Are Petite Asian Girls the New Femme Fatales?

Neela Banerjee
April 15, 2009

The New York Observer has a scintillating story up about a young woman named Kari Ferrell, one of "Salt Lake City's Most Wanted." The story, amusingly titled "The Hipster Grifter," goes into the history of 22-year-old Ferrell's twisted path of lies, deceptions and check fraud -- which struck hipster strongholds like the Vice Magazine office and other parts of Brooklyn.

kari_ferrell.jpg

What I find most fascinating about this story is the way that "cute Asian girls" are identified as perfect hipster bait. The Observer article reads:

"Ms. Ferrell — petite, 22 years old, of Korean heritage — had a huge tattoo of a dragon across her chest and a cute pixie haircut. She was talkative, funny, charming, adorable. She had a tattoo on her back that read 'I Love Beards.' "

It's like, if Judd Apatow's slacker males are redefining modern men, are "petite" Asian girls are the new femme fatales?

Ferrell's background as a Korean adoptee is mentioned briefly in the article, but most touted -- besides her faking cancer -- is her sexual agressiveness, often in the form of passed notes to strangers [i.e., “I want you to throw a hot dog down my hall.” Now that's sexy!] One unsuspecting young man has this to say about Ferrell: "She has this thing with guys where she talks about sex really upfront and kind of puts people off balance." The way Ferrell's sexuality is described seems retro enough to fit right in to The Maltese Falcon.

I'm trying to figure out what is most newsworthy about Ferrell: Is it because she's Asian and unsuspecting? Is it because she duped so many hipsters? And if that's the case, could she be my hero?

What do you think?
  

Categories: 
Race
Gender and Sexuality
Contributor: 

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Comments

Comments

Asian Escort NYC wrote on Fri, 05/01/2009 - 10:44pm
Unlike Caucasians, it takes longer for Asians to age physically so they manage to keep that innocent, child-like look. I agree with the previous comment that you should google people you just met to save yourself from falling into their trap.
afu wrote on Thu, 04/16/2009 - 12:25am
It doesn't have anything to do with her being Asian, it has to do with her being an evil liar.There is some really weird projecting going on over at Jezebel about how all these guys were hooked because they have an Asian fetish. No these guys were hooked because she was cute, easy and a good liar.http://jezebel.com/5213344/did-hipster-grifter-play-on-loathsome-hipster-asian-fetish#viewcomments
Leonard wrote on Thu, 04/16/2009 - 8:46am
Got totally sucked into this article too. She's exactly the type of hipster bait as anything. I used to half-joke around that there's this market demographic in SF of Asian girls with black rim glasses, they're the ones that decide where to eat, drink and consume culture, advertise to them and their white boyfriends and hipster clusters will follow.All in all, the article reads more like a juicy gossip page cleaned up off a Vice magazine page to document girls in the scene. drug, music art subcultures fuel these types of relationships, she just happened to get her shine for the moment for getting caught and using her real name.
lisamac wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 10:01am
it's the pixie cut - it changes you forever
aZnHeartThrob wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 10:58am
You gotta Google people the first second ya meet them! This woulda saved everyone some dollas and time... Its not stalking if the person ends up being on the State of Utah's most wanted list...
bjr wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 3:44pm
what's interesting but not surprising about this series of articles is how relatively little attention is paid to the cute transracial adoptee's very clear mental health issues. of course this is not to say she is not responsible for her actions, but jesus christ, come on now, how many of these (white hipster) people just let themselves get totally took by her.leonard, "hipster bait"!funny.
Lxy wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 5:17pm
What's with this fascination with White Hipster stupidity?These creeps are "hip" only so far as they are capable of living/leeching off the trust fund or wealth that Mummy and Daddy provide for them.Take their unearned socio-economic privilege away from them, and they are White Hipster losers that no one would give the time of day to.As for the premise of this article "Are Petite Asian Girls the New Femme Fatales?," it's glibness fits perfectly with the world of hipster parasites.The funniest line was the assertion that "Judd Apatow's slacker males are redefining modern men."Only in the insular, privileged "reality" of Hipsterdom and its Kool-Aid drinkers.
WTF wrote on Sun, 04/19/2009 - 8:17am
NO IT IS ABOUT HER BEING ASIANThis is a simple case of yellow fever run rampant.This chick knows how these white guys got yellow feverand so she's running game. I don't co-sign what she's doing atall i think she's a piece of shit that needs to be put out of her misery,but cmon yall she's mad ugly and fat. Do you know how many dime piece asian women there are in this city? I had a homie who got game ran on him in the similar way but at least the chick was a dime. ....SMH