen to her podcast @thefashionpodcast.