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A woman who goes by Chè Monique glides through a lake in Northern Virginia, occasionally whipping her long “tail” behind her to splash at the water’s surface.
The Northern Virginia woman makes it look natural, capturing the mythical creature’s essence, but a lot of grit goes into being a professional mermaid.
For one, that silicon performance tail is skin tight and weighs 40 pounds — a haul when she’s on land. The transformation from woman to “mermaid” can take 15 minutes and sometimes leads to a hand cramp, she said.
“It’s just like, you’re living your childhood dream,” Monique said.
Monique performs and models as a mermaid, along with teaching classes. She’s also the founder of a local business called “The Society of Fat Mermaids.”
“Everybody is always welcome to hang out with us, but we just center fat folks,” Monique told WTOP.
The group will meet up in the D.C. region to swim and craft plus-sized mermaid gear.
“There’s just this acceptance, we’re all a bunch of nerds just here having fun,” Monique said. “You can’t take yourself too seriously in a mermaid tail. And there’s something liberating about that.”
Her goal is for that liberation to open up people’s minds.
“I’m always like, look, if I can be in a mermaid tail, you can take that salsa class or whatever it is for you,” she said.
At times, she said she’s grappled with justifying her profession when “horrific things are going on.” But she hopes her mermaiding can help move things in a positive direction.
“I do think increasing that imagination and bringing whimsy and maybe opening up and stimulating different synapses in people’s brains will help what’s going on,” she said. “Because we do need to start thinking about things differently.”
The life of a working mermaid
Monique has appeared on the Netflix show “MerPeople” and made a splash on social media with her content centered around self love, diversity and body positivity. She has about half a million followers online.
Many of her mermaid posts include affirmations; one recent video opens with Monique telling the audience, “You are so very loved.”
“I try to give people the biggest hug I can through my social media pages,” she told WTOP.
That’s gained her some attention.
“This woman walked up to me crying,” Monique said, as she recounted a moment from a festival in Maryland last weekend. “She’s like, ‘You’re so beautiful. And I’m seeing how beautiful I am.’ And I get messages like that quite regularly.”
Those types of interactions can be a contrast to her “day job” as a massage therapist.
“One minute, I’m a service worker and the next minute, somebody is crying to have met me,” she said.
The fame has led to some pushback. Some social media users have accused her of trying to glorify obesity.
“I’m acknowledging the fact that there are fat people and that they’re shamed in every ounce of the world. We’re told to shrink and we’re told to hide. For me, this isn’t telling people, ‘Hey, gain weight,’ but it’s just like you as you are, are worthy of love and celebration, and you don’t need to hate yourself into changing or anything like that,” she said.
Monique plans to expand the Society of Fat Mermaids to have formal membership this year. She’s got big goals for her future performances, too.
“My ultimate dream, I want a Vegas mermaid showcase,” she told WTOP. “I want an almost Cirque du Soleil, throwback, ’50s style, just aquatic experience. … Along the way, I just want to touch and help as many people as possible and put smiles on folks’ faces.”
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