Julie Chan Is Dead

by Liann Zhang

“You’re Chloe Van Huusen, right?” There it is. Chloe Van Huusen.

“I’m not Chloe.

“Do you think it’s her twin? From that video?” A gasp. “Oh my god, yes.” “What was her name? Janice?” “Jordan?” “Jade?” “It’s Julie!” I scream.

Being a young woman is already like existing in the seventh circle of hell.

Here’s the hard truth that Chloe Van Huusen fans fail to realize: she’s far from the pretty little angel she pretends to be.

I read an article that said our brains aren’t capable of meaningful retention in early life. Most of our early memories are nothing more than fictionalized stories generated via stimuli we encounter in older age.

Chloe is dead.

“God, please. Let this be the last of it.” I’m a cold, hard atheist, but I need anything I can get right now. “I’m so sorry, Chloe. Help will be on the way.” I don’t know why I’m talking to her like she can hear me.

For one Instagram Reel / TikTok cross-post and two static feed posts over four weeks, Chloe received $45,000. Forty. Five. Thousand. Dollars. What. The. Actual. Flying. Fuck?

The word is out now. Julie Chan is dead. Chloe Van Huusen is grieving. Everyone loves it.

Julie Chan is dead. Julie Chan is dead. Julie Chan is dead.

Fuck being yourself; being someone else is so much better.

I’ve developed a jaded view of social media influencers, viewing them as a toxic cesspool of self-aggrandizing narcissists who feed us images of their deceptively attainable wealth through LED screens connected to our palms.

Twenty-four years vanished in seconds. Swept into the wind to be breathed in as micro-pollution, sinking to the bottom of the riverbed, food for mollusks.

Creators who are “down-to-earth” and reject capitalism are nothing more than hypocrites shilling out so-called socialist viewpoints from their mega-mansions or sky-high penthouses.

“Putting paragraph breaks between a fragmented sentence is not poetry!”

“Obviously, we all worked hard to get to where we are. But acknowledging our privilege is still important. We all put in our hours. We are all on the grind. We’ve all sacrificed. But some people sacrifice less and get more. And other people work themselves to the bone and get scraps. That’s the nature of life and social media is not an exception.”

I know I’m fucked up, but these people are a whole new level of fucked.

She sacrificed her firstborn child to Eto for followers. Well, I guess it’s official. There’s no more denying it. They’re all batshit insane.

That’s right. The world knows I stole my twin’s identity and that I’m really Julie Chan. And you would never guess who exposed me. Iz. Yep. That Iz. Isla motherfucking Harris.