PPP controversy, and something that has not sat well with me...
 I am a fan of TikToker LeendaDong. However…  TikTok / @yoleendadong This newsletter is particularly hard for me to write. It's personal, and I'm wavering between being sensitive to my own feelings about the issue and being sensitive to a huge TikTok personality whom I've been a fan of for the past year.
Linda Dong (aka LeendaDong) has grown a massive TikTok following. In her videos, she's always wearing loungewear and glasses, her hair undone, as she casually drops witty and imaginative banter. Her look is antithetical to how we have traditionally seen influencers (perfectly manicured and dressed up). She normalizes and even glamorizes the slept-in-late-in-the-comforts-of-home aesthetic (how I look 85% of the time), which I really appreciate.
She also speaks in a vague but very apparent pan-Asian accent. In an earlier, less woke life, we would've called it a "fobby" accent, which is not a term I and other Asian people like to use anymore. But more on that later.
Linda now has 15.7 million followers on the platform. Her look, her hilarious personality, and her accent are all really engaging. In fact, that pseudonym she's given herself, "LeendaDong," is a send-up of her inflection.
Until recently, I thought, Good for her. I believed the accent was authentic. That was until about seven months ago, when a friend of mine, who's also a big fan of hers, discovered her YouTube channel. On YouTube, Linda shows a version of herself that is wildly different from her TikTok persona. In multiple videos, she is in makeup, her hair is done, and, most poignantly, she loses the performative accent.
First I was gobsmacked by how pretty Linda is, both when she's dressed down and dressed up. But I also felt uneasy realizing that her TikTok accent could have been a put-on or greatly exaggerated. In early January, I reached out to her over email and Instagram DMs. I said I wanted to get to know her and discuss how she conceived of her enormously successful TikTok account. I wanted her to ease this strange feeling gurgling inside of me about the potential character, or caricature, she was playing, and about the accent. I didn't hear back, so I let it go. I convinced myself that this was perhaps an insignificant issue and that I was being particularly sensitive about it. If she's providing joy and entertainment to millions of people, I didn't want to dampen it by navigating the thorniness of racism and a cartoonishly Asian accent. Because she has not responded to my many inquiries, I can't say for sure what her "real" accent is.
Plus, I didn't want to accuse her of something that might also be a particularly personal or sensitive issue for her. Unfortunately, internalized racism is so common among people of color, especially in comedy. In order to have an edge, and any opportunity for commercial success that white people have, many people of color have to make their racial identity a constant punchline.
Linda didn't get back to me then, and, after a few more emails to her and her representatives, she still hasn't gotten back to me. But I recently discovered I wasn't the only one uncomfortable with her TikTok persona.
Lisa Li, 27, has her own TikTok account of over 11,800 followers. She discusses the myriad forms of discrimination she and other East Asian immigrants often face in the US — sometimes from Asian Americans. Earlier this month, she posted a video about Linda, describing her as a "nerdy, heavy accent, Asian woman" who fits the "nerdy FOB stereotype." Li also said she's a fan of the @LeendaDong account since there are so few TikTok channels that are run by an Asian person and have such a large following.  TikTok / @lisatalk_ Lisa said she also discovered sketches "stigmatizing Chinese students" from years ago that were written by and featured Linda; she added that Linda's current act is ironic and hard to understand.
When I spoke with Lisa, she told me she doesn't believe Linda is acting in bad faith. "She was probably making it for entertainment," Lisa said, "but it does belong in racism." The portrayal makes her especially uncomfortable, she said, because new immigrants are taunted because of their accents.
"We went through a lot of troubles and struggles," she said about new Chinese immigrants. "It's very, very weird it's Chinese stereotypes she was amplifying. … She must have witnessed other Asian people being made fun of when they have an accent, and that experience is sad. People laugh, and you decide to amplify that? It's just common intuition, like, why?"
In the comments under the video in which Lisa discusses Linda's channel, people thanked her for publicly raising this issue. One Asian person described feeling "uncomfy" watching Linda's videos with this new knowledge. "I'm so glad someone is freaking saying this," a top commenter wrote. "Ugh I really thought that was her actual accent," another wrote.
Lisa said as a new immigrant (which is probably a better term than the colloquial "FOB," even though there was an ABC sitcom named after it), she often feels "friction" with second-generation Asian Americans. "I've always been curious about [how] we're supposed to be so close, but we're not," she said.
She believes Asian Americans have internalized microaggressions and, as a means of survival, will put down newer immigrants to make them and ourselves feel better. She hopes Linda can use her platform to raise awareness about issues that affect all generations of nonwhite immigrants. (Lisa said she had "a TikTok about Lululemon mocking Japanese people's accents" that she tagged Linda in, hoping it would get her attention and she could amplify the message.)
I cannot overstate how complex this Linda Dong issue is, which is why I've been persistently trying to reach her and include her thoughts on the issue. (Linda, if you're reading this, it's not too late. I'd love to talk.) Lisa's complaints and my unique perspective are not meant to antagonize her or her brand. Please, social media, do not conflate our points to point a finger at her.
In the media industry, people of color often have to both overcompensate and minimize themselves into a trope/stereotype in order to get opportunities. I have. Perhaps Linda saw an opportunity to portray this character that she knew wouldbe charming to non-Asian people. I'm not sure she would have had the same opportunity to build a successful brand as a person of color on social media without…a quirky edge. Her hands are tied too.
But the issue with this kind of comedy is that she's not making it clear that she's playing a role, and that the role is rooted in something discomforting.
"Most comedians broke out of the persona in the end to address that it's just a performance. She never did," Lisa noted.
It's hard for me not to think of my parents and their generation of immigrants when I watch Linda perform the accent. They have endured years of taunts and feeling inadequate for their heavy accents; they can't help that their accents, unlike those of Europe, aren't seen as desirable. Their own daughter (that's me) has also been embarrassed by their accents because she internalized whitewashing so she wouldn't be taunted by her white peers. That's a heavy load for new immigrants like my parents to carry when they already feel like a forever foreigner in this country. To know that the accent can now be used for amusement, turned on and off for laughs from a non-Asian crowd, does not sit well with me.
I hope Linda can take a pause to consider this. I'm still a fan of her comedy — without the accent and caricaturing! She's funny and obviously knows how to entertain. For those of us who are laughing at a fake pan-Asian accent, I urge you to take an even longer pause to reflect on that. I wish all influencers can have a successful career one day without denigrating themselves to cheap tropes. But that responsibility shouldn't solely rely on them.
—Tanya Chen What the anger about influencers getting PPP loans is really about  Ever since the federal government first began offering Paycheck Protection Program loans in 2020, influencers have been a target of ire for people who want to police who exactly was eligible for the COVID relief benefit and argue over who is "worthy" of the funds.
This week, members of the Bachelor subreddit have gone after former franchise stars who are now influencers. Tayshia Adams, Colton Underwood, and Arie and Lauren Luyendyk have all been blasted on the internet for applying for and receiving PPP loans, and the whole thing has ballooned into a scandal that has been gobbled up by the tabloids.
The allocation of government money isn't really what people are pissed off about, in my opinion. The underlying issue is that a lot of people refuse to accept that influencers are running small businesses and have no understanding or respect for the work that they do. So, when they see influencers getting money they think is supposed to go to traditional business owners, they assume the influencers "stole" it from actual hardworking people because they are greedy.
I get it. Sometimes it annoys me too. Influencers seem to have great lives. They work for themselves, set their own schedules, and can choose how often they work or don't work. They get to write about their own interests and even live extravagant lifestyles, going on luxury trips and shopping sprees for content. The best influencers don't even make it look like they work at all. It's normal to be jealous of them.
There is a difference, though, between having a pretty enjoyable job and not working. For whatever reason (cough, cough, sexism), despite the fact that we are a good 10 years plus into the creator economy, a vast majority of the US population refuses to accept that being an influencer, an industry that is made up of mostly women, is a legitimate career.
The truth is that most influencers run their own limited liability corporations, develop content for brands, pay their taxes as business owners, and do a ton of other things behind the scenes that we don't see on Instagram. Some have employees, while others hire contractors to handle certain aspects of their businesses such as taking their photos or managing their SEO. Amid all the drama this week, Jessica Camerata, who blogs at An Indigo Day, posted this IGTV in which she explains how her business is set up and runs, which I recommend watching to get a full understanding of how a lot of this stuff works.
Also, from March 2020 onward, influencers, like every other small business owner, looked like they were in serious trouble. At the time, I talked to Grace Atwood, who told me she had already had several brand deals (her main source of revenue for her business) canceled or postponed by sponsors who were tightening their own belts. More recently, a group of travel bloggers I interviewed each told me they had lost significant income in spring 2020 and had to completely pivot their business models to stay afloat. (This isn't to imply that any of these people took a PPP loan — I didn't ask.)
Yes, for influencers, choosing to take a PPP loan may have included paying themselves if they own a sole proprietorship. It doesn't matter how rich these influencers seem personally, either, as personal and business finances are completely different. You can have personal wealth, but if your business is bringing in no revenue, it will die.
There is nothing wrong with influencers doing this — at least, not in the eyes of the law. Influencers are small businesses, and the PPP loan was designed to keep those businesses afloat. Influencers lost revenue, so they took government assistance to ensure they could weather the storm. Is that not what the entire program was designed to do?
I can hear you now. But what about all the small businesses that didn't get a loan, who were more deserving of the money? OK, sure. There are plenty that, unfortunately, did not get money from the government and suffered as a result. That totally sucks! But why is that the fault of other small business owners? Or maybe you're saying, But influencers are not small business owners! That brings me back to my original point. There are fundamentally few differences between the owner of an LLC, an influencer business, that sells clothing through Instagram and one with a brick-and-mortar store. The only difference is in how we as a society perceive them.
It's fine if you're still angry. It doesn't seem fair that some of us have to toil for the Man while other people get to run Instagram businesses. Many influencers got where they are because they are privileged in a myriad ways, like coming from money, being hot, or getting lucky in the industry at the right time. Again, it's OK to be jealous of that.
But the PPP argument isn't about any of that — it's based on a fallacy and bad faith. Harping on it isn't helping anyone, certainly not business owners.
—Stephanie McNeal Want more? Here are other stories we were following this week. How travel influencers got through the pandemic. It turns out that even digital nomads can be brought swiftly back to reality by a global pandemic.
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P.S. If you like this newsletter, help keep our reporting free for all. Support BuzzFeed News by becoming a member here. (Monthly memberships are available worldwide.) 📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by Tanya Chen, Stephanie McNeal, and BuzzFeed News. You can always reach us here. BuzzFeed, Inc. |
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