Charles Teves
Numerous sources have reported that Brooke Lim, a 19-year-old influencer, became famous on TikTok for her essay writing tutorials posted on her account @sugaresque, amassing over 183,000 followers.
She also runs a tuition agency named Classicle Club, which helped her earn more than six figures in 2022, according to an article in The Strait Times, a Singaporean newspaper.
However, the influencer’s perfect run ended when a TikTok user with the handle @sugaresqueessay accused her of extensively plagiarizing a personal essay titled On Being Afraid of Eating, which Lim had posted on her blog, Grayscale Copy, on April 18.
The essay discussed Lim’s purported struggles with an eating disorder.
The anonymous user posted multiple videos on their account that exposed Lim’s fraudulent act and shared a comprehensive Google document that lists all the content Lim had taken from other sources. Lim has since removed the essay from her blog.
“More than half of the original version of her essay was not written by her, and in fact plagiarised from multiple books and articles,” said the document.
“The similarities include: sentences, whole paragraphs, plot points, and specific details. While some words have been painstakingly paraphrased, the overall structure of full paragraphs are copied with no credit whatsoever to the original creators, despite the obvious correlations,” it furthered.
According to the accusations made by the anonymous user on TikTok, Lim’s essay deliberately borrowed concepts from five books and eight articles without citing credit.
“It is disrespectful to the many people with eating disorders, especially the authors of the books and articles plagiarised,” the anonymous user said.
“And most importantly, it is disrespectful to Brooke herself as a writer to pass off work that is not hers and pretend it is,” they added.
After the allegations surfaced, Lim uploaded a TikTok video in which she confessed to plagiarizing others’ works and referred to her actions as “very serious and regrettable.” She apologized to everyone who was negatively impacted by her actions.
“I am so sorry. I am so sorry to my students. I’ve been reaching out to them one by one to apologize. I am so sorry to my followers, anyone who has supported me one way or another, and to the authors of the books from which I have plagiarized,” Lim said.
“I really should have just given due credit and explained that these were words that resonated very deeply with me,” she added.
@sugaresque In response to Jiabao’s unfounded allegations. Our students come first — classes & sign-ups will continue as per normal.
She clarified that although she had plagiarized works in her essay, she had not used the content to earn any profit or monetize in any way. She emphasized that the essay had no relation to her agency.
“I wish I could turn back time to change it, but I can’t, so I’ve taken down the essay already,” Lim said.
Amid the controversy, an online petition got initiated by a user named Brianna Lee. The petition urges the University of California (UCLA) to investigate Lim’s admissions essay, which she had submitted to the university. In an earlier TikTok video, Lim confirmed that she offered admission to UCLA.
The petition, which currently has 1,088 signatures, accuses Lim of being “disrespectful and callous” and exploiting her eating disorder for her own gain in her essay.
However, Lim responded by stating that she is aware of the petition but has not yet committed to UCLA.
