Bad Art Friend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's see. You encounter someone who grew up low income and seems kind of clueless socially, needy too, and maybe some mental issues thrown in. Wouldn't it be hilarious to mess with their brain a bit and invite all your sophisticated friends to join? Such a hoot, haven't had that much fun since middle school.

Oh, and when caught red handed, invoke the race card. Go all progressive on them and ask your friends to do the same. What a poor hick to do against a woman of color.

Effing truth. Of course.

One side has Roxane Gay and Celeste Ng and some nobody from Motherboard tripping over themselves to snatch out over #whitewomantears on Twitter. And the other side is this strange woman - but for her awkward letter, Larson would have no story. (She may say “phew!” now but that wasn’t her song when the Globe was knocking on her door). It’s just grotesque.

Roxane Gay actually posted some critical things against Larson and was quite empathetic about what it would feel like to read all those emails and texts. She is a writer and ultimately agrees that a writer can draw on what inspiration she finds. But she is not defending Larson the way Ng is. And Ng is Larson's friend, so I don't find that surprising.

I do think a lot of the Twitter pile on is relishing crapping on someone who is obviously quite troubled. As for the race element -- Dawn brought that on herself because it is Larson's story that involved a race element. If Dawn had just let it go, no one would be accusing her of anything race related. But she basically made herself the subject of Larson's story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I follow a lot of authors on Twitter and was surprised (maybe foolishly) to see them siding the Larson. Darmond is an irritating piece of work and it's fine to write about her through a white savior lens -- but then own it. And certainly don't steal her open letter without attribution. The citywide book program was right to be furious with Larson.

As for the copyright issues, I've heard Facebook gains rights to your posts. Do they have a claim here too?

I feel the same way. And the same way when Writer Twitter came out swinging in defense of the Cat Person story writer, and dismissed the Ann Arbor woman who’s life she’d ripped off. Just really gross and so self-involved of writers who truly think their books and stories are more important than anything else. Repellant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's see. You encounter someone who grew up low income and seems kind of clueless socially, needy too, and maybe some mental issues thrown in. Wouldn't it be hilarious to mess with their brain a bit and invite all your sophisticated friends to join? Such a hoot, haven't had that much fun since middle school.

Oh, and when caught red handed, invoke the race card. Go all progressive on them and ask your friends to do the same. What a poor hick to do against a woman of color.

Effing truth. Of course.

One side has Roxane Gay and Celeste Ng and some nobody from Motherboard tripping over themselves to snatch out over #whitewomantears on Twitter. And the other side is this strange woman - but for her awkward letter, Larson would have no story. (She may say “phew!” now but that wasn’t her song when the Globe was knocking on her door). It’s just grotesque.

Roxane Gay actually posted some critical things against Larson and was quite empathetic about what it would feel like to read all those emails and texts. She is a writer and ultimately agrees that a writer can draw on what inspiration she finds. But she is not defending Larson the way Ng is. And Ng is Larson's friend, so I don't find that surprising.

I do think a lot of the Twitter pile on is relishing crapping on someone who is obviously quite troubled. As for the race element -- Dawn brought that on herself because it is Larson's story that involved a race element. If Dawn had just let it go, no one would be accusing her of anything race related. But she basically made herself the subject of Larson's story.

It’s interesting, I hear you. I’m not familiar with the Chuntao character that Larson uses as her Rabbit. But I mostly see how damaged and vulnerable and needy Dorland is, and I’d bet most anything that she never understood that in the abstract, she has more power than Larson and Ng. Because in actual observable reality, she absolutely doesn’t. She is not important or rewarded in their community. Having this grim little pile on happen in real time bears that out, to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not defending Larson’s original lifting of the letter, which didn’t make it into the final published letter but woo boy howdy is Darmond out of her depth with her relentless stalking. The story itself is draws from Larson’s own astonishment at the weaponized narcissism and white savior complex exemplified by the kidney story. she saw in I’ve been obsessed with this story all day. This thread is a good summation imo.

I see it as exactly the reverse. Larson feels like she can justify anything she dislikes by calling it a “white savior complex.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But why did Larson lift the letter while pretending not to know about the kidney donation?
Why lift the letter of someone you want nothing to do with?
Seems sloppy and thoughtless...inviting trouble.

And imagin if the races had been reversed… Larson would have been cancelled so hard no matter how crazy the other lady was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I follow a lot of authors on Twitter and was surprised (maybe foolishly) to see them siding the Larson. Darmond is an irritating piece of work and it's fine to write about her through a white savior lens -- but then own it. And certainly don't steal her open letter without attribution. The citywide book program was right to be furious with Larson.

As for the copyright issues, I've heard Facebook gains rights to your posts. Do they have a claim here too?

I feel the same way. And the same way when Writer Twitter came out swinging in defense of the Cat Person story writer, and dismissed the Ann Arbor woman who’s life she’d ripped off. Just really gross and so self-involved of writers who truly think their books and stories are more important than anything else. Repellant.

For beyond middling writing. Melville is shooting Larson the bird with both hands and feet with her bullshit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not defending Larson’s original lifting of the letter, which didn’t make it into the final published letter but woo boy howdy is Darmond out of her depth with her relentless stalking. The story itself is draws from Larson’s own astonishment at the weaponized narcissism and white savior complex exemplified by the kidney story. she saw in I’ve been obsessed with this story all day. This thread is a good summation imo.

I see it as exactly the reverse. Larson feels like she can justify anything she dislikes by calling it a “white savior complex.”

Helen Rosner is a pretty typical power-loving, limited, solipsistic, wannabe cool dummy. I wouldn’t take her Twitter as evidence for anything like context. Ooh ooh ooh! This nobody is TOTeS a MonSTER! C’mon.

[Anonymous]

Who is Helen Rosner?

[Anonymous]

I am really fascinated how the story about someone weaponizing their class is being twisted into a story of the victim weaponizing their race.

[Anonymous]

This story really is a Rorschach test. I found myself identifying with both women in uncomfortable ways throughout the article.

I will say that I have been a part of a community a little like Grub Street. Not a writing community, but something else. And they are inherently problematic because they are never actually what they purport to be.

These organizations will call themselves a community, function as non profits, tout that they are inclusive and tolerant... but often they quickly become clique-ish and exclusive because that is human nature and because that's what happens at self-managed organizations. There's always some core group of insiders who become friends. And they'll be friendly to everyone else because, again, that's what the organization is supposed to do. But it can be confusing for people like Dorland. She though these people were her friends and they definitely were not. In fact, it's pretty clear they didn't really like her at all. I see people on Twitter making fun of Dorland for not understanding that, but I know from experience that an organization like Grub Street can pretty effectively obscure those relationships. When people are also doing a ton of trash talking members of the organization behind their backs, it becomes pretty gross to me. Because at that point you are just lying and being fake when you are friendly to someone like Dorland. Not saying they should have treated her poorly, but there is a way to interact with someone so that you are polite, without giving the impression that you are friends.

Anyway, Dorland seems pretty annoying! I probably wouldn't like her either. But I also don't think she'd get confused and think we were good friends, either, because I tend to be a lot more up front about stuff like that. I also would not have engaged in hundreds of pages worth of nasty texts and emails about her, because I don't like gossip and stuff like that makes me feel icky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really fascinated how the story about someone weaponizing their class is being twisted into a story of the victim weaponizing their race.

Can you explain this more?

[Anonymous]

Dawn seems desperate and narcissistic; Larson seems cliquey and plagiaristic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's see. You encounter someone who grew up low income and seems kind of clueless socially, needy too, and maybe some mental issues thrown in. Wouldn't it be hilarious to mess with their brain a bit and invite all your sophisticated friends to join? Such a hoot, haven't had that much fun since middle school.

Oh, and when caught red handed, invoke the race card. Go all progressive on them and ask your friends to do the same. What a poor hick to do against a woman of color.

Plus 1000 to this. Larson and her buddies are total mean girls. Sure, Dawn is pretty insecure/a sad sack . . . but good lord, she did donate a kidney, which is a pretty amazing thing to do (and I'll bet the recipient agrees and doesn't give a rat's ass if she did it to be a "white savior").

[Anonymous]

Fascinating piece- makes me wonder which great works of the past would not have had a chance of publication in the age of FB, emails, Google and hurt feelings. What sort of watered-down, safe, legally safe versions would we be left with?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fascinating piece- makes me wonder which great works of the past would not have had a chance of publication in the age of FB, emails, Google and hurt feelings. What sort of watered-down, safe, legally safe versions would we be left with?

I really find this to be somewhat intellectually dishonest. I don’t believe Melville copied out newspaper passages from sailing disasters incl the Essex, linked below, and moved words around. Also, while we’re all human, I don’t think he had an axe to grind in making the person who inspired the writing out to be a fictional monster.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-true-life-horror-that-inspired-moby-dick-17576/