Matt Joseph Diaz

Matt Joseph Diaz

Bio

Matt Joseph Diaz is a public speaker and social media activist tackling the issues of body image and self love. Matt has been working in social media since the age of 15, and has a long history of creating online content for entertainment and educational purposes. Matts videos have accrued over 120 million views in countries all over the world as well as being featured in People, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, Upworthy and numerous other news websites. He now spend a lot of his time traveling and speaking on self love at conferences, colleges and public events. Matt Joseph Diaz currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.   

Matt Joseph Diaz Articles

Image: Pixabay, Katy Allison

When Did You Lose Your Virginity? WHO CARES?

I was definitely what you might consider a “late bloomer.” When I was younger, I was exceedingly shy around women and insecure about my weight, and I put no effort into my appearance whatsoever. I didn’t have a decent haircut until 2013, and even that’s debatable.

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Image Credit: Stephen Arnold via Unsplash

On Passing Privilege & Not Belonging

For a long time, passing privilege made me feel like I didn’t deserve to call myself latino.

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One of my favorite authors once said: “It is so hard to leave — until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.” Image: Thinkstock.

5 Things That Happen When You're About To Move Away

I’m uprooting my life to try something new and different in another city in another state. In the time leading up to the actual move, I’ve found that a bunch of weird fucking shit (for lack of a better term) has showed up out of nowhere.

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Don't be Krabby. Image: Ian Anderson

Your Disinterest In Things Doesn't Make You Cool Or Mature

Those who would find themselves genuinely excited about simple, fun things are often written off as losers with nothing better to do, while the jaded pat themselves on the back for how mature and intelligent they so obviously are. However, the longer you look at it, the more you begin to notice that it’s quite the opposite.

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"Why do we feel that strange mixture of conflicted emotions every time we see someone we sort of know get engaged?" Image: Thinkstock

So Your Friends Are Getting Engaged, And You're Having An Existential Crisis

Between all of the political arguments and videos of dogs being excited to see their owners, I’m noticing a trend appearing all over my timeline — seemingly increasing every week. A lot of fucking people are getting engaged.

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"There is always someone who loves you. There is always someone who cares."

Mondays With Matt: Why Faith In Humanity Still Matters

"There is always someone who loves you. There is always someone who cares."

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She explained that she had been caught off-guard and had been projecting her own deeply-rooted body image issues onto me. Image: Thinkstock.

Why I Defend The Person Who Rejected Me

Once I became a body positive writer and speaker, I told the story of that night on podcasts and in interviews as an example of the sort of reaction I was afraid of prior to my video about my excess skin going viral. Every time, the interviewer made a comment about how Dana was “the ugly one,” not me. And every time, I told them I didn’t want her to be vilified or insulted.

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Your child's body is not a "problem" (Image Credit: Thinkstock)

On The Subject Of Childhood Dieting

Though it's worth noting that my weight was beginning to become a health concern, I’d never considered my body a “problem” until I heard how doctors talked about it. In the same way a hurt child won’t start to cry until he sees the worry in his parent’s face, I never felt bad about my body until the first time I felt like I was being looked at with disgust. So whatever route you decide to take with the health of a child, make sure it’s treated as a growing opportunity and not a solution to a problem. Your children are not problems — they are the foundation upon which the adults of tomorrow will be built.

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Photo credit: Emma Wondra Photography "I’m starting to worry that my friends are prettier than me."

What If My Friends Are Prettier Than Me?

From a young age, people (especially women) are constantly taught that we’re in competition with one another. Whether it’s our grades, our social status, our economic status, or those creepy beauty pageants for 6 year olds, we’re immediately thrust into a world where we’re taught to view everyone as adversarial to a certain degree.

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