Linda Sun

[idontrllygossipok]

I don't understand WHY she did the "half calorie" challenge? She's NOT in the state to be experimenting with herself and her body. The fact that she's clearly going through ups and downs with her relationship with food is an indication that she can't be doing these challenges to herself.

Also, the whole concept of her channel is so unoriginal, I realised. Nothing is a new perspective on health and body. It's just her trying to capture ideologies that are already promoted by other youtubers, like Natacha Oceane.

And again with the compulsive ramblings as voiceover... Gosh.

[guruhooroo]

I don't understand WHY she did the "half calorie" challenge? She's NOT in the state to be experimenting with herself and her body.

!!!! Right? Linda has said multiple times she had a really severe restrictive ED that resulted in her being hospitalised..... the fact that she does a video where she cuts her calories RIGHT after a video where she talks about how she's gained weight and it's upsetting her is insane and a really bad sign that she's about to relapse. Also her literally crying during a workout is NOT NORMAL. I have never ever cried or even come close to tears during a workout except for times when I had a really bad relationship with food and my body and was working out as punishment. If you have a healthy relationship and mindset with exercise you don't f*cking cry while you're doing it. You also don't workout 365 days consecutively *cough cough*.

I'm potentially getting a bit petty here but I'm also starting to resent how clearly LOADED her family is. I mean good for her parents that they worked hard to become successful and give their kids such a privileged life. However, most young adults don't have a huge bedroom with floor to ceiling windows and a state of the art kitchen to cook in with a fridge and pantry stocked to the brim on their parents dime. Most young adults don't still have their parents cooking meals for them every day. ALSO (lol) I know we can't tell everything from a few YouTube videos but it seems like Linda doesn't have a job (besides YT). I know she's in school and maybe it's a Northern Hemisphere thing but when I was at university I studied full time and had a part time job because if I wanted to go out with friends for a meal or to a club I had to be using my money, not going to my parents as using their income.

[+GetInLoser+]

Holy. Crap. I didn’t know about this girl until finding her thread here in the active topics tonight. Looked her up and saw she is no longer that small YouTuber and was intrigued by her large following and started to review her videos. First red flag for a channel about recovery and body positivity is a video from this week captioned “I just want to lose weight” followed by a half-calorie challenge with “lots of tears.” I clicked on the half-cal challenge and within the first minute of her intro voiceover could tell this is someone who has not overcome her issues. It’s crazy/unnerving how present she is in the mindset she claims she has mostly left in her past. I fully understand for many people with disordered eating, recovery will be a lifelong journey. However as someone with my own troubled relationship with food, I recognize how critical it is to come to terms with your ongoing journey and how harmful it can be to pretend you’ve already fully conquered something you haven’t. If she isn’t seeking professional help already, I hope she will consider it and find herself at a much higher vantage point than where she is now.

[influencer101]

I just don't understand why her whole brand is not caring about physique and having a healthy relationship with her body and food and then she makes all her thumbnails pics of her sucking in and halves her calories for a week for a video?? I wish she would see how this could be harmful to viewers. Showing her physique in a thumbnail and then showing how she eats five tablespoons of peanut butter or five bowls of cereal isn't exactly a healthy message to send to viewers either

[guruhooroo]

I've been checking here to see if anyone else had anything to say about her "halving my calories" video. I'm semi-doxxing myself here but I actually ended up commenting on that video the other day pointing out the thing I said here i.e. an "I gained weight" video followed by a "I halved my calories" video combined with her history of ED was a big red flag and she should consider either getting off YT, changing up her content to something non-food focused for a while and definitely re-engage with a therapist before things get worse. Anyway for a few days the comment got a few likes and a reply or two agreeing. I guess while I was asleep last night (I live in southern hemisphere) my comment gained a lot more traction, I had notifs with maybe 10 more replies agreeing with me. I went to the video to look at all the comments properly and Linda has turned the comments off. I don't feel bad for what I commented because it's true, based on her content I think Linda was relying on YT in an unhealthy way to validate her and I am genuinely concerned for her mental health. I hope she's okay. I hope that her turning the comments off for the video is a sign that she has had a bit of a wake-up call and is doing some reflection on where her mental health is at right now. I hope she's able to get support from her family, friends, (secret bf??), and is going to see a counsellor. I myself have gone through counselling at different times in my life and it can be really helpful to get one or two "top up" sessions when you notice yourself falling into old patterns.

[idontrllygossipok]

Honestly, I don't think her turning off comments is a wake up call. If anything it's denial.

[brampersandon]

I've been checking here to see if anyone else had anything to say about her "halving my calories" video. I'm semi-doxxing myself here but I actually ended up commenting on that video the other day pointing out the thing I said here i.e. an "I gained weight" video followed by a "I halved my calories" video combined with her history of ED was a big red flag and she should consider either getting off YT, changing up her content to something non-food focused for a while and definitely re-engage with a therapist before things get worse. Anyway for a few days the comment got a few likes and a reply or two agreeing. I guess while I was asleep last night (I live in southern hemisphere) my comment gained a lot more traction, I had notifs with maybe 10 more replies agreeing with me. I went to the video to look at all the comments properly and Linda has turned the comments off. I don't feel bad for what I commented because it's true, based on her content I think Linda was relying on YT in an unhealthy way to validate her and I am genuinely concerned for her mental health. I hope she's okay. I hope that her turning the comments off for the video is a sign that she has had a bit of a wake-up call and is doing some reflection on where her mental health is at right now. I hope she's able to get support from her family, friends, (secret bf??), and is going to see a counsellor. I myself have gone through counselling at different times in my life and it can be really helpful to get one or two "top up" sessions when you notice yourself falling into old patterns.

I think a large part of why she disabled comments is because Greg Doucette did a reaction video to her halved calories video (and then a second video about her I haven't watched and don't plan to - I have a hard time listening to him even though I agree with a lot of his points) and his viewers were all up in her comment section. It's unfortunate because I don't want her to get attacked in that way - for all my issues with her content, I do genuinely believe she means well, and she is young and struggling with her mental health. She doesn't need harassment. She needs people kindly and compassionately pointing things out like you did, but I worry that because of the backlash from Greg's videos, the larger point her commenters were trying to make about the video being unhealthy/triggering will get drowned out, or lumped in with the hate comments.

I completely agree with everything you said and I really hope she's able to see that most people commenting before Greg's video genuinely want her to get help. I'd also LOVE to see what kind of videos she'd make if everything wasn't 100% food-focused - she's clearly got a talent for filming/editing and if she broadened her scope I think she could create some really great content, plus the added bonus of having something in her life that isn't completely about food/exercise/her body.

[cheezmaneez]

The responses she got on her calories and weight gain videos clearly are affecting her. I totally think that some of the points Greg and John made in their videos had to be said because Linda is so full of contradictions and her videos are annoyingly repetitive and fake. I do agree that Greg's fans are pretty brutal because most of them are grown men who don't understand women's emotions very well but I hope this allows Linda to take a break or at least reflect on the kind of videos she puts out, especially if they have misleading messages. I was also kind of sus of this cause of how quickly she blew up. For someone to gain this much traction this quickly there has to be a price to pay.

[guruhooroo]

I noticed Linda has update the description on the calories video with a disclaimer. Lately I’ve been going down a bit of a rabbit hole on fitness/healthy lifestyle YouTubers and my ultimate conclusion is that 99% of them are extremely problematic, not qualified to disseminate the information in the content they create, and are overall harmful. I think YouTube and other social media needs to be much more heavily regulated. Linda does not have enough insight or self awareness and I now classify her as one of the problematic content creators contributing to the overall problems in the fitness/healthy lifestyle influencer space. I’m gonna unsubscribe to her and stop watching her videos. So far the only non-problematic creator I have ever found has been Natacha Ocean. Love her, she deserves all the success and happiness and it seems like she has it!

[idontrllygossipok]

I think it's clear Linda is highly insecure. Weight is not her problem, her lack of self-esteem is. I don't think her family situation is as healthy as she makes it seem; children of healthy families do not turn out so insecure. I hope she gets the help she needs, but I'm also glad people are calling her out.

[Kierans]

It seems like being on Youtube boosted her confidence at first, but was ultimately damaging as more and more people began to look at her videos critically. I liked her at first, when she wasn't trying to be some cliche self-help guru. I'm hoping that she's taking some time offline to address her food and body image issues.

And that "halving my calories" video was terrible. No one with a healthy relationship with food would do something like that, especially if they knew it would drive them to tears. She preaches "intuitive" eating, so why not just continue to eat intuitively instead of going against what she preaches lol.

[Kierans]

I don't always like obesetobeast, but this critique video was interesting and I agreed with a lot of it.

[idontrllygossipok]

Again with the challenges; why did she need to do the oatmeal challenge? I have a strong hunch that she's doing all these *BLANK* for a week videos to lose weight subtly, while still convincing herself that she's an Intuitive Eater.

[blue_bird]

Found Linda through her trying to eat and exercise like different fitness youtubers and though it was interesting. I did watch a few of her videos after that and subscribed. It was nice to see someone who liked to exercise and eat mostly normal food and wasn't like a mad fitness person. Plus the home-cooked Asian food looked really nice and I love seeing more WOC in this space. But she's gotten really repetitive for me (I think there are people who love that kind of content and find it soothing though).

I recently got round to her billionaire's video and it's turned me off her quite a bit. I disagree with some of the comments here saying that it's a privilege that her family cooks for her, I'd say that living at home and having parents who cook in the household is pretty common in Asian culture. I obviously noted how big and nice her home is but she never really came across as out of touch until the billionaire video.

Kylie is not a self-made billionaire and I'd put the Kardashian/Jenners at the bottom of the list for inspo - their bodies are not through healthy eating or exercise alone (not 100% sure on Kylie specifically but still). Also, Forbes had to retract calling her a billionaire - it was through some technicality or moving money around. Jeff Bezos is evil incarnate. Elon Musk is a terrible human being too. And her positive spin on them was just so off-putting. I can't tell if it's cognitive dissonance from coming from such a privileged background herself or if she is just that naive. I know positivity is her brand now, but it's seriously messed up.

[MI_xoxo]

This thread is a bit dead but hoping someone might be able to answer. In her new videos she often jumps between her/her parents house and an apartment? Has she bought an apartment?

[tikwi]

Does anybody else notice how everyone who claims to have recovered from an eating disorder these days becomes a dietitian? That's kind of a disturbing trend when you think about it

[tikwi]

This thread is a bit dead but hoping someone might be able to answer. In her new videos she often jumps between her/her parents house and an apartment? Has she bought an apartment?

I really wish this thread would be revived, she is so milky imo. Shes traveling around bali now apparently, as annoying as ever

[tikwi]

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She literally only stayed in the most touristy areas there are lmfao, idk how shes thanking the entire country like she knows about it. Also I'm so sick of influencers traveling to other countries and then complaining they got food poisoning from the water or food there. You need to learn to be thankful and quit exaggerating mild symptoms. Like if america is so great you should stay there instead of complaining about something as inconsequential as an upset stomach

[tikwi]

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I dont understand how someone can write all this when their only job and the only thing they even contribute to the world is Goddamn YouTube videos. Its not like youre a firefighter or a nurse or have a real job which naturally results in stress. You film yourself eating, wax poetic, and make money basically instantly. How much privilege...

[anythinggoes]

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She literally only stayed in the most touristy areas there are lmfao, idk how shes thanking the entire country like she knows about it. Also I'm so sick of influencers traveling to other countries and then complaining they got food poisoning from the water or food there. You need to learn to be thankful and quit exaggerating mild symptoms. Like if america is so great you should stay there instead of complaining about something as inconsequential as an upset stomach

Linda is Canadian, but I do agree with you about annoying influencers traveling abroad.