Mistake No. 1: “You don’t ask anyone on the internet for anything.”
That’s according to Holland Christensen, a young woman from Tennessee who explained in a mea culpa video posted to YouTube yesterday that she recently did something “really, really stupid” — she accidentally tattooed NBA player Jeremy Lin’s name in Chinese on her ankle.
Oops.
Christensen says she had asked netizens to translate a phrase to Chinese for her two months ago so she could have it tattooed on her ankle because she enjoys languages and traveling and thought the ink seemed like “a really cool idea.”
Unfortunately for her, however, an internet prankster decided to give her the Chinese characters for “Jeremy Lin” instead.
Because she was “impulsive” and did not have enough time to check, she went and had the words in Chinese committed to her skin shortly thereafter.
It was only until a few days later when she decided to have the tattoo, which she says would be considered a “basic white girl tattoo” by some, translated to ease her mind that she learned the truth.
“I was like, ‘What does that even mean? Is that a real person? What is that?’ I didn’t really believe them,” Christensen says of her reaction when she learned her tattoo’s meaning.
After confirming the tattoo was of Lin’s name on Google Translate, she said she was upset and mad at herself for “being so stupid.”
However, she soon realized she had a decision to make: to either be upset about the tattoo or to become Lin’s biggest fan.
Her first thought: at least he’s “really attractive,” if nothing else.
After watching interviews of the Charlotte Hornets point guard, however, Christensen said she was pleased to learn that Lin was a “total sweetheart.”
According to her, they both share an interest in helping underprivileged youth. As well, she said Lin revealed in one interview that he failed his first driver’s test because he drove too slowly. Apparently, so did she.
In a Reddit post, Christensen says she was recently able to attend a Hornets game but was unable to meet Lin. However, Lin, who has apparently learned of her story, tweeted the following today:
And included the following photo.
