Who is Lindsay Ellis? YouTuber’s old ‘anti-Asian’ tweets dug up after take on ‘Raya’ and ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

‘I think if you’re white and people of color are telling you something you’ve posted is coming off as racist, then the right thing to do is listen to them,’ one tweeted

Lindsay Ellis runs into trouble on Twitter with ‘Raya’ redux tweet (Lindsay/ Instagram)

YouTuber-author Lindsay Ellis found herself at the center of a troll fest that was triggered by her tweets, in which she had called fantasy series ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ reduxes of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’. The reactions were a mixed bag, while some chose to post old tweets of hers, which they claimed were “anti-Asian” in nature, there were a few who defended her.

Her latest tweets, dated March 26, have been deleted since outraged keyboard warriors slammed her for putting two different pieces of work under the same category. “Also watched Raya and the Last Dragon and I think we need to come up with a name for this genre that is basically Avatar: the Last Airbender reduxes. It’s like half of all YA fantasy published in the last few years anyway,” one of her posts read. More on that in a bit.

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Lindsay Ellis’s tweet (Lindsay/ Twitter)

“I can see where if you squint I was implying all Asian-inspired properties are the same, especially if you were already privy to those conversations where I had not seen them. But the basic framework of TLA is becoming popular in fantasy fiction outside of Asian inspired stuff,” Lindsay tweeted later, possibly in an effort to explain her earlier tweet, which some thought exhibited a lack of “research.”

Lindsay Ellis’s tweet (Lindsay/ Twitter)

“If the cultures seem the “same”, maybe you need to do more research, read a history book, google, i dunno, broaden your mind? That bit about YA fantasy doesn’t sit right w me like how am I suppose to interpret it? That recent diverse YA fantasy are all the same to you?,” a user pointed out in a series of tweets, which was appeared to be a criticism of Lindsay’s rant. 

However, there was another user, who thought that Lindsay has a “foot in the mouth” syndrome but at the same time called out those who called some of her old tweets “anti-Asian.” “I’m not gonna get into the lindsay ellis thing (she def has foot in mouth syndrome and also i am not interested in watching either raya or atla atm) but damn the gall of this guy claiming any kind of negative interaction = anti-asian,” the user tweeted and added screenshots of tweets done by @NoTotally earlier this month. 

“Remember when well-known YouTubers @biggestjoel and @thelindsayellis were so casually anti-Asian that their followers tried to get me killed for five straight months and very nearly succeeded multiple times,” @NoTotally posted on March 22, along with several other tweets along the same line.

“I think if you’re white and people of color are telling you something you’ve posted is coming off as racist, then the right thing to do is listen to them and not get defensive and accusatorial back at them. Think about how exhausted they are first,” one user expressed, while another shared a screengrab of a year-old tweet by Lindsay with a caption that read: “Choose your fighter: Lindsay Ellis bad takes edition.” 

The anti-Asian claims have been made by Internet users and are solely based on their take on tweets made by Lindsay. This is not the first time Twitter has been divided by her opinions, previously the literary theorist, film critic had said in a video essay titled “Dear Stephenie Meyer”: “We — and by ‘we’ I mean ‘our culture’ — we kind of hate teenage girls. We hate their music, we hate their insipid backstabbing, we hate their vanity, we hate their selfie sticks, we hate their makeup, we hate their stupid books and the stupid, sexy actors they made famous, and we hate their stupid, sparkly vampires… And then we wonder why so many girls are eager to distance themselves from being the object of societal contempt.” At the time, a lot of fans supported her take, but this time it seems she may have been way off the mark for some. 

Lindsay runs a successful YouTube channel that has clocked over a million followers so far.  She creates video essays and “other nondescript content.” “Enjoy these hottest of takes on Disney, Transformers, and Musicals. All hail the Algorithm,” her YT bio reads.

When not tied up in wires in her Los Angeles home studio, Lindsay writes. Her debut sci-fi title ‘Axiom’s End’, was received well. “The blistering fast read isn’t bogged down with unnecessary subplots or language to slow down the action, Eugene Weekly reviewed and added that she has constructed a world that makes the aliens unique without “falling into the sci-fi traps of limiting readers with hard science references, too much space opera-y or clichés.”

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.