The story of Caitlin & Candy... and how it all went viral. (In a good way)

Welcome all new readers to I Feel Delicious - a blog dedicated to encouraging women to feel great about who they are and what makes them unique. This is the official story about Caitlin, her message, and the woman who helped her through it.

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So Caitlin's story went viral and we are all kinda in a whirl-wind. For those of you who do not know, Caitlin is an Eye Candy Girl for Terri Jean... and actually, that is where this story began.

In 2007, Terri Jean realized she had a knack for photographing women. She practiced on friends, friends of friends, and even her own grown daughters. She loved it. Those she practiced with loved it too, and many stuck with her as her career grew.

After hearing a man refer to women as Eye Candy (in a leery, creepy way) she decided to take back the term and use it to refer to women who look at themselves and feel beautiful. Her tagline, "Every woman should FEEL delicious." was born.

In 2009 Terri Jean had a studio, and there she me the lovely Caitlin. The two quickly became close friends.

Actually, Caitlin is the one who came up with the clever term "Women of all flavors" to describe the Eye Candy Girls, who are all shapes, sizes, ages, and personal styles.

Terri Jean was working on projects pertaining to female empowerment and personal love.Caitlin joined one such project, posing as Marilyn for the  Marilyn Monroe & Me Project that exhibited in 2010. Her project photo is below. Love the photo!

And she started dressing up and attending Eye Candy and other events.

At an event in 2009

With hubby at the  May Ball 2010

 Caitlin joined Eye Candy Girls, who are not only promotional models, but they also work to inspire women to love who they are and embrace their bodies.  She was fearless, empowered and ballsy. Here's a few of her recent modeling shots for Terri Jean (2013).

Today Caitlin continues her Eye Candy work and message of female acceptance and self love.

A 2013 event with 2 fellow Eye Candy Girls

 So, as you can see, when the viral photo happened, it was the exact opposite of the work the Eye Candy Girls had done since the groups founding. And it took down this charming little lass who worked so hard to build her self-esteem, and get to a place where she loved herself as she was, not giving a rats ass what anyone else thought.

Actually, Caitlin was working with Terri Jean the day the Tomb Raider photo was taken. Cailtin was full of confidence and was having a great time. She didn't shy away from her photo being snapped, nor sharing it with friends and family on facebook.Yes she was sweaty and red faced and being goofy... but she was having fun and it really shows in the photograph.

A few years (and a baby for Caitlin) later, the now infamous photo went viral. It knocked this wonderfully free-spirited mother off her feet. At first she laughed at herself, as only a self-loving person could do. She spoke up on one the Facebook "funny" page, admitting it WAS an unflattering outfit, but she felt good that day and was able to see the humor in it. But as the insults kept coming in, her sense of humor (and self esteem) started to crumble.

Here's some snippets of what folks were saying that FIRST day the photo went viral. You can see the page that posted it, as well as the person who made the comments. I am NOT blocking out their names. This is exactly what was posted in a public forum. Read for yourself. Mind you.. this is day 1. Before she started telling folks she was a real person. That's when people got REAL nasty.

 This comment is wonderfully appropriate.

Hey look! A nice person! They're rare on these pages.

 I wonder if Angelica is laughing it up now?! Doesn't feel so good, now does it?

Notice that the above cyber bully said the page was created to hate! They are there to purposely mock and cyber-hate other people, Is this honestly what the internet has done to this generation???

Caitlin called Terri Jean, who had paralegal training, asking what she should do. The two agreed to fight back and devised a plan of action. 1. Make a Cease Publication notice (see below), citing, citing the DMCA law. 2. Locate a means of contacting all the malicious sites. 2. Send the notice to each and ever one. 3. Send a notice to some of the folks who were writing their nasty cyber-hating comments, calling them out for being assholes. 4. Repeat as many times as needed.

My name is Caitlin Seida and you have published a photograph of me,
noted here (insert the webpage), that violates DMCA.

This letter is official notification under the provisions of
Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”)
to effect removal of the above-reported infringements. I request that
you immediately remove my image. If you do not remove the image I
will request your service provider to “expeditiously remove or disable
access to” the infringing photographs upon receiving this notice.
Noncompliance may result in a loss of immunity for liability under the DMCA.

The material was not authorized by me, the copyright holder, or the law.
I swear under penalty of perjury that I am the copyright holder.

Please send me at the address noted below a prompt response
indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter.

Sincerely,

Caitlin Seida

Most of the sites took down the photos. Some with apologies, other without.


Then there was memecenter.com who responded with the following:

"Hi Caitlin

I removed the subject picture, in fact we don't give a shit about DMCA but removed it for you.
Very sorry about the problem"

OOOKAAAAY.

As to the letters to the cyber-haters directly, not one apologized.  They honestly did not care that the actual person in that photograph was a true person who was hurt by their words, nor did they care that the photo was supposed to be on her PRIVATE Facebook page and not meant for public display. They also didn't care that they were breaking the law they shared it onto their page.

This card was sent out on Caitlin's behalf. They didn't care about this either.






What they WERE upset over was that the women could see THEIR comments to Caitlin's photos. They said their Facebook was set on private and how the heck did we see what they wrote? Apparently, they don't know that once they comment, share of LIKE, anyone can see everything. All of it. 

So Caitlin and her sidekick worked on getting this off the internet... but to no avail. It just kept spreading. And the comments were more and more terrible. She was told to do the world a favor and kill herself... not just once but many, many times.


Want to see more? How about the highly popular Epic Fail. Oh yes, this one is STILL up. They don't care a bit about anyone's feelings... as long as it's funny, right? Well here we'll share what your readers had to say about this photo.

Thanks Wise Fool!

Not all are haters. Thank you (to the nice ones... not you meanies)

Did you notice Caitlin's funny comment??? She had a great sense of humor about all this... in the very beginning.

Posted online September 18, 2013

Of course..... It eventually got to her.

There's just so much of this a person can take. It was a disease of cruelty, mockery and community-approved cyber-hatred  that spread from page to page... person to person. It was out there. And it seemed like EVERYONE seen it.

Caitlin was a mess - understandably - but she focused on a solution rather than the problem.

Terri Jean, a writer, kept urging Caitlin, also a writer, to tell her story. To share how the experience made her feel publicly. It was taking back her power, AND the photograph that started it all.







(Not so) Funny thing is, while she was writing the article, this came through one of the Facebook feeds.   ----------->>




But during all this, Caitlin continued with Eye Candy. THIS photo was also published online a few months prior to the above one hitting the rounds again.

Gorgeous! And it was PUBLISHED on-line at Pinuppost.com !!!

So Caitlin wrote the story and... well the rest if history. There has been such an incredible amount of support and public attention for this piece... it's a bit overwhelming. Caitlin has been interviewed for radio and on-line news sources such as Yahoo, both appeared on a Columbus Ohio TV news program, and the story is gaining more and more LIKES and TWEETS and SHARES with each passing day.

It took real courage to write the story, perhaps more so than it took to get through the cyber-bullying. Through pain came power. And now she'll use the public attention to emPOWER others!

But to Terri Jean she'll forever be one of her girls.

And she's incredibly proud of her.

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