the ch!cktionary

    16 Nov 2011

    Voice Of Russia | Violence Against Female Bloggers

    Following up on my post about the recent Twitter campaigns to bring awareness to gendered cyber harassment, here’s a link to a radio segment I did on the topic as part of Jamila Bey’s SPAR (Sex, Politics, and Religion) show, airing on Voice of Russia’s American outlet (AM 1390 in DC / AM 1430 in NYC). Rebecca Watson, the founder of Skepchick and co-host of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, was also a guest on the show. Rebecca discussed her own experiences with online harassment, which included a troll who was eventually arrested for making death threats against her.

    Check out the audio recording of the show at the link above.

    For related posts on online harassment, check out the “haterade” tag.

    8 Nov 2011

    Online Harassment & Misogyny On The Rise

    It’s been an eventful week for the targets of online misogyny. Just a few days ago, bloggers began tweeting under the hashtag #ThreatOfTheDay to bring awareness to the violent threats and harassment they face everyday on the Internet. Yesterday, Sady Doyle at Tiger Beatdown wrote about how she was completely blindsided by the extent of the sexism she encountered as a woman blogger:

    What I got, friends, were comments. Comments about myself. And blogs about myself. And message-board discussions, also about myself. And e-mails. What I got was what every woman (feminist or not) and openly anti-sexist person (woman or not) on this our Internet gets: I got targeted. With threats, with insults, with smear campaigns, with attempts to threaten my employment or credibility or just general ability to get through the day with a healthy attitude and a minimal amount of insult.

    She proposed a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #MenCallMeThings. (And if you click on that link, you’ll see some pretty alarming examples of how far we’ve got to go.) Though I’d agree there’s an undeniably gendered nature to many of these attacks, I find it somewhat limiting that men are being called out as perpetrators and women considered their victims. Jessica Bennett at The Daily Beast wrote a story a few days ago about how misogyny plays out on the Internet, using pro-rape Facebook pages as an example. Having received a wide range of insults (based on my race, education, gender, sexual history, etc.) in wide range of forums (email, my comments’ section, anonymous message boards, hate blogs devoted to me), I can attest that gender is not the only component at play, though it has a significant role. According to my experience and social science, the overwhelming majority of online harassers are straight, white, cisgender men, but their victims run the gamut, though they tend to be people of color, queer people, women — in other words, those who are already part of socially marginalized groups. For example, I know many men who have been called pretty nasty things by other men because of their sexual orientation, race, political views, or gender identity. If you don’t abide by the rules of the “in-group”, you’re game for attack.

    I take free speech seriously, so this is not just a case of some sensitive chicks not being able to take criticism. I deal with a lot of pearl-clutching and finger-wagging in my line of work, and I don’t expect most conservative people to agree with my views or my lifestyle. This isn’t about moral judgment, but something far more sinister. The type of people who call you “Asian human garbage” or tell you to “enjoy getting fired” are not god-fearing virginity pledgers who just want you to denounce your sinful ways and accept Jesus into your life*. Trolls are not interested in your immortal soul, and they’re not even really interested in voicing an opinion. Their mission is a very specific and scary one: to tear you down however they can, not simply because they want you to know that you are wrong, but because they want to make it impossible for you to keep doing what you’re doing.

    In my case, it’s clear they want to force me offline. Why else would they go from attacking me and my family/friends/partner to defaming those who read my blog or “like” my Facebook status updates? The fallout is not inconsequential. Some people are, in fact, scared off the web. (Remember the Kathy Sierra incident?) Others, like me, simply start to self-censor or roll back their “public face”, often at a professional disadvantage. There’s no framework in place to identify or punish those who use the Internet to stalk, harass, and intimidate, so the impetus is on the victims to do something about it. Is a Twitter campaign going to put an end to cyber attacks and defamation? Unlikely, since I’m sure the perpetrators are well-aware that they’re engaging in questionably moral behavior. My hope is that media coverage and public attention of this issue will mitigate damage toward victims’ reputations and that reasonable people will think twice before they believe what they read on the Internet.

    * And yes, these are actual comments I’ve gotten.

    Related posts on online harassment:

    Slut-Shaming In Action: A Warning To Readers
    Cyber-Bullying & Slut-Shaming: A Cautionary Tale
    Reader Question: “Why Do You Think You Have So Many Haters?”
    This Is What Slut-Shaming Looks Like

    Have you encountered harassment online? Tweet it with the hashtag #mencallmethings and #threatoftheday or leave it in the comments below. Please use a pseudonym for your own protection.

    Tags: feminism. haterade.

    16 Jun 2011

    Anonymous asked: I feel like there should be a disclaimer front and center on the site about the harassment that regular commenters have been getting. I remember that right after it all broke, everybody went anonymous, but now that it's been some time I'm seeing a lot of new commenters with names and faces and links to blogs/Disqus accounts. This really worries me. I don't want these people to become the next round of targets just because they weren't around to see the shit that went down last time.

    Thanks for suggesting this. I don’t want to rehash the past for those who already know it, so if you don’t know the backstory, refer to these links:

    Slut-Shaming In Action: A Warning To Readers
    Cyber-Bullying & Slut-Shaming: A Cautionary Tale
    Reader Question: “Why Do You Think You Have So Many Haters?”
    This Is What Slut-Shaming Looks Like

    For whatever reason, this blog attracts some rather malicious characters, so if you don’t want your name to be tainted by association, you should 1) leave comments under a pseudonym and 2) only “like” my posts if you’re not logged in on an account traceable to your real identity. Exercising caution is in YOUR best interest! The only stuff I control is on my site. I can’t do anything about anonymous trolls ruining your online reputation elsewhere, nor do I know who these people are or how to stop them.

    I’ve added a link to this disclaimer on my sidebar, too.

    More burning questions or comments? Submit them here.

    Tags: haterade. ask lena.

    25 May 2011

    This Is What Slut-Shaming Looks Like

    I’m astounded by all the kind emails, tweets, Tumblr notes, and Facebook messages sent my way. Thanks, guys. Indeed, as many of y’all have noted, the comments to my Salon piece are mighty scary. But I’m surprisingly unfazed by them … even though I think I would have been pretty bothered just a year ago. Maybe this means that I’ve sort of begun to make peace with the past.

    Writing that essay took a great deal of emotional energy. What got printed looks absolutely nothing like the initial draft, which was far more feminist-y and deconstruct-y, but not at all what a personal essay should look like. It was not, in other words, actually about me. My editor (the awesome Sarah Hepola) told me after I turned in the first version the following:

    Instead of talking about it in academic terms, instead of using the words “society” or “dichotomy,” I want you to put it in personal terms, tell me what *you’re* scared of.

    And I thought, fuck, what the hell am I supposed to do now? I’ve never had to do a rewrite of a personal essay before. I’ve had to do this for various reported articles, but never for anything first-person. I don’t think that’s because I’m such an awesome writer, but rather because I have an intuition for what is needed for a story to feel complete. There’s an element of honesty to personal writing that is totally unrelated to the quality of the writing itself, if that makes sense, and good editors can tell when it’s missing. I haven’t done personal writing in years (which is probably why it’s been so damn hard to get my memoir proposal off the ground), and I knew when I turned in that first draft that I was holding back something. I guess I sort of hoped that no one would call me on my bullshit. That I wouldn’t actually have to be honest after all and instead could hide behind intellectual arguments that I knew to be true. True or not, nothing exists solely in the abstract. What do double standards actually look like in real life? What does a so-called “slut” look like? And how does said slut deal with harassment?

    Not by hiding behind textbooks, that’s for sure. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past couple years. I write about sex, sure, but not about my own experiences. I write about reproductive access, healthcare, abortion, contraception, all things I’m passionate about. But what I really, really want to do is not possible anymore. At least not online. And this is an explanation of why.

    A lot of the commenters over at Salon seem to think that I was either faking my naivety in not expecting consequences for writing about sex (which, okay, you don’t have to believe me, but if you’re not going to take my word for it, then there’s no point in engaging in a discussion at all) or that I am merely whining because there are people who judge me. I’ve heard this before. I’ve been told at various points in my blogging career that I’m essentially “asking for it” by sharing personal details about my life. And when it was just me and a laptop and random insults about my sure-to-be-single-and-lonely future, I took the criticism mostly in stride. Sure, no one likes being made fun of, but it’s something that I learned to live with and ignore.  And I don’t expect everyone to agree with all my opinions! That’s why I have a comments section, after all. (And by the way, I don’t even moderate it unless someone says something truly horrifying and racist or attacks another commenter.)

    But that’s not all that happened to me. It’s not just about hurt feelings; it’s about the fact that there were and still are people absolutely obsessed with ruining my life for no reason other than the fact that they couldn’t stand to see someone — especially an Asian woman! — fuck and write about fucking without being punished for it. It’s not “whining” or naivety to express shock and dismay at my family and friends being outed on the Internet. A few questions:

    1. Was I suppose to just take it in stride that random pervs found out where my little sister went to high school and speculated about whether she, too, would become a “whore”? An anonymous asshole emailed her last fall asking her that. Don’t tell me that’s normal criticism.
    2. What about the manufactured “scandal” that Internet vigilantes began in hopes of getting my boyfriend kicked out of his Ph.D program? They decided to email the entire sociology faculty list. I was a junior at the time in the same department. Do you have any idea how incredibly difficult it is to force yourself to graduate when your professors have all read about how you’re supposedly being “raped” on a regular basis? That is not criticism.
    3. Is trying to get me fired also normal? In 2009, when I was working for an education non-profit during my time off from Harvard, someone wrote a fake article about how my employer was so embarrassed to have hired a “porn blogger”. There were made-up quotes from “company reps”. They disseminated it online, not realizing that I actually told my boss about my blog during my initial interview. (He emailed me the article and totally had my back. It was one of the most touching things I’ve ever experienced from an employer, no joke.)

    And last but not least, as recently as this spring, my readers — that is, the folks leaving comments here and “liking” my posts — were being outed and falsely accused of being reprimanded by their educational institutions and fired by their employers. Not for writing about sex themselves but for reading about it on my blog. I have at least 50 emails sitting in my inbox from people who are completely freaked out about how their names and emails and various affiliations were discovered and printed on the Internet and I have no answers for them beyond, “Folks are fucked up! I’m so sorry!” I haven’t blogged anything intimate about my relationship since 2008. It’s been THREE YEARS. I stopped sex blogging because of this shit, but that’s not good enough! They want me to stop writing altogether, I suppose, because they are not only STILL going at it, but they are intent on turning as many people into collateral damage as possible. I now write about feminist dating etiquette for god’s sake! This would ALMOST be funny, ALMOST, but if you think about it a little harder, it’s mostly just weird and scary. Because think about it: my various stalkers through the years have spent inordinate amounts of time tracking down individuals who know me personally or follow my writing, and then they try to ruin their reputations. They obsess about Lena Chen even more frequently than Lena Chen herself. (And trust me, that is hard to top.) I mentioned all of this in the Salon piece, but I guess it’s really easy to just skip over those parts. ‘Cause then I wouldn’t be a whiny slut anymore. I’d be a woman concerned for her personal safety and the well-being of her loved ones. That’s slightly more complex-sounding and harder to stereotype.

    I’ve written about all of this before, and to be frank, I was and am afraid of writing about it again. Sometimes, readers ask, “Why do you pay so much attention to this stuff?” Answer: because it astounds me! Doesn’t it astound you? I can deal with people calling me names on the Internet. But what I have never been prepared for? The twisted, sadistic attacks on people I care about and on people I don’t even know (like my readers). I guess my stalkers thought that if they couldn’t hurt me anymore, they’d just start aiming for the closest targets. And that was something I never once anticipated. Each and every single time it happened (and the attacks became progressively worse over the years), I was deeply surprised. I didn’t even know that people were capable of this kind of malice. This is not criticism. This is not disapproval. This isn’t even bullying. This is harassment and intimidation. How does one get over the fact that this is the consequence of writing about sex? That another human being who doesn’t even know you in real life can hate you this deeply?

    That’s the reason I stopped SexAndTheIvy.com. Because I didn’t have any recourse or protection (legal or otherwise) and I was sick of being constantly afraid for myself and those around me. So I adjusted accordingly and made myself as non-controversial as possible in order to not attract this type of attention anymore. And even that didn’t drive them all away. The haters won. If you were expecting a happy ending to this entry, I’m afraid there isn’t one. I wake up everyday hoping they haven’t decided to target someone new. When I turned in the second, more honest draft of my essay to Sarah, I was scared, not just of the reactions from readers but of the potential backlash. Because I know the second I start to feel safe, the moment I start to believe that I’m flying under the radar, that’s when it’ll happen again. This is what slut-shaming looks like. It’s not just a slur, a curse word, something uttered and forgotten. It’s about breaking your faith in humankind. It’s about reminding you of the depths of people’s malevolence. It’s about instilling fear so that even if you have a voice, you shut yourself right up because you know what happens when you use it. And at some point, you become so paranoid and terrified that they don’t even need to police you anymore because you start to police yourself.

    24 May 2011

    "I was the Harvard Harlot" | Salon

    As promised, here’s the link to my personal essay for Salon on learning sexual shame from my sex blogging days in college. It only took an hour before I got my first “You will never find a husband comment”! That’s got to be a record, right?

    I also got this comment earlier today on the blog, likely in response to the article:

    Hello Lena. I am writing this anonymously since I really don’t feel like filling out forms and registering on your site. I will gladly email you my personal info if you feel like you want it after your read my post. I doubt you will and I also feel like this will not be replied to or put on your wall.  Keep reading after the next line and trust that it’s all going somewhere and isn’t simply a blasting of you or anyone.

    You are whore and disgrace to women.

    The fact that I am not a misogynist and do believe in female empowerment is why I say this.  Having had sex with more men than one could have fostered any sort of meaningful relationship with is crude, empty, and vulgar. Note* I didn’t attach a number to such things but rather a character quality.  What does it say about someone who pops their dick in any woman’s mouth? Note* I just switched genders on this.  Man or woman it does not matter. There is no double standard. Men who sleep around are also seen and prejudized against as “pigs,” “hustlers,” “players.”  Girls having sex as  young as 13 will start even younger and those blowjobs to a different guy each day during recess will cum (pun very much intended) more readily the more such behavior is glorified or made okay. I personally and many if not all of my friends would have no respect for a woman who has slept around or even “Sucked” around men who she hasn’t known on a deeper level for a year or so. No one wants to marry a whore or have children with a whore.  No one wants the mother of their child to have had such little sense of worth and self respect for themselves.  If woman want empowerment it starts with respect.  Have some for yourself though it’s too late in your case. You sound like a rape victim or molestation victim with severe unresolved psychological issues to be blunt.

    Now. Why would anyone in the world leave a comment like the above? This is something I’ve asked myself over and over and over since I started blogging in 2006. If you read the comments over at Salon, there’s enough chastising to last an unrepentant harlot a lifetime! (Note to readers: do not actually read comments to Salon article lest you become triggered/incensed/completely disheartened by the state of humanity.)

    You know what the above sounds like to me? “You are a whore and a disgrace to women and will never find a man to marry or inseminate you BECAUSE MY FRIENDS AND I THINK SO.” Sorry, dude, but opinions are like assholes! Everyone has one and yours is a bit … narrow, if you know what I mean. Theodor Adorno once said, “The idea of the free expression of opinion, which indeed cannot be separated from the idea of a free society, necessarily becomes the right to propose, defend, and if possible successfully champion one’s own opinion, even when it is false, mad, disastrous.” Poorly supported Internet arguments are a great example of how freedom and opinions can actually lead to appalling displays of ignorance.

    Here’s the deal: I don’t typically engage with comments like this but the multiple LOGIC FAILS pain me so greatly that I’ll address this one. You don’t get to say “Everyone believes X” by using you and your friends as proof. You don’t get to say “Women are only empowered if they do X” by using your personal preferences as a gauge for where one’s individual liberty begins and ends. You don’t get to assume things about my psychological history when you do not know me and are not my therapist.

    Speaking of my mental health, I will gladly admit to being ALL KINDS OF CRAZY, because, hey, I don’t think I need to be ashamed of the fact that I was incredibly unhappy in college, but in my history of therapists, none of them have ever implied that my blogging is the result of “unresolved psychological issues”. If anything, they agreed that Harvard quite literally drove me nuts and that the World Wide Web and my classmates were judgmental pricks who likely caused the depression and anxiety I suffered through undergrad. It is completely possible to determine that sexual morality is repressive and harmful without having experienced any of the trauma that random Internet people have suggested that I’ve suffered. But whatever, go ahead and make offensive generalizations about survivors of sexual assault! Isn’t that just way easier than rational thinking? (On the off-chance that the sarcasm doesn’t translate, I am being 100 percent sarcastic.)

    One thing that the above commenter asks strikes me as particularly illogical: “What does it say about someone who pops their dick in any woman’s mouth?” Answer: THEY CLEARLY LIKE BLOWJOBS! That’s it. That’s all that tells you. One’s eagerness to place one’s penis in a mouth does not say anything about whether one pays taxes on time or remembers to call home for Mother’s Day or tips well at dinner. You can draw almost no generalizable conclusions from a predilection for oral sex. Nor can you draw any conclusions about a person from their number of sexual partners or their sexual history. You don’t know them. How in the world can you think that you know their motivations for doing anything in life?

    For the record, I don’t think anyone or any gender should be shamed for their sexuality. Men shouldn’t deal with policing of their bodies and sexual behavior, but I do bring up double standards because there is a clear difference in how female sexuality has been legislated and policed by both state and community. And while dudes have been subject to some of the same norms as women, the latter — by virtue of reproductive capability — have been much more frequent targets. The majority portion of the negative feedback I receive is based on my gender. (A significant portion is also based on my race. Think: “Me love you long time” type of shit.) In this day and age, I don’t have to worry about being forced into a nunnery for women of ill repute, but I am routinely told that I will never find a husband, that I am not being “a lady”, that my self-worth is tied to my vagina’s ability to appeal to potential suitors. Men do not get anywhere close to this sort of criticism, in part because no one assumes that a guy’s primary goal in life is to get hitched but also because the white, male body has not historically been a site of repression. Men who do get harassed for their sexual choices also frequently exhibit behavior perceived to be “feminine” (e.g. being sexually submissive in bed, having sex with men, being the receptive partner/bottom, etc.) or possess qualities that society reads to be dangerous (e.g. being of a person of color, a HIV-positive person, etc.). Which is also problematic, but has different underlying causes.

    The single thing the Salon commenters did get right, though? I’m probably never getting married. Fine by me. This ho-skank has been contentedly living in sin since 2008.

    24 May 2011

    cestmavieelleestennuyeux asked: Why do you think you have so many haters? I mean you seem like a great writer, great cook, opinionated [but not in a way that's offensive], fashionable, outgoing and extremely intelligent [harvard?]. I don't understand how people could hate someone such as you quite that much [i.e. the haters you receive on tumblr, the haters on autosubmit]

    OH YAY, an opportunity to cite Foucault! It’s not everyday that one can use biopower to explain slut-shaming ;)

    First of all, THANK YOU FOR THE FLATTERY but I must correct you! I am afraid I am quite unremarkable in real life. For example, I have been known to make fashion blunders, and none of my readers (to my knowledge) have tried my cooking, so for all you know, my food just might LOOK really good but taste craptastic. In fact, I burn things! I just don’t blog about those kitchen disasters (so as to preserve my image as the perfect homemaker, of course). In any case, even if one were an unfashionable, anti-social, shitty writer who couldn’t cook, does that make one deserving of the vitriol I’ve received? Not really! It really speaks to how deeply entrenched sexual morality is in our society that I feel the need to lead as “perfect” a life as possible in order to reduce the amount of hate spewed.

    So, why do I get so much criticism? This is one of those rare instances when citing Foucault actually makes sense (and doesn’t just serve as an essay-fluffing device).   Lesley Kinzel, who writes about body politics on her blog, Two Whole Cakes, sums up Foucault’s theory of the Panopticon in laymen’s terms much better than I can:

    “Culture, according to Foucault, [uses] disciplinary systems … in which each body may be observed and assessed at any time. This has a controlling and normalizing effect, in which bodies are encouraged to meet expected standards at all times. Think CCTV systems, or Big Brother. If one is never sure if one is being watched, it makes one less likely to openly transgress the rules. I’m also inclined to argue that this arrangement ultimately results not only in the self-policing of one’s own behavior, but in a broader social system that expects and rewards the individual policing of others’ bodies and behaviors. Those who subvert social norms are, ostensibly, people who have forgotten that they can be seen, publicly, at any time. Therefore, when they transgress social norms—by expressing physical affection for a person not visibly coded as the opposite sex, for example, or by being fat and rejecting social and bodily invisibility—they need to be reminded of this omniscient social gaze, and in the absence of institutional discipline, must be punished so they do not transgress again. This is the mechanism by which a dude who sees me in a vividly-colored dress, walking alone as though I either don’t know or don’t care that I am defying bodily norms, feels compelled to scream “UGLY FAT BITCH” at me. He is applying social discipline and teaching me a lesson: Everyone can see you, and your body and/or behavior are unacceptable.”

    Kinzel is talking primarily about societal reactions to and antipathy toward fatness, but this is just as applicable to transgressive sexual behavior (the stuff Foucault originally wrote about). There has been a long, long history of the state policing the sexuality of its population. Forced sterilization of “undesirables” (prisoners, women of color, people with mental illness). Implicit and explicit population control (such as China’s one-child policy). Miscegenation laws against interracial marriage. Sodomy laws against homosexuality. These are all forms of social control that have occurred within the last century, and Westerners are so gosh-darn sold on our “freedom” and our superiority to supposedly backward societies that a lot of folks believe that they are somehow exempt from being policed. Reality check: just because we’ve enjoyed a few decades of increased personal freedom does not mean that we’ve reached sexual liberation. Because you want to know the scary flip-side of freedom? The government doesn’t have to police its citizens when its citizens happily do that to each other.

    People hate me because I behave in a manner that has historically been punishable by community standards or by law. That doesn’t happen so easily nowadays but it doesn’t mean that haters aren’t going to hate and try their damndest to fuck shit up for me. I realized recently when I was looking back on my sex blogging days that the most transgressive thing I’ve done is not even writing a sex blog but rather, refusing to be ashamed for writing a sex blog. Because shame is the true root of sexual morality’s power in modern “free” society. As I wrote in my Salon piece:

    “If I’m honest, I never did feel bad for writing Sex And The Ivy and I never once felt the need to apologize. Shame wasn’t something that came naturally to me. It was something that I learned against my will, and now that I know it inside and out, I don’t know how one can possibly unlearn it. Sexual freedom is a sham. Over my blogging years, I’ve become acquainted with enough erstwhile sexual radicals to realize that my story is not an isolated incident. I am just one data point, and what happened to me at Harvard is one example of the consequences faced by those who do not fall in line with sexual morality.”

    Call it naivety, but my 19-year-old self didn’t think there’d be consequences to writing about my sex life. Therefore, other people — that is, concerned members of society — took it upon themselves to teach me to be frightened of judgment. And fuck yeah, I’ve learned my lesson well.

    27 Apr 2011

    BUST Magazine | The Naked Truth

    As I mentioned, I’m doing some catch-up blogging at the moment! Here’s a much belated copy of the February/March issue of BUST Magazine, which featured me in a story by Emily McCombs about sex bloggers who have been outed or subjected to harassment as a result of their writing. I’ve already blogged quite a bit about the vicious attacks that my friends and family have suffered over the years, but when interviewed for this piece last fall, I had no idea that some of my online stalkers would also be soon going after my readers. (I’m glad that this bullying has dwindled down the past few weeks, and I’m grateful for all the support that you guys have expressed!)

    Next to some of the ladies in the above piece, I feel downright lucky. Melissa Petro was fired from her job as a teacher when she was outed as a sex worker. Zoe Margolis was relentlessly pursued by a tabloid that outed her. Most recently, Kendra Holliday is being sued by her ex-husband for full custody of her children because of her sexuality. Since I’ve always been self-employed, childless, and public with my identity, I haven’t had to deal with these problems (though I’m not sure “At least I’m not being canned!” is much of an upside to the situation). Nonetheless, it’s hard to explain to people why I continue doing what I’m doing. Isn’t writing about sex just attracting negative attention and bad publicity after all? This is actually  the precise topic about which I’m writing a personal essay right now … perhaps, I’ll share some of those thoughts on the blog when I’m feeling less vulnerable to misinterpretation.

    In the meantime, you can read the full story from BUST. (Hint: you won’t be able to click through to the hi-res images on the Tumblr dashboard, so refer to TheChicktionary.com if you’re interested in reading):

    3 Apr 2011

    “what it like being a sellout whore?”
    — today in “Non-Grammatical Questions I Receive In My Question Queue”
    Tags: haterade.

    15 Feb 2011

    Anonymous asked: according to your hate blog, you said in an interview that your dad did own three sushi restaurants. what's up with that?

    My hate blog calls me a “lying skank” because I supposedly claimed my dad isn’t a restaurant owner. Except I never said that. I said that he isn’t this “LA restauranteer [sic]” named George Chen who seems to be pretty successful and who my stalkers believe is related to me. (My dad, for the record, did have three restaurants at one point, though two have since gone out of business.) I also denied their accusation that my parents are actually rich and that I’ve been lying all this time about getting financial aid from Harvard and feeling out-of-place among much-wealthier classmates. (I know I offered this before, but seriously, do you need to see screenshots of my tuition statements?) Any of my close friends can testify to the fact that I come from a pretty humble background. My and my sister’s Expected Family Contribution to college tuition and expenses would not have been 0 otherwise. And that’s what the U.S. government determined. With our tax forms. (And no, my parents are not committing tax fraud, if that’s your next question. We are actually just not able to pay for higher education without financial assistance.)

    All that said, I think it’s a little ridiculous that anyone would believe what’s written about me on a site that calls my readers “cumslurpers”, “psychopathic”, and “braindead”. I think it’s pretty clear that these people are biased and have an agenda. If you have any other questions regarding what they write, just email me personally. I’m not going to clutter up my blog with clarifications to false accusations.

    Tags: Ask Lena. haterade.

    9 Feb 2011

    Anonymous asked: all this time, you've talked about how your family is so poor, but apparently, your dad is a famous sushi restaurant owner?

    you are a fraud.

    My father is not, as has been alleged on my stalker blog, the “LA restauranteer George Chen [sic]”. Frankly, I don’t even know who George Chen even is, so it’s funny that the blog alleges my mother was in an “abusive marriage” with him. If my father were making bank, I would not have qualified for a full ride under the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, which states:

    “Students from families with incomes less than $60,000 who are accepted to Harvard under our regular admissions policies have no expected parent contribution for their education.”

    When I got into college in 2005, the threshold for full tuition scholarships was even lower. Your family had to make under $40,000 for you to qualify. And I did. For four years. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet, kids.

    (And yeah, I can probably still log onto the Harvard bill-pay system and screenshot my tuition statements, but if you’re so easily convinced by what’s written on an anonymous stalker blog, then I’m not sure there’s anything I could do or say to dissuade you from your opinion that I am a “fraud”.)

    More Internet rumors you want me to debunk? Ask Lena here. (But first, try asking yourself, does a random blog calling me a “skank” and harassing my readers seem like its engaging in scrupulous fact-checking?)

    Tags: Ask Lena. haterade.