Super Brave Woman Tumbls Diary From Her Slut-Shamed Adolescence

Once you get some chronological and emotional distance from the arbitrary cruelty of middle school, it’s easy to write off your tormentors because these days they’re posting Facebook selfies of themselves drinking sizzurp as their toddler watches Caillou in the background. But that shit, in real time, was rough.

I must deserve this. I must have done something so wrong – well, I’ve done lots of things wrong. So I guess I do deserve this, and God is just paying me back.

Emily Lindin, who was 11 when her classmates decided she was a regulation skank, remembers it well thanks to the diligent diary entries she kept, beginning in 1997. She’s now posting them in their entirety to her Tumblr, The UnSlut Project, as an outreach to adolescent who are going through the same thing at school in the age of Twitter.

Then we talked about all the rumors about what happened at Matt’s house, and Aaron said he had heard that Zach “ate me out.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I said it wasn’t true, just to be on the safe side.

Lindin also aims to remind adults — who, in the wake of Steubenville, have been blaming social media for slut-shaming — that the Internet is the symptom, not the cause. After all, as her diaries prove, it was alive and well on AIM and parents’ landlines in 1997. Also: the UnSlut Project is intended to be collaborative, so you should totally submit your tales of horror, if you’re unfortunate enough to have any.

Then Aaron called him on 3-way but with me on mute and said, “Oh, come on. You know you still like her.” And Zach said hesitantly, “Yeah… I know. But she has no friends.” Aaron said, “It’s only because of what she did with you.”

It being an 11-year-old girl’s diary, there are also moments of unintentional hilarity:

I was talking to Jenna on the phone today and she said that she thought everyone is born with a soul mate. Someone you were meant to be with. She said, “My soul mate is probably in South Africa running around with nothing on but a leather thong. But you’re so lucky! You and Zach are definitely soul mates. You are so perfect for each other!”

Also:

The Posters I Have

Hanson Posters: 84 85

Other Posters: 17

‘The UnSlut Project: a new Tumblr is the “It Gets Better” of slut-shaming’ [XX Factor/Slate]