Revisiting Daul Kim’s “I Like to Fork Myself”
Celebrity death vultures have been busy the last week picking over the bones of 20 year-old, South Korean model Daul Kim, who was found hanged in her Paris apartment in an apparent suicide November 19, which may explain why her blog, I Like to Fork Myself–scoured by reporters as though it were a suicide note (before the alleged existence of an actual suicide note was revealed)–has since been switched to invite-only and is no longer available for public rubbernecking viewing.
I, too, have been guilty of participating in this scavenger hunt, the search for the why behind her death. A year-and-a-half ago, I wrote about Daul Kim and the things I liked about her: her goofy-cool factor, her bangs, and her blog, which I described as a “zany, irreverent diary of her fashism experiences.” When I read of her death, my first impulse was to return to the site and figure out what I had missed. I mean, zany and irreverent? Were these words one could really use to describe someone who had taken her own life? What dark thoughts and creeping shadows had I failed to see on the edges?
There are plenty of clues as to the why on Daul’s blog, admissions of depression, insomnia, loneliness, fatigue. She had two author identities, Daul and DaulMonster. There are entries that suggest she’s hiding something terrible from the world, as in this post from August, where she obliquely references her “painful past” and “the horror” she went through:
i tell myself
im strong.
i dont need to show
my painful past
no one needs to know
the horror i went through
i grew up too quick
and no one, saw past my surface
i dont know how to hurt people
i dont know how to be loved
i dont know how to love
im hurt
but im strong
and im perfect
alone.
And this one from the same month, which is titled “.”:
dont people understand
last stages
are
more
calm?
do you really think
im happy ?
Then again, a life story reads differently once you know its ending.
Two author identities on a blog is no longer random play, suddenly it’s a sign of emotional disturbance, perhaps borderline personality disorder. Angst-filled poetry that may have seemed typical issue from a person her age necessarily takes the shape of a cry for help. A period as a title, perhaps an afterthought, crystallizes into a kind of fatalistic Morse code.
The thing that struck me after I revisited the site, however, was that even among the evidence of the why, the “zany” and “irreverent” girl I’d first encountered in those pages was still very much intact: the girl who liberally used <3′s in her posts, the fan who was obsessed with house and trance music, the up-and-coming model who proudly displayed her best work, the young woman who was just beginning to realize that she no longer had to please everybody, like in the August 2009 post, “say hi to korean bullies,” when she addresses her Korean haters and writes, “im not gonna say sorry for living my life,” the fashion junkie who could wax poetic about a fur coat:
i think
i feel like incomplete
but when i wear
fur.
i feel
complete
this
invincible
feeling
something
closest
to love.
These posts are clues, too, signs of a complicated, curious, intelligent person, someone who couldn’t be reduced to just another pretty face, as her profession might have had you believe she was, or a final act, as her suicide demands. It’s a shame that I Like to Fork Myself has been shut down so that people can no longer remember Daul Kim in her own words. My fear is that, as time goes on, and the investigation into the why continues, and the suicide note she left is revealed, then dissected, and more details about her last days emerge, her life, a fledgling life but a full one, filled with so many beautiful, disparate wonders, will be broken down into pieces and swallowed up by one thing and one thing only, the thin, hard mouth of her death.
[I Like to Fork Myself]
[NY Mag: Daul Kim news]
[The Daily Beast: Inside a Supermodel's Suicide]
Filed under: Asian Models, Bloggers, Daul Kim, Daul Kim Death, Daul Kim Suicide, Daul Kim Suicide Note, I Like to Fork Myself, RIP Daul Kim, South Koreans, Suicide, Untimely Deaths
Treat people well, you never know what they’re going through. Poor thing.
Sometimes you make me think. Sometimes you make me laugh. Today Jen, you blew me away. Powerful post!
I agree that it’s incorrect for her whole blog to be dismissed as macabre, drepressed and dark. No one is completely one thing or the other. But I daresay the news outlets will continue to dissect it that way because we all need that separation.
I think we can all recognize her isolation and loneliness a little too well to feel comfortable.
I completely agree with Cindy. Thank you so much for this post, and for seeing her as she really was. 언니 보고싶다~ 널 잊을 순 없을 거야~
I came across “I Like to Fork Myself” almost accidentally this year, in my search for Asian and Asian American news, events and bloggers. I was surprised at how candid, witty and interesting Daul Kim was and I returned every week to see what my favorite model was up to.
Daul was more than just a beautiful face on a magazine cover. She was like a best friend who moved away but still kept in touch, sending photos from everywhere ["Say hi to..."]. She was hip, she was a rock star in the modeling world, and she got to travel the world to places like we only wish we could.
Last Thursday, I glanced at Disgrasian’s Twitter and was horrified to hear about Daul Kim’s death. I was absolutely devastated, like I lost someone close to me.
I went to her blog automatically, whether to look for answers or pay my last respects. All that was left was “Say hi to forever” and a rhythm to mull over. But soon, comments started to trickle in and it was clear that others did feel strongly about her.
Daul, all of us are wondering where you went and why. We’re hoping that you’re not hurt anymore. If you could hear our thoughts, you could tell how much we cared about you, and how much we miss you.
There are new reports (http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2009/11/daul_kim_imed_with_a_friend_ab.html) coming out that she was in an abusive realtionship with a very wealthy man 10 (or was it 20?) years her senior. Her father thinks her death may have been a homicide.
You are, I think, one of the most eloquent writers on the internet. And because I absolutely despise the ways in which the internet-at-large treats the human condition, the solemn strength of your reflection weighs that much more heavily upon me.
Has anyone visited Michelle’s blog? Refreshingly, it’s about her art and fashion projects. Check out what she did to here Nikes.