However, on Wednesday last week, Lim was accused by the TikTok account handle @sugaresqueessay of extensively plagiarizing an essay titled “On the Fear of Food,” originally published on her blog Grayscale Copy on April 18. Lim’s blog now has a password -protected.
The videos – and a lengthy Google document posted by an anonymous person – accuse Lim of borrowing phrases and even specific plot points from a minimum of five different books for the lengthy essay, which she characterised as an account of her own experiences battling an eating disorder.
In a TikTok video posted on Monday, Lim admitted to creating a “very serious and regrettable” mistake by plagiarizing the work of other authors. She apologized to her students and followers, in addition to to the authors whose works she used.
“I should have been more careful when composing my essay, instead of just going back to a previous set of thoughts and insights that I gleaned from previous authors,” Lim said in her video. I must have exercised due diligence and shall be more careful in the long run.”
Lim told reporters on Tuesday that she was “deeply sorry” and took “full responsibility” for the “plagiarism of the essay portion.”
An Indonesian woman advises US friends to ditch her “colonized” nickname in a viral TikTok
An Indonesian woman advises US friends to ditch her “colonized” nickname in a viral TikTok
“I would like to clarify that the essay was written for purely personal purposes and was not intended for profit, academic assignment or publication, and that it was an arbitrary incident that has no connection with any of the materials I used in the Classicle Club,” Lim said.
Lim said she would “be more careful moving forward.”
The creators of the Change.org petition are individually calling for Lim’s UCLA admissions letter to be checked for plagiarism. The University of California, Los Angeles didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment sent outside normal business hours regarding the admission of Lim, a graduate of the elite Raffles Institution in Singapore.
Words cannot describe how disrespectful and callous it was of her to make the most of such mental conditions
“Regarding the petition, I am aware of its existence and understand the concerns expressed by those who signed it,” Lim said. “I would like to clarify that, as of this writing, I am not affiliated with UCLA and am not a UCLA student. I trust that the school will do its due diligence and, if necessary, I will be open to a direct explanation of my position.”
The petition – which had 750 signatures at press time – accused Lim of “attempting to reinforce her skilled credibility as a author by plagiarizing an essay.”
“It can stoop so low as to plagiarize something as personal as an eating disorder that many vulnerable people struggle with,” the petition reads. “Words cannot describe how disrespectful and callous it was of her to exploit such psychological conditions, something so instinctive and real to many, for her own purposes.”
