Jaimie Brasier

Jaimie Brasier is one of those women that you feel automatically taken aback by—but for all the right reasons. Upon first getting to know the fiery vixen, one can’t help but be inspired by her self-confidence and sense of self worth. But, like all of us, Jaimie’s confidence hasn’t always been there. Being victim of childhood bullying taught her to be resilient, and to grow in the face of adversity; a history of dating the wrong ones has taught her which one will be right; a life of ups and downs has taught her that it’s okay to live through the shit to acknowledge the good; and a soulful bond with her good friend and now business-partner has allowed her to spread all that is good to anyone that might need it.

I sat down with Jaimie to talk life, love, mental health and, of course, living cute.

Let’s start off by talking about We Are Living Cute, which you’ve started with your friend Lori last year. Your community has gone from strength to strength and is really pushing forward this notion of self love and self care. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Basically the whole reason we wanted to create We Are Living Cute in the first place is just to create a platform for self love, empowerment, and just to make people feel good—that’s really all we wanted to do. It’s started to turn into something more than that which is pretty exciting! But the basis of it is just to make other people feel good about themselves, because everyone deserves to feel good. We just live in this society where everyone’s just so goddamn mean to each other all the time and it makes no sense. Especially women—women are so harsh on each other all the time, like regardless of what size you are—it’s horrible. So we just wanted to go against the grain a little bit and just create a safe, happy space for people to feel good.

You’ve now held a few events as well—the original picnic event, then the ‘Every Body Is A Bikini Body’ beach day, and then your latest one which was the workout and fitness day—how did that one go?

Controversial! No, it really wasn’t, but we weren’t sure how it was going to be received. That one was our first go at having a ticketed event…because we had a personal trainer and also [someone] doing some yoga and wellness, stretching, there was all this food provided…it was definitely a huge learning curve for us. I think we had around 15 girls in total…it was really well received once again, but I think it was interesting because this idea of self love, people often leave out the wellness and exercise side of things. [Almost like] if you love yourself, you don’t need to do that, which I just think is total crap because, at the end of the day, it’s about being the best version of yourself—whatever that looks like. 

I think it’s just really important to introduce the idea of that being possible to people. They might think that as soon as you’re a certain size or you go to the gym or go to these places for “fitness”, that you’re instantly judged because you’re not fit. It’s this funny double-edged sword where people tell you that you’re fat and you need to work out, but then when you go, you feel instantly judged—like look at that fat girl working out! You can’t win, so I think that lots of people are really uncomfortable with this idea of exercising in general. I think it’s important to make people feel comfortable and that it is a possibility, and it’s not for everyone [but we want to show] that at least it’s possible. There were some girls there that loved going to the gym and were really into it, and there were those that don’t so much…but it was all really positive. 

We’ve learnt a lot from hosting our events and what our community wants and what they are like, so it’s going to help us develop things further.

And you’re currently working on a podcast…

Yeah! So look, we did record our first episode a while ago, but we’re just re-thinking what we want it to be about. We Are Living Cute has changed so much in the last six months—it’s something that is constantly evolving and we want to make sure that the podcast is relevant and not just us talking. So, there is one in the works—it is coming. We are going to really commit to it once the photoshoot is done, which is our next big project.  

Let’s talk about this photoshoot, because it is a brilliant idea! Tell me the reason behind the shoot and the process that it’s taken from when you first thought of the idea until now.

I’ve been a photographer for a long time—I’ve photographed a tonne of different bodies, different people so, for me, I always look at ads and things in the media and I know a lot of the behind-the-scenes processes. [I saw this] one particular ad—it was a Target ad. I’m not sure how old it was, but it was posted the day I got frustrated about it and, basically, it was saying that target were extending their bra sizes, that they were now going up to a size 26—fantastic! But the women in this picture—there were like six or seven models—and they were all between a size 10-16. I just thought to myself okay, that’s nice that they have size 16 models, that’s great! And then I looked at the caption of the image and it was saying [how] they now supplied bras catered to every body…and that really pissed me off. 

The reason that annoyed me so much is, how can they be so excited that they’re extending their size and your cup ranges, and then the models that they actually feature are not representative [of that]? The body types that they were showing in these images are basically already represented everywhere. All brands pretty much go up to a size 16. For me, looking at this, I just thought that was such crap. Why would you not show a really happy size 20 woman, or someone who isn’t normally pictured? They’re the ones that drop money on bras, because it costs $100 to get a good bra that actually supports a size 20DD. Why couldn’t they actually represent the people that they were wanting to sell to?

That started the main train of thought of I could do so much better…That’s where this idea of the photoshoot came from, to act as a fuck you to these brands that say that they cater to large sizes but never actually represent them.

I [said to Lori that] we need to do this shoot, as close as we can, of every body. Because that is not every body. She was instantly really passionate about that too. We thought that the best thing to start with was to engage our community and the people in it to see who’d be interested in being part of something like that. Whilst we had a lot of people we could ask, we wanted people to be involved that were as passionate about it as we were and not just because they were asked to do it. We put out a casting call and were amazed by how wild it went! The response was insane. I think within two days we had around 150 responses and we had quite a diverse range of women contact us. We did specifically have to get more women of colour because it is so important to us for a range of bodies and people to be represented—so women of colour, people who aren’t able-bodied, people who you wouldn’t necessarily see on advertising campaigns—we did have to target those markets. The response was insane.

That’s awesome! And the lingerie that you all will be wearing on the day, you contacted brands…

Yeah, so the idea was we wanted to mimic this [shoot], so have women in lingerie—obviously for a bit of shock factor, I suppose too. It’s potentially going to be bodies and people that you might not be used to seeing in lingerie—but we want to normalise it, because it is normal. We wanted them to be in lingerie. 

Because we had such great feedback from people wanting to be involved, we thought what’s the harm in contacting brands that actually preach inclusivity and who cater to a wide range of bodies and see if they want to be involved. So we contacted quite a large number of lingerie companies—both Australian and international—and we’ve had a pretty amazing response. We’ve got about 8 brands so far, all donating 2-3 sets each for the shoot, all in the models’ specific sizing. Brava, for example, is one of the brands that has gotten involved and the two models that they’re catering for, they got to [go] in for proper fittings. 

It’s just been a really amazing response from some of these brands. We’re not a big company, we don’t have a huge media following, but obviously they can see what we’re doing and they want to be part of it as well and I think that’s amazing.  

I think one thing that has stood out to me is yourself and Lori coming out saying that We Are Living Cute isn’t just for females, and that’s a really important message. You’ve made it very well know that it is a community for everyone, no matter who you are or what you identify as. Even though we are living in a much more inclusive world, people are still not being treated the way that they should be treated because they don’t identify as “the norm”.

I love that the two of you are trying to break that norm and bring people out of their shells, because it can be quite confronting for some people.

I often refer to our community as ‘women’ but, in reality, Lori and I work pretty hard to be inclusive—women, non-binary, trans—whatever people identify as, we try to make them feel like they’re part of something. With the shoot that we’re doing, we do have some people who do identity as non-binary, we’ve got a trans woman. We want to make it clear that, we may use terms like girl gang and things like that—which is a really hard thing for me to break because, to me, it’s such a cute idea of being part of something…

But it’s powerful as well!

It’s really sometimes hard to break gendered-words and gendered-phrases that we use, but [this community] is definitely for everybody. 

In terms of [inclusivity], we want that to be clear across all of our social media channels. I think it’s really hard to please everyone, especially on social media, and Lori and I are not perfect—we’re always going to say things that may not relate to everybody and that may not feel inclusive to everybody but we do really try. Like everyone else, we’ve been trained by society to think a certain way of what male and female is, and genders and whatnot. We’re trying to break those molds for ourselves, just as much for other people.

It’s all learnt behaviour, that’s how we’ve been brought up. I had a couple of people have a bit of a go at me recently on my personal social media page. On Instagram I posted a whole bunch of girls that I, at that time, wanted to show some love for—these people are amazing. I maybe posted 25 people, and let’s say maybe six or seven of those were women of colour—not intentional, no thought or tact behind it. I had a number of people call me out…and it really caught me off guard. Number one, I didn’t even think about it; I probably should’ve thought about it. But, at the same time, where do you draw the line with being authentic and genuine and putting some love out into the world, and then having to curate what you post? 

You shouldn’t feel like you have to fill a quota. 

Exactly! You don’t want to fill a quota of people or feel like you are including token people to be like look how inclusive I am? No one is perfect. People are really, really quick to point these things out—I even got called a white supremacist in this conversation that this girl was having with me. What she was saying was that I’m a terrible feminist as well. I’ve never claimed to be a feminist—of course I am a feminist, but I don’t post that sort of content. Even We Are Living Cute doesn’t necessarily post that sort of content. Really, what we are, is a message of self love and inclusivity—that’s pretty much what we want to achieve.

Because I said that I’ve never claimed to be anything, she said oh, so you’re a white supremacist then. This is what it’s come to—there’s this very fine line of being yourself and being authentic, whilst still constantly thinking about everyone and what people are going to think of you. Like I was saying before, Lori and I aren’t perfect. We try and, yes, we need to learn more and there’s always room for education and growth but man, people are so harsh to each other.

You’ve got to pick your battles…it’s all about intention—I’m not specifically posting white cis women just because they are white cis women and that’s all I like. It’s nothing to do with that. I was like wow, I feel empowered by this person, not thinking about the colour of their skin or what gender they identify as, just that they are amazing.

People don’t think about the intent behind a post or why someone’s done something, and if they did, it’s hard to know. 

You can’t please everyone, and I think that’s something that Lori and I have learnt with We Are Living Cute as well. We’ll get called out for not posting enough women of colour, even though we make a valiant effort to be super inclusive on that page. We get called out for not making enough feminist statements. It’s one of those things: if you say nothing, no one will criticise you, but as soon as you say something, you’re going to be criticised.

I don’t shy away from saying things that I believe in online, I’ll always be very much myself, but I just think that it is one of those topics that—regardless of what you say—you are wrong; whether that’s to people who don’t believe in feminism, or whether that’s people who call themselves feminists but then criticise sex workers. There are so many differences of opinion within the feminist community…where do you draw the line of what is feminist and what isn’t? 

The correlation between mental health issues and social media, let’s discuss that, because I feel like even the strongest of minds can and would be affected by that.

It’s so easy for us to show these perfectly curated lives and feeds on social media, and I know that I do it myself. There’s particular people that I follow, and I’m like fuck, their lives look so good! I wish that I could live my life overseas half the year, I wish that my ass looked that good in those jeans. There’s so much room to criticise yourself based on what we see in the world around us, and I think it’s important to just take a step back and just realise that we are our own worst enemy; we are the ones putting pressure on ourselves. Society has definitely taught us to think and feel certain things but, at the end of the day, we’re the ones who enforce that. 

It’s about changing those sort of thoughts and behaviours to positively impact yourself, and to actually take the time and figure out what works for you and what makes you feel better.

You come across as someone who is very sure of themselves. When you do post, is there a large thought process that goes into it or do you just post whatever you feel like, whenever you feel like?

Everyone has their on and off days, and I think that it’s important to—even on your off days—appreciate yourself. Instagram obviously gives a lot of gratification, whether that’s through comments or likes or someone telling you that you’ve inspired them. I try to avoid posting when I feel shit to purely put things up for that reason, because I never want it to be like I’m only putting this up to be validated. I validate myself, I don’t need anyone [giving me that validation]. Sometimes [I post things because] I’m like I look real damn good or it’s because I’m trying to put a certain message across—so it might be a caption that I’ve written or a rant story that I do; I do them relatively often. 80% of the time I’m posting with purpose and the rest of it is just because it looks good, or I’m like yeah, I look hot. Because, you know what, that’s fine too!

I think everyone has their own reasons for the content that they post, and even if someones Instagram is merely I’m hot, that’s fine too. Whatever. Own it, just be honest about the reasons that you’re putting those messages out there. 

I like to create content for me, but also more recently because I’ve realised that it does make a lot of people feel good. I get a lot of messages about how I’m helping people change their confidence and that sort of thing, which is crazy because I’m just a girl in a bikini sometimes. It’s no big deal, but for some people it really is. 

I’ve been on dates where [people] have brought up [my following]…and it’s almost like a selling point. I’d still post the same stuff whether I had no followers, 100,000 or a million—it doesn’t matter, I’d still be the exact same person. I think it’s really bizarre that that’s even a thing. A friend of mine, she’s a Suicide Girl, and she has over a million followers—doesn’t make her any less of a person or any different. It’s bizarre, our focus on followers and likes and all of that.

And it’s unfortunate because we do live in that society where we are validated by these things…

Totally. I’m not going to lie—sometimes I’m like, yeah, there’s fifteen thousand people or sixteen thousand people who like me. That’s cool! But most of the time, it doesn’t actually matter. 

But, in saying that, I also use this for business purposes too; the more followers you have, the more people you’re reaching, the more they are seeing your message. 

And the confidence you portray online—have you always had it? Because obviously it’s coming from a genuine place and you are very raw and honest in your messages, whether it is during the rants on your stories or your captions.

To be honest, no. I’m actually the biggest and the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. I remember, before I moved to Canada—so maybe four or five years ago—I was pretty confident, I was in a good place, but I also thought that I was way too big. Looking back now, that was 20 kilos ago and I’m happier than I was then. I think that, when it comes to confidence, it’s something that you do have to work on. For some people, it just is there. Most people, we have to actually try to remind ourself that we are valued and that we are worthy of love and that we are great however we are.

As much as I love my parents, ’til this day, they still criticise me physically. The way that you’re bought up and the messages that you’re told from a young age still deeply affect you and it definitely does for me. Being a fat kid—I mean, I’ve had bricks thrown at my head…

Are you fucking kidding me?

No, that was my primary school and high school experiences. I was bullied like crazy. I’m 5’11—I was probably that height from Grade 5. I’ve always been tall, I’ve always been bigger than the other kids and, yeah, I’ve had bricks thrown at my head, tanbark, everyone surrounding me throwing shit at me. I think it’s one of those things that, yeah, it’s still in the back of my mind. Even until this day, I still think about those things and sometimes it makes me feel pretty shit, but I think that [these experiences] make you stronger and adversity really helps to you develop and grow as a person. 

For me, this confidence thing is still pretty new. I think, if you look back at my Instagram for the last 4 or 5 years, there’s a lot of content that might appear like I’m quite confident but I was definitely posting for not the right reasons. I wanted validation, I needed it. Whereas now, it’s not about that—I could care less. I’ve gotten more hate in the last [year] on my feed than I ever have, but I’ve also gotten way more love than I ever have. 

Confidence is something that you have to grow and develop, and I think surrounding yourself with other women—or people, it doesn’t have to be women—who make you feel really good and accepted, helps tenfold. That’s why Lori, for me, is the best person to [do We Are Living Cute] with. She is an amazing human, she’s just the most positive person that I’ve ever met. She’s really real, really honest, really genuine and I think that she keeps me in check. 

With these hateful comments, if you don’t mind me asking—what sort of comments are you receiving and how do you go about coping with them? I can only imagine that it would be quite difficult, even if you are someone who acts quite tough and says that you don’t care. 

Are the comments generally from men or women or both?

Most of the time—and I definitely don’t receive as much hate online as other people I know…it’s only really been since I’ve started posting more controversial photos of my body—more of my rolls, more of my stretch marks…

I hate that you had to say that these things are “controversial”…

But it is, though! Those are the pictures that get the comments. 

It is mostly men [that leave hateful comments]. I had this one account, when I was in Bali, that created multiple accounts to keep posting negative shit about me. It was really bizarre. But usually it’s comments about my body and that I shouldn’t be preaching that this is okay; that I’m advocating that it’s okay to be fat and obese and all of this sort of nonsense. 

I think it is fine for everyone to have their opinion and have their preference of what they like, but it doesn’t give anyone else any right to comment on someone else’s body—it’s literally nothing to do with them. So yeah, I would say that it’s mostly men and it’s mostly just negative comments about the way that I look and that I shouldn’t be promoting what I’m promoting. 

One of my favourite sayings is: what other people think of you is none of your fucking business; whether that’s people who are close to you or people who don’t know you at all. I’ve really tried to live by that recently because it just makes life so much easier. I can’t change other peoples perceptions of me, I can only change the way I react. For those things, what’s the point in even firing back? Just delete it, see ya later—you’re not worth the cramp in my thumbs to [reply] back to you. 

What do self love and self care mean to you, and how do you practice them?

There are small ways for self care, and then there are bigger ways to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. For me, small things like being in bed with Netflix is a real way for me to just zen out and take care of me. Also going out and taking walks—I love being out in nature, it makes me feel really refreshed. I love road trips and travel. 

I think, recently, more of the self care that I’ve been doing is figuring out what direction I want my life to go in. When I say that, I mean things like cutting toxic people out of my life that don’t add value and make me question myself, that sort of thing. It’s really hard to do but it’s something that I’ve been focusing on a lot because it’s really easy to have a lot of people around you, but sometimes it’s not about having those people around, it’s about what you can do for them. It’s just not how I roll. I’m not here to be anything but genuine and I want those sort of people around me as well. That’s more large scale self care that I’ve been doing.

I’m still trying to figure out the best ways to care for myself and I think that it’s always a journey. It doesn’t really stop, it’s always developing. Right now, it’s just about what feels good. I’m not concerned about being at the gym six days a week or doing things that people think I should be doing—I don’t care about doing what anyone else thinks I should be doing, I’m just doing what’s good for me and what’s healthy for me.

You’re doing you.

Yeah, absolutely. Mental health is my main focus at the moment, because I have been through a bit of a rough patch the last two years and, yeah, that’s working well for me.

Sometimes you just have to live in the shit: these motions and these feelings, just own them and accept them, instead of pretending like everything is fine. It’s better to cry it out and be like today, I fucking hate everything, then to pretend like everything is fine.

I think being able to key into your own intuition and know what’s best for you is a really important thing, because what might be good for one won’t necessarily be good for the other. 

I think it’s also a big learning curve. When we’re younger, you know, we do things because we feel like we have to, we hang out with people because we think we want to. But then there comes a time where we really start to trust our gut instinct and we figure out how to weed through all that crap.

You spoke before about cutting out toxic people—how and when did you decide that enough was enough?

There was someone who I really cared about in my life—well, there’s been a couple in the past couple of years to be honest…I’m really prone to being a fixer. I put a lot of energy into making a lot of other people happy—which is not a bad thing and I wouldn’t change that about myself, but I choose the wrong people to give that energy to. So, [somewhat] recently there’s been a scenario where I was really close with and, yeah, almost felt like she was a sister to some degree—I’ve just had to let go and cut all ties with her. It was partly her choice as well. But yeah, for me that was a big step because it really broke my heart. I feel like it was almost worse than when my engagement ended…the end of that friendship was really tough. But, when I go back and think about it, it’s made me realise that you can’t force anyone to see your value. You have to be able to stop and say I’ve done everything that I can and this is not adding any more value to my life, it’s just making me unhappier because there’s nothing that I can do. Cutting [her] out of my life sort of started a chain reaction where I realised my own self worth and how I deserve to be treated—that’s in relationships, friendships, by my family. I’ve been a lot more vocal with, even my parents, when they’ve said something that I don’t feel is right or that’s upset me. I think it’s important to communicate how you’re actually feeling instead of pretending that things are fine. If people don’t know that they’ve done something wrong, how are they supposed to change it? 

I want to touch on the whole dating scene, because you and I are very much in the same boat—single life, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I know that we both hate going on dates. Well, for the most part…

I think it just depends on what kind of person you are. So for me, I have a lot of friends who really love meeting new people, having sex with new people, going out and being promiscuous—absolutely all power to them. That makes me feel quite empty. I am a bit promiscuous at times but, for me, dating is really about building an actual connection with someone that I want to be around—so whether that’s friendship or a relationship, I don’t go into dating expecting them to be my boyfriend.

It’s really tough because you put so much work into getting to know someone, chatting to someone and, for whatever reason, that doesn’t work out. At the end of the day, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and people come into your life for a lot of different things. 

I’m not going to settle for someone who I don’t have feelings for. Physical attraction is important but it’s not the be all and end all. I would never choose my friends based on the way that they look and I would never do it with a partner either—that’s not what I look for in my human connection.

It’s tough out there. It’s hard to know what people want unless we communicate. We’re in this generation where the grass is always greener, and I’ve been guilty of that too. 

I’m on the Tinder…I am. I don’t use it well enough, but it’s just because I’m not interested. I hate dating. Like, the idea of forced conversation, it doesn’t interest me. If I want something to happen, I want it to be in the way of you’re a dope person, I’m a dope person—let’s be dope together. 

I also love myself. Like, I’m so in love with myself and my own time that the idea of having someone disrupt that is petrifying to me. I’m my own worst enemy but I don’t hate that.

I remember reading something along the lines of If you want to be with me, you’re basically in competition with myself because I have to value hanging out with you more than I value hanging out with me. 

Yep, that pretty much hits the nails right on the head.

And see, I’ve never had a proper relationship. There are a few reasons for that but, more than anything, I think that I’ve just become so comfortable in my own skin and in my own space that the idea of disrupting that just…yeah, it would take a very special person.

I think there’s a lot more pressure being this age, though. I don’t know about you but all my friends are getting married, they’re starting to have kids, and that’s sort of been the last few years. And now I’ve started seeing this year that they’ve started to get divorced, and it’s sort of like things come full circle. That’s not to say that everyone is going to get divorced, but it just shows that it’s not worth jumping into a relationship with maybe someone that you don’t know that well, just because you feel pressured to have the grandkids for your parents. We’re in that age group where people are either saying fuck that or I need that. [You and I] are sort of in the middle peaking over saying eh, that looks okay or that looks alright too…