Bad Art Friend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That one of the Chunky Monkeys had tried to coerce into sex and, when she demurred, told her she was making enemies and that he (?) had the power to keep her from getting published or winning any awards. She also said she was anxious about naming the person, probably because of how vindictive they all are.

I assume it was a male member who did this. All of them are ugly. I guess (delusional) threats are their only recourse when a woman tells them to get lost.

Which of them has any power besides Ng? Honest question, I am wondering ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry I meant to link this one. Which, honestly, color me impressed with the self-reflection. In the same thread she is also honest about what she did.

AMEN BECKY !!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That one of the Chunky Monkeys had tried to coerce into sex and, when she demurred, told her she was making enemies and that he (?) had the power to keep her from getting published or winning any awards. She also said she was anxious about naming the person, probably because of how vindictive they all are.

I assume it was a male member who did this. All of them are ugly. I guess (delusional) threats are their only recourse when a woman tells them to get lost.

Which of them has any power besides Ng? Honest question, I am wondering ...

I think Jennifer de Leon has influence through her role at GrubStreet and was a CM founder. I do not think we can assume it was one of the men actually.

I really feel for Jennifer Haugh. This must be bringing up a lot of difficult memories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry I meant to link this one. Which, honestly, color me impressed with the self-reflection. In the same thread she is also honest about what she did.

AMEN BECKY !!!!

She seems to be really thinking deeply about how a good person can dehumanize another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow Lauren Hough is a big deal and that feels like an explosive allegation. I think the reason it didn’t get traction is that people didn’t catch what “CM” meant— I think only lit folk and BAF obsessive know that short hand.

It’s crazy because she’s a bestselling essayist and almost certainly more successful than all but a couple of the CMs. So on the one hand, good for her for showing this person up. On the other hand, a reminder that it’s not just unpublished writers or people who are struggling/ outsiders who get subject to this kind of harassment and bullying.

The fact that Dorland had that harassment claim against Grubstreet that got swept under the rug is now making me wonder if it could be the same person.

What did Lauren's tweet say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That one of the Chunky Monkeys had tried to coerce into sex and, when she demurred, told her she was making enemies and that he (?) had the power to keep her from getting published or winning any awards. She also said she was anxious about naming the person, probably because of how vindictive they all are.

I assume it was a male member who did this. All of them are ugly. I guess (delusional) threats are their only recourse when a woman tells them to get lost.

Which of them has any power besides Ng? Honest question, I am wondering ...

I think Jennifer de Leon has influence through her role at GrubStreet and was a CM founder. I do not think we can assume it was one of the men actually.

I really feel for Jennifer Haugh. This must be bringing up a lot of difficult memories.

I’m the one who posted the summary, and you’re right. It could have been one of the women. I was thinking of male-typical behavior, but that”s a little narrow. The whole group is toxic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whoops, here is Becky Tuch's response:

All the applause. It’s not easy to make an apology. I don’t even know what Becky Tuch said in the first place but her apologies seem genuine. I cannot believe that Celeste Ng thinks her behavior is a good idea.

I was talking to my husband about a woman in one of my parenting group a decade ans a half ago when our kids were babies. She was super aggressive and performative and never hesitated to be nasty in the cloak of being helpful. I won’t detail some of the altruistic acts she did because she would be recognizable here and is a member of the community but she actually did some really damaging things under the auspices of a type of charity. She also deliberately shared articles, advice, etc in a way to make others feel really bad about themselves or worried about how they were parenting. Again, hard to explain. I guess my point is, although (and I want to emphasize this) I do NOT think Dawn has done anything like that, let’s say she had. Let’s say that in the background she wasn’t just (itself arguably) “extra” but she was downright nice nasty, vindictive, there to try and compete and claw. The behavior of the “chunky monkeys” is still unequivocally wrong. There is no moral gray area when it comes to plagiarizing, and the horrible cruelty that group of insiders subjected her to. In the case of the woman in my group, she herself was deeply insecure and this was her currency. I guess one could accurately conclude that the CMs were also deeply insecure - some of them like Chip Cheek tried so hard to impress the in crowd, they truly dehumanized Dawn and I suppose that’s what allowed them to behave the way they did without remorse. Or maybe some of them felt remorse. That dude’s email stands out to me and I wonder if he’s read it back with that blanket of mortification. How bad he sounds as she was trying to help. If that were me I would be so ashamed and I would maybe say something like “even if there are some behaviors that are hard to explain but positioned us all against Dawn for reasons thsy we felt were legitimate. It still does not excuse being so mocking and cruel to someone. Reading how she offered help to me in a new city, particularly as it was something I needed at the time, and how I characterized it, is deeply embarrassing to me. I am ashamed of my behavior and am going to be doing a lot of thinking about why I didn’t recognize my own cruelty” that’s the kind of apology I want to see. For Celeste Ng, I just don’t know if any apology could ever work. She actually seems irredeemable at this point - can anyone write her apology for her?

[Anonymous]

I hate the excuses - they are for me excuses that people are cruel out of insecurity. I personally don’t even accept that with young children. Nothing about the current behavior suggests to me that most of the CMs were cruel out of overweening insecurity. It’s an uncomfortable reality that lots of cruel people enjoy cruelty, and have been that way since birth, even if they went to Oberlin and voted (twice!) for Obama.

Those of us who lean progressive ourselves and live in areas where people put Hate Has No Home Here signs in their windows or on their lawns know the above by now. I hope.

[Anonymous]

Speaking of Ng and performative behavior, she posted this Twitter thread in April of 2018, just a few months after she compared Dorland to Donald Trump for appearing on the Jumbotron at a Lakers game. Dorland had been invited to promote kidney donation.

I don't have a problem with Ng posting it. In fact I am glad she did. She did a good thing and people should think about helping. But in posting, she is literally doing something more performative than what Dorland did at the Lakers game. Dorland was invited for the purpose of kidney donation promotion. Ng was just sharing a story about how she helped someone.

That thread features this gem too:

[Anonymous]

Ng is beyond full of shit.

[Anonymous]

I think that Ng is for sure seriously at issue here, but I don't want to lose focus on the institutions that were most at fault here (GrubStreet and the NYT).

GrubStreet's Eve Bridberg -- the same Eve Bridberg involved in this, who has been out on Twitter liking the Tweets of pro-Larson posters since the story broke -- is overseeing the investigation of an independent third party investigator that she won't identify. I'm skeptical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of Ng and performative behavior, she posted this Twitter thread in April of 2018, just a few months after she compared Dorland to Donald Trump for appearing on the Jumbotron at a Lakers game. Dorland had been invited to promote kidney donation.

I don't have a problem with Ng posting it. In fact I am glad she did. She did a good thing and people should think about helping. But in posting, she is literally doing something more performative than what Dorland did at the Lakers game. Dorland was invited for the purpose of kidney donation promotion. Ng was just sharing a story about how she helped someone.

That thread features this gem too:

Uggggggghhhhh, this drives me crazy. I have known so many people like this. People who are ultra performatove about their “good work” but extremely judgmental of others. In general but also specifically for doing the same stuff.

If I were Ng’s therapist I’d probably ask her if her loathing for Dawn was an act of recognition, of seeing in someone else the same desperate need for a specific kind of validation (that you are a “good person” and not a “bad person”) and thus just a way to externalize her own self loathing, to make it easier to carry.

[Anonymous]

The amount of hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness in Celeste Ng is astounding. How is she this unaware?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The amount of hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness in Celeste Ng is astounding. How is she this unaware?

Well, she is human and flawed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The amount of hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness in Celeste Ng is astounding. How is she this unaware?

This from the NYT piece:

One of those writing-group members, Celeste Ng, who wrote “Little Fires Everywhere,” told me that she admires Larson’s ability to create “characters who have these big blind spots.” While they think they’re presenting themselves one way, they actually come across as something else entirely.

The irony is too rich.