Mirror

Armism in Nidia

Nidia is a country with a long and rich history. Nidians mostly have had short arms for thousands of years. Arms didn't add or subtract to one's attractiveness any more than a neck or a leg did. In fact, they didn't even consider their arms to be short; short is a relative term, and everybody they knew more or less had arms of about the same length.

Slowly, over a course of a few hundred years, a few Nidians were born with long arms - either because of random gene mutations, or marriages with long-arm people from other continents, who have settled down in Nidia to seek livelihoods or to conquer her.

Most Nidians still had short arms. Nevertheless, having long arms became a desirable feature. Something that adds to one's beauty. So much desirable that Nidians talk about it in every place and occasion.

A matrimony listing may read "Need a girl - educated, employed, kind, with long arms".

Comments like "Despite short arms, she looks pretty.", "The girl has short arms, but earns well though." are casually thrown around while discussing prospective marriage alliance.

A short-arm pregnant woman sincerely wishes her baby gets its arm-length from the long-arm father, and not herself.

People visiting a newborn offer their comments on the baby's arm length with no hesitation: "Most children appear to have long arms at birth, but we will get to know the true length only after a few months." "Check out the length of baby's ears, that will tell you if she is going to have long arms." "A friend of mine had a baby with very short arms. She bathed him with lentil soup, and tugged on his hands everyday while chanting "Long.., Long.., Long...". The baby grew up to have the longest arms in the neighborhood. Maybe you should try the same."

A company took pity on Nidians who craved long arms, and launched a cream that claimed to lengthen their arms in six weeks. They named it "Long and lovely". The TV commercial for this cream was simple: A girl has short arms. Guys don't pay attention to her. She loses her self-confidence. A loving friend introduces her to this cream. She uses it and grows long arms in six weeks. Every guy in the neighborhood ogles at her. Thus, she gets her confidence back.

Everybody in the company knew it didn't work, but they launched it anyway. They wanted to help Nidians - by selling hopes if not by solutions. Some executives in the company resigned from their jobs as they were afraid people will find out the truth in six weeks. Boy, were they wrong! "Long and lovely" became the bestselling cosmetic product in Nidia for years to come.

The company was smart enough to not get carried away by this success and sell "Long and Lovely" in countries that will rightfully be offended and ban their products. But not too smart though. They failed to fully capitalize on this craving for long arms. Their advertisements targeted women. For all the talk about gender equality and feminism, men felt left out.

Another company didn't care about helping people grow long arms. All they cared about was for men to be treated equal. They launched a cream for men to lengthen their arms, and called it "Long and handsome". They were so confident in their product that they didn't even bother to come up with a new ad. They swapped out the sad girl in the "Long and lovely" ad for a sad guy and made the girls ogle at the guy instead of guys ogling at the girl. Men no longer had to lie that it was for their sister when caught with a box of "Long and lovely". Equality was restored.

Nidians believe wishing to have long arms, or wishing to marry someone with long arms doesn't mean they think having short arms is inferior. Maybe this belief is what makes Nidians well up with tears when they see a video of a long-arm cop in a faraway country murdering a short-arm suspect, while they call their short-arm friend "Shorty".

Maybe this belief is what enables a pregnant mom to console her sad daughter that having short arms doesn't make her less pretty while taking a glass of milk with added cauliflower - something that is believed to help lengthen the baby's arm in the womb.

But hey, we Nidians don't discriminate in the name of arm-length. We have a separate system for that. We like to keep things professional, and don't mix the two.


Hi, there!

I am Thiag, developer of mobile apps Beyya, and Repeat. Nice to meet you!