'I need my yellow fever cured': Asian American woman documents the racist, fetishist, and VERY sexually explicit messages she gets from men on Tinder
- Lilian, a single Asian American woman, said she began to notice a pattern in the kind of messages she received on dating apps like Tinder
- She created an Instagram page in 2017 called @thefleshlightchronicles, where she has over 23,000 followers
- The New York and Boston-based Instagrammer posts the racist, fetishist messages she often receives from men
- Messages she has received include 'I have a confession... I have a large Asian fettish [sic]' and 'I need my yellow fever cured'
- She also posts submissions from other women who have fielded racist and offensive messages
A young Asian American woman is highlighting the racist, fetishist messages that Asian women frequently receive on Tinder.
Lilian, who lives in New York and Boston, is single and regularly uses dating apps like Tinder — but she noticed an alarming pattern in the kind of messages she was getting from men
Disgusted, the 20-something created the Instagram page @thefleshlightchronicles in 2017 to bring attention to gross pick-up lines that are sent to minorities, and she now posts both her own distasteful messages as well as submissions from her followers.
Issue: Lilian (pictured) set up an Instagram page to highlight the racist fetishist messages Asian women often receive on Tinder
Bizarre: The young woman began to notice a pattern in the kind of messages she was receiving on dating apps
Odd: Some messages she has received on dating apps include 'I've never had an Asian girl,' 'I need my yellow fever cured,' and 'I want to try Asian p***y'
Lillian takes screenshots offensive messages and overlays them on photos of herself.
She also invites her 23,000 followers to send her submissions of the strange messages they have received as well.
Some are just flat-out sexual from the get-go, with men sending explicit sexual desires right off the bat.
Response: Lilian places the screenshots on images of herself to create memes, as she aims to sarcastically respond to the odd messages
Others zero in on stereotypes of Asian women, and make it clear that their attraction is a fetish.
'I'll eat your p**** like shrimp fried rice,' wrote one.
'Never been with an Asian before so banging you would be a dream come true. Need my yellow fever cured,' said another.
Similarly, she received a message from someone that read: 'The point is, I've never had an Asian girl. And you're super hot. You can do the math.'
'I have a confession...' another message read, 'I have a large Asian fettish [sic],' the Tinder user added.
Another message she received from a user of the dating app read: 'Well since you want me to be honest, I want to try Asian p***y. Since I love Asian food, I'm like maybe I would love this too.'
'I absolutely want to dominate your small Asian body,' another message read.
Speaking to HuffPost, Lilian, who chose not to reveal her surname, said she receives significantly different messages than her white friends.
'Most of my single white friends receive only a taste of what I get on Tinder,' she said. 'No man has ever opened with how white women are so "exotic" or opened with an assumption about how white vaginas are different from other vaginas.
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Concerning: Lilian, who chose not to reveal her surname, told HuffPost she receives different types of messages than her white friends
Racist: 'Most of my single white friends receive only a taste of what I get on Tinder,' Lilian said
Highlighting the issue: She said she and other Asian Americans shouldn't be subject to such messages, as she said: 'We are not here to satiate your sexual curiosity'
Popular: Since Lilian created the Instagram page @thefleshlightchronicles, she has accumulated over 23,000 followers
'None of these messages have the same intense preoccupation with race, she added.
Lilian said she and other Asian Americans shouldn't be subject to such messages. She explained: 'We are not here to satiate your sexual curiosity. We are not passive objects.
'We have our own inner lives. We marvel and we create. We work through shit with our families. Asian Americans are filled with small idiosyncrasies, just like any other human - though we shouldn’t have to convince anyone of that,' she added.
Lilian told Vice last year that she realized the messages she was receiving on dating apps began to reflect the kind of comments she would get in real life.
She said: 'I began to realize that these interactions on Tinder matched up with my lived experience of being an Asian woman.
'And I realized I could use this platform to talk about those experiences - and help others find validation through them, too,' she added.
Awareness: She invites her followers to send submissions of similar messages they have received, some of which she shares on her page
Creative: The reason she creates memes with the messages, she said, is to 'condense down a common or shared experience into a few words and a picture'
Sarcastic: One meme sees a picture of a text that reads 'I want to try my first Asian woman' on a photo of her. She jokingly added the headline: 'Asian teen has sweaty middle-aged-man fetish'
Scared: Despite making light of the strange messages by making memes, Lilian admitted that she often gets 'very scared,' revealing she has even gotten threats from people
Lilian said that turning the messages into memes — by putting them in pictures with Asian women and adding her own funny captions — helps her get her point across.
'Memes condense down a common or shared experience into a few words and a picture,' she said. 'With the increased use of social media, it makes them easily consumable which many people enjoy.'
But despite the fact that she can make light of the messages by making memes, Lilian said the messages do affect her negatively.
'To be honest, sometimes I get very scared. I have got threats in the past but not from people that I actually know. It has always been strangers on the Internet. Of course, it shocks you and you do get worried for your own safety.
'It can be overwhelming but my account is also a coping strategy to make something out of it and to share with others who are going through similar things,' she added.
