Bad Art Friend

[Anonymous]

I think Kokler and Larson have something in common: Anything that happens is “art” and can be described any way they want to. Big ego view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the picture of the two of them again. Larson has kind of a beady eyed b**** stare despite her relaxed pose.
Dorland has the more inscrutable look but it’s still unflattering. She looks sad to me.

Larson sure seems like a bit3h, or at least a fake friend and opportunistic person who bullied and gaslighted Dorland in the worst way.

And I bet Dorland’s sad. She’s had a tough childhood, she makes her way through that to a career she loved, makes “friends” with people she thought cared about her, and then realizes through a terrible bit protracted sequence of events that her “friends” mocked her mercilessly and that something of importance to her - kidney donation - was the subject of ridicule and disdain, AND that her “friend” has taken personal Facebook posts and used it for fodder for a book that was essentially one part inside joke between Larson and her friends.

How f-ing horrible. So yeah, I bet Dorland is sad. Life hasn’t been completely kind to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the picture of the two of them again. Larson has kind of a beady eyed b**** stare despite her relaxed pose.
Dorland has the more inscrutable look but it’s still unflattering. She looks sad to me.

Larson sure seems like a bit3h, or at least a fake friend and opportunistic person who bullied and gaslighted Dorland in the worst way.

And I bet Dorland’s sad. She’s had a tough childhood, she makes her way through that to a career she loved, makes “friends” with people she thought cared about her, and then realizes through a terrible bit protracted sequence of events that her “friends” mocked her mercilessly and that something of importance to her - kidney donation - was the subject of ridicule and disdain, AND that her “friend” has taken personal Facebook posts and used it for fodder for a book that was essentially one part inside joke between Larson and her friends.

How f-ing horrible. So yeah, I bet Dorland is sad. Life hasn’t been completely kind to her.

Yes. She probably is sad. Who wouldn't be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Kokler and Larson have something in common: Anything that happens is “art” and can be described any way they want to. Big ego view.

Totally. I really dislike people like this. I’m a fine artist PP and perhaps needless to say my community is teeming with this nonsense

[Anonymous]

I wonder if Kolker wrote the piece overcompensating for the fact that he got the story tip from Dorland, so tried to give some slant to Larson, also. I don't really believe that he understood Dorland the way we do and wrote the story that way, anyway. Thinking it's more probable that he didn't read all the legal filings and also that his story may have gotten changed around a bit in editing (he suggests it did but I don't know which side it might have favored more in the original draft form). I suspect that he did maybe see things from both sides. He does after all write stories about female harassment etc. that misogynists probably wouldn't bother spending their time on, I don't personally think he's a misogynist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The amazing kidneygate account found a series of Tweets by Helen Rosner where she accused an app that stripped ads from recipe websites as "stealing" from creators. As background, recipes are generally not considered to be copyrightable. So, she's basically objecting to the app on moral grounds, not on any legal grounds.

But she defends Larson? In Rosner's upside-down world, it is evil to make an app that strips annoying ads from a webpage with un-copyrightable recipes but stealing someone's letter wholesale and profiting from it is totally fine? Is this the position of the New Yorker too?

Yeah the fact this person is a New Yorker editor is incredibly depressing

— PP who is also depressed about the NYT

— I do have other things in my life I don’t find depressing just in case this is starting to seem like cause for alarm for me lol

I think losing faith in the NYT in the times that we are living in is pretty damn significant. Who can we trust and if they aren’t getting these human Interest stories right then what about the hard news that shapes our world?

This story has soured me on NYT and the New Yorker

Same. I just have a "yuck" feeling and feeling that about the Times feels very uncomfortable. I gave them too much credence, clearly. It's like when you realize someone you idolize or look up to did something deeply lacking in integrity. It's like, ugh, YOU did that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if Kolker wrote the piece overcompensating for the fact that he got the story tip from Dorland, so tried to give some slant to Larson, also. I don't really believe that he understood Dorland the way we do and wrote the story that way, anyway. Thinking it's more probable that he didn't read all the legal filings and also that his story may have gotten changed around a bit in editing (he suggests it did but I don't know which side it might have favored more in the original draft form). I suspect that he did maybe see things from both sides. He does after all write stories about female harassment etc. that misogynists probably wouldn't bother spending their time on, I don't personally think he's a misogynist.

Characterizing women who stand up for themselves as needy, extra, or emotional is not a good look in 2021.

[Anonymous]

DAWN DORLAND, WE WANT YOUR BOOK!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Kokler and Larson have something in common: Anything that happens is “art” and can be described any way they want to. Big ego view.

Totally. I really dislike people like this. I’m a fine artist PP and perhaps needless to say my community is teeming with this nonsense

Out of curiosity, what is the take of the fine art community?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if Kolker wrote the piece overcompensating for the fact that he got the story tip from Dorland, so tried to give some slant to Larson, also. I don't really believe that he understood Dorland the way we do and wrote the story that way, anyway. Thinking it's more probable that he didn't read all the legal filings and also that his story may have gotten changed around a bit in editing (he suggests it did but I don't know which side it might have favored more in the original draft form). I suspect that he did maybe see things from both sides. He does after all write stories about female harassment etc. that misogynists probably wouldn't bother spending their time on, I don't personally think he's a misogynist.

Personally I now deeply question his narratives in those stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if Kolker wrote the piece overcompensating for the fact that he got the story tip from Dorland, so tried to give some slant to Larson, also. I don't really believe that he understood Dorland the way we do and wrote the story that way, anyway. Thinking it's more probable that he didn't read all the legal filings and also that his story may have gotten changed around a bit in editing (he suggests it did but I don't know which side it might have favored more in the original draft form). I suspect that he did maybe see things from both sides. He does after all write stories about female harassment etc. that misogynists probably wouldn't bother spending their time on, I don't personally think he's a misogynist.

Characterizing women who stand up for themselves as needy, extra, or emotional is not a good look in 2021.

+1

Comparing the Summer Brennan and kidneygate work to Kolkers narrative is notable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if Kolker wrote the piece overcompensating for the fact that he got the story tip from Dorland, so tried to give some slant to Larson, also. I don't really believe that he understood Dorland the way we do and wrote the story that way, anyway. Thinking it's more probable that he didn't read all the legal filings and also that his story may have gotten changed around a bit in editing (he suggests it did but I don't know which side it might have favored more in the original draft form). I suspect that he did maybe see things from both sides. He does after all write stories about female harassment etc. that misogynists probably wouldn't bother spending their time on, I don't personally think he's a misogynist.

Characterizing women who stand up for themselves as needy, extra, or emotional is not a good look in 2021.

I agree but I think we are far from this type of misogyny going away.

One of the take-aways I have from this whole thing is that we are still stuck in the misogynist viewpoint that there are "good" women and "bad" women. The 2021 spin on this is that "good" women deserve to be treated fairly (like a man!) and that "bad" women may be treated in a sexist way because we still live in a sexist culture that believes feminine traits are inherently bad.

So Dorland is portrayed as needy specifically because she is making an emotional claim. She is far less concerned with the theft of intellectual property that she might have profited off of than she is in simply having been treated poorly. She is upset over the abuse of her friendship. She is saying that Larson hurt her, and she wants recompense for being hurt. Since emotionality is considered (falsely) a feminine trait, Kolker feels comfortable portraying it as needy and cloying.

But Larson's approach to the conflict is based in a professional interest. She is a writer; she wrote something. She isn't personally hurt by Dorland's actions. Instead, she is alleging that Dorland has deprived her of income, has interfered with her career. Since we still treat economic interests and work as "masculine" concepts, Kolker portrays Larson as rational, calm, independent.

But of course, if you read the court documents, you can see why these dichotomies are inaccurate. Not only offensive, but wrong. Though her claim is based in an emotional harm, Dorland's actions are carefully thought out and executed. Whether she is writing to Larson directly or reaching out to Boston Book Festival or Grubstreet or another professional organization, her communications are clear, with remarkably little sentiment. She is honest that her interest is an emotional one, but she is rational about describing that emotion and asking for generally very basic things.

Meanwhile, the emails and texts between the CMs show Larson to be incredibly emotional, seemingly blinded by her dislike of Dorland. The CMs commentary about Dorland is petty, small-minded, bitter, and untempered by reason. You might expect at some point for someone to say "well, she did donate a kidney to a stranger and that's a laudable thing." But they can't even manage that level of objectivity. And it's not limited to the women on these threads -- the men are largely as bad, with a couple small exceptions.

Kolker (and Grubstreet, and Gay and Rosner and Twitter at large) decided Dorland was the wrong kind of woman. A woman doing feminine things, like making sacrifices, caring about people, nurturing relationships, communicating. And Larson was the right kind of woman, the one acting like Salinger or Hemingway or any of the man male writers who have used and abused their personal relationships in the name of their art.

[Anonymous]

I wish we could pin the post with Summer Brennan’s timelines. It draws strictly from the record and there is no editorializing. I was irritated by what IMO is the trolling still happening 100 pages in, where people (person) are jumping in reacting to takes on page 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Book agents aren’t stupid — I would bet cold hard money one has already signed Dawn, and that in due time, we will hear about a book of hers coming out. Maybe memoir, maybe fiction, who knows, but I will be buying, and I know others in here will be too.

The discovery shows Dawn writing to an agent and mentioning sending novel pages, so it is quite possible she already has representation. If so, that was another way Kolker's articles slammed her. They implied she was less talented than Sonya Larson, though it seems she may have been getting fellowships and residencies, as well as agent, through her novel pages. And, as we've already gone over here, a lot of Sonya's successes seem dubious given that they were facilitated by powerful friends.

[Anonymous]

Also, regarding comparison over the "success" of the two women, short stories writers publish earlier and more often than novelists. Sonya was writing ten-page stories then shopping them hard. Dawn was working on a manuscript of hundreds of pages. Sonya claims she's writing a novel, but I suspect it is actually just linked short stories featuring Chuntao.

The short story is a difficult art form, and one that Sonya Larson has not mastered. Her success at publishing a few mediocre stories shouldn't be used as some evidence that Dawn's novel manuscript isn't any good. Sonya hasn't published any novels either.