Hermon Raju, ‘Well-Educated’ Metro-North Lady, Compares Internet Mockery to Rape

The New York University graduate who berated a Metro-North conductor for simply asking her to quiet down and quit using foul language is seeking PR help, but Hermon Raju’s letter requesting image assistance, as obtained by the Daily News‘ Gatecrasher, only makes her look worse. Predictably, she claims there’s “a lot more to the story” than what the video shows and admits she was advised “not to speak to the media.” That would’ve been smart. Instead, her letter to a PR firm was leaked and is probably more offensive than her initial temper tantrum: “I can honestly say I feel raped by the Internet,” she wrote, cluelessly.

“I feel like I have been robbed of everything, including my identity,” Raju wrote about the aftermath. “I am not seeking fame or notoriety,” she assured. “I just want my life back.” By “life,” she means her social network profiles — LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter — which she deleted when her video went viral.

“Excuse me, do you know what schools I’ve been to and how well-educated I am?” Raju asked in the notorious video. She has attempted to suppress copies of the clip, but it’s not working because this is the internet. Here’s one, for a refresher on rude, and here’s another (just in case).

Ms. Raju, if your Google Alert leads you here, let us give you the only PR lesson you need: a Wikipedia link to the Streisand effect, “a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely.”

Now be quiet and go away.

[NYDN]