"Best $2k I Ever Spent!" How NOT To Make A Racist YouTube Video About Asian People: The Complete Saga!

Well UCLA, you won't have Alexandra Wallace to karate chop around anymore. By all accounts, the unfathomably blond Wallace has stayed true to her word and discontinued her classes, based on

"the harassment of [her] family, the publishing of [her] personal information, death threats and being ostracized from an entire community."

Which, I suppose, could be kind of a bummer! Yes, this happened in March, but just in case you've been talking on your phone in the library for the last two weeks, let's break down this whole saga from start to finish, and maybe speculate on what the future holds for young Ms. Wallace...

March 11: The country of Japan experiences an 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which produces a massive tsunami off the northeast coast of the main island of Honshu. This is both a devastating natural disaster for residents of Japan, but also very inconveniently timed for UCLA students in the middle of exam week.

March 12: Despite the obvious implications of exam week, several extremely rude Japanese students use their cellphones in the library to make sure their family members in Japan aren't being swept out to sea, buried under rubble, or catastrophically irradiated.

March 13: Noting this egregious inconvenience, one brave sorority girl speaks out:

Asians In The Library

Now, to be fair, Ms. Wallace was not merely frustrated over the events of the previous 36 hours, but also over the general inconveniences of having to co-exist with Asian students for the last three years or so. Close reading of the video shows that over this time, not only did she have to hear them speak their native language(s), but she also had to watch them interact with their supportive, close-knit families. Can we as Americans really blame this young lady for snapping? Look, Asian people: in America, when we say "family values," we're talking about putting the mentally handicapped on death row and preventing two dudes from getting married because it's gross. That's a far cry from day-to-day mutual support and love, which, aside from being absolutely exhausting, is totally boring and a ridiculous standard to live up to.

March 14: This is the part where you wish you could sit Alexandra Wallace down and ask her, "Just out of curiosity, how did you expect this video to be received?" And then, if she says anything other than "total fucking shit storm," you laugh and laugh. Anyway, "total fucking shit storm" it is, with lots of hand-wringing, general outrage, and even some fun.

March 14 (Part II): Despite the fact that she looks like a Jim Henson creation in the YouTube video, Coed Magazine makes the highly dubious claim that these photos are of Alexandra Wallace:

Locked in a basement in Van Nuys somewhere, an extremely overworked airbrush artist prays for the sweet release of death.

March 18: "Wally," as her friends call her*, releases her apology statement. A highlight:

"I could write apology letters day and night, but I know they wouldn't erase the video from your memory"

Or as I like to call it, the old "Why even try?" justification. Does this girl even realize what an embodiment of America she is? We gotta link her up with Rebecca Black and this genius and send them to visit the troops or something.

March 24: Just when this whole thing is threatening to collapse under its own weight, singer/songwriter (and fellow Middlebury College graduate!) Jimmy Wong saves the day:

Ching Chong

March 25: Alexandra Wallace presumably starts her new life, somewhere far away from the Asians of Westwood. And while the internet can pat itself on the back for having held someone accountable for their racist behavior, I can't help but feel like we might not have learned a lesson here. Sure, Alexandra Wallace isn't all that bright, and clearly she harbors some prejudices that she'd do a lot better without. But who amongst us hasn't, at one time or another, found ourselves judging a whole group of people when we were, in actuality, frustrated at the actions of a single person?

This is why I've decorated this piece with photos taken from Asians Sleeping In The Library, a tumblr that attempts to deconstruct the myths about Asian people as indestructible study machines and prove that they are just as susceptible to library fails as the rest of us.

So Alexandra, wherever you may be right now, I want you to gaze on the angelic faces of these innocent, slumbering Asian people, and I hope you're hit with a new epiphany, the kind that tells you that we're all the same, deep down inside, children of the same creator, regardless of how we interpret the specifics. You made a big mistake, but at the end of the day, you're part of a proud tradition of inadvertent internet laughingstocks, like the guy who tried to smuggle 30+ items into prison inside his ass. Just make sure that you come off like a good sport when you do Tosh.0, and, maybe, stay out of the library for a while?

[sleeping Asians via; COED bikini shot via; Alexandra Wallace via]