Bad Art Friend

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was appalled when I heard about this story and sided with Dawn, but damn when I read her posts about her donation my eyes roll back so far in my head it hurts.

I would have had a very hard time not being sarcastic to her. Maybe my problem is I know too many women who do charity for attention. One message she sent to Sonya she talked about attending a charity function with Jayne Seymore and being so proud that the doctor who took her kidney mentioned her kidney "just gushing urine". Ugh.

I would have stopped talking to her and avoided her but I know I would have made comments to a mutual friend about her. In any group I've been in there would be at least one adult who would shut the nastiness down so we would only go on so long.

No one in that group admitted that they were the ones doing the stalking. What an empty echo chamber they were.

For what it's worth, I had a similar initial reaction. But when I read the events in chronological order and observed the time gaps, I lost any sense of neediness from Dawn. One of the great errors of the NYT article is that it ignores the timing of all the messages and takes them very out of context. Read in chronological order, those needy-seeming messages start to sound instead like the thought process of someone who can tell, somehow, that she's being gaslit, but doesn't know quite how.

I actually think that the NYT presentation is really problematic, because it constructs a narrative that doesn't match the real world timing.

I'm the poster you replied to and I agree with you. My last comment - the empty echo chamber - refers to Sonya, Ng etc. It amazes me that as smart as the Ng, Sonya etc are they never stepped back to look at what THEY were doing. They were the stalkers. I haven't read all the posts but just enough to see Dawn wasn't stalking anyone and actually was doing a commendable job trying to find out what was going on and standing up for herself. If I thought Sonya was my friend I would have asked her what was up with our relationship and if I thought she wrote on essay based on my unique life experience, I would try to talk to her about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was appalled when I heard about this story and sided with Dawn, but damn when I read her posts about her donation my eyes roll back so far in my head it hurts.

I would have had a very hard time not being sarcastic to her. Maybe my problem is I know too many women who do charity for attention. One message she sent to Sonya she talked about attending a charity function with Jayne Seymore and being so proud that the doctor who took her kidney mentioned her kidney "just gushing urine". Ugh.

I would have stopped talking to her and avoided her but I know I would have made comments to a mutual friend about her. In any group I've been in there would be at least one adult who would shut the nastiness down so we would only go on so long.

No one in that group admitted that they were the ones doing the stalking. What an empty echo chamber they were.

But she didn't just "do charity." She donated an ORGAN.

Listen, I work with a charity organization. While her posts are a little over the top, we need people to make our work sound interesting. We need to ask for money. We need to sponsor cool events so people will participate.

People say Dawn wasn't 100% altruistic with her donation. Well neither are 99.99% of the people out there. Sorry, but I have been doing this long enough that I know you aren't. And I do not care, as long as you help out. If charity bothers you, FINE. But shut up and let those of us doing the hard work do what needs to be done to get to the end result - raising money and awareness.

Good point. The the need for organ donation is so great this is an important reminder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that gets me in all of this is how irresponsible the NYT author (Kolker) was in the retelling. What if this entire issue had been handled in arbitration (which Larsen refused, Dorland was okay with), meaning there would be no public documents? We would just have had the NYT timeline and framing, not the original source documents, which tell a wildly different story than what the NYT published.

It is bothering me how divergent the actual evidence is from the NYT narrative. In the NYT, Dawn sounds crazy, clinging, annoying, etc. Problematic in many ways. But when you read the actual evidence -- produced by Larsen herself in litigation! -- suddenly that largely falls away. You end up with a vulnerable woman who painfully starts to piece together, over years of time, how she's been maltreated and gaslit, someone who doesn't look anything like what Kolker portrayed.

If the hard evidence hadn't been there for us to assess on our own, how destroyed would Dorland have been by the NYT article? How complicit is the NYT in this entire affair?

so -- while I get what you are saying -- I do think this is where you have to accept that no media outlet, no reporter, etc is perfect, and that every bit of reporting you read is imperfect and to some degree biased.

i'm a reporter and i would have done this article differently, but fwiw, i'm the same poster who upthread said we need to remember that kolker is a dude, and by being a dude, simply cannot have the same level of true understanding of what mean girl bullyfests involve and look like, or perhaps even the ability to recognize the mean girl bullyfest as arguably the most compelling part of this story. My bias means seeing the mean girl story.

Kolker's bias in this case, as not just as a man but as a bestselling author, is favoring the larger concepts of who owns an idea; who owns a story; what is and isn't literary license/theft. And I get why he has his biases and I have mine, we both come by them honestly.

Sure, everyone has a bias, but in this case, there is incontrovertible evidence of what actually happened that we can all see. Bias might come in around the edges with any story where there is a framework of undisputed facts, but here, Kolker presumably took a look at the same evidence we all have, yet chose to frame his story in a way that leads the reader away from that same evidence.

There is such profound distrust of the media now, such a deep skepticism that had taken ahold of the country. And normally, I give reporters the benefit of the doubt, because I think they are doing good work that's important for a functional country. But when I read articles like this, where nothing exactly untruthful was said, but yet the factual reality is so very different than what the article conveyed, honestly, I get that skepticism. It especially bothers me because absent the court case, I wouldn't have been skeptical. I would have accepted Kolker's framing entirely, unintentionally compounding what Dorland -- who is the victim here -- went through. And that really bothers me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that gets me in all of this is how irresponsible the NYT author (Kolker) was in the retelling. What if this entire issue had been handled in arbitration (which Larsen refused, Dorland was okay with), meaning there would be no public documents? We would just have had the NYT timeline and framing, not the original source documents, which tell a wildly different story than what the NYT published.

It is bothering me how divergent the actual evidence is from the NYT narrative. In the NYT, Dawn sounds crazy, clinging, annoying, etc. Problematic in many ways. But when you read the actual evidence -- produced by Larsen herself in litigation! -- suddenly that largely falls away. You end up with a vulnerable woman who painfully starts to piece together, over years of time, how she's been maltreated and gaslit, someone who doesn't look anything like what Kolker portrayed.

If the hard evidence hadn't been there for us to assess on our own, how destroyed would Dorland have been by the NYT article? How complicit is the NYT in this entire affair?

so -- while I get what you are saying -- I do think this is where you have to accept that no media outlet, no reporter, etc is perfect, and that every bit of reporting you read is imperfect and to some degree biased.

i'm a reporter and i would have done this article differently, but fwiw, i'm the same poster who upthread said we need to remember that kolker is a dude, and by being a dude, simply cannot have the same level of true understanding of what mean girl bullyfests involve and look like, or perhaps even the ability to recognize the mean girl bullyfest as arguably the most compelling part of this story. My bias means seeing the mean girl story.

Kolker's bias in this case, as not just as a man but as a bestselling author, is favoring the larger concepts of who owns an idea; who owns a story; what is and isn't literary license/theft. And I get why he has his biases and I have mine, we both come by them honestly.

But, he's a writer and he understands plagiarism. So, was it wise to bury the lede? You can make many arguments about it, but it sure feels like Larson's story. It was so late in the game that I'm sure many people stopped reading by then, and/or felt it was justified given Dawn's "obsessive" behavior that he'd built to a crescendo.

+1 - long time NY Times subscriber. He blew it and kinda blew up Dorlands life with his work.

Eh -- we don't really know how it's going to play out. They don't call journalism the first draft of history for nothing, and that's the way I view this piece. It was a first draft of history. People will debate what should and should not have been included or focused on. And then other writers, with the passage of time, and informed by that debate, will come along and write better pieces. I can totally see this eventually becoming a narrative that heavily favors Dawn -- perhaps even gives her the visibility and profile to publish her own work -- and becomes a cautionary tale of in MFA programs to not steal people's social media posts.

[Anonymous]

I honestly don't know think anything will happen to any of the authors. Dorland will remain traumatized. The rest will continue like nothing happened. Maybe they'll offer a half-hearted apology. The independent GrubStreet investigation will do a little gentle finger shaking. Maybe some MFA programs will add this incident to their plagiarism training. But otherwise, I don't think anything will change.

[Anonymous]

It appears Dawn is actually a really talented writer. In my estimation, at least.

https://greenmountainsreview.com/do-us-part/

[Anonymous]

If the court documents were public, how/why did Kolker miss what really happened?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was appalled when I heard about this story and sided with Dawn, but damn when I read her posts about her donation my eyes roll back so far in my head it hurts.

I would have had a very hard time not being sarcastic to her. Maybe my problem is I know too many women who do charity for attention. One message she sent to Sonya she talked about attending a charity function with Jayne Seymore and being so proud that the doctor who took her kidney mentioned her kidney "just gushing urine". Ugh.

I would have stopped talking to her and avoided her but I know I would have made comments to a mutual friend about her. In any group I've been in there would be at least one adult who would shut the nastiness down so we would only go on so long.

No one in that group admitted that they were the ones doing the stalking. What an empty echo chamber they were.

commenting on your donated kidney "gushing urine" is basically the equivalent of commenting on your baby's cuteness or first smile or first steps. it's what a kidney is supposed to do! it's the whole point of a kidney!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that gets me in all of this is how irresponsible the NYT author (Kolker) was in the retelling. What if this entire issue had been handled in arbitration (which Larsen refused, Dorland was okay with), meaning there would be no public documents? We would just have had the NYT timeline and framing, not the original source documents, which tell a wildly different story than what the NYT published.

It is bothering me how divergent the actual evidence is from the NYT narrative. In the NYT, Dawn sounds crazy, clinging, annoying, etc. Problematic in many ways. But when you read the actual evidence -- produced by Larsen herself in litigation! -- suddenly that largely falls away. You end up with a vulnerable woman who painfully starts to piece together, over years of time, how she's been maltreated and gaslit, someone who doesn't look anything like what Kolker portrayed.

If the hard evidence hadn't been there for us to assess on our own, how destroyed would Dorland have been by the NYT article? How complicit is the NYT in this entire affair?

so -- while I get what you are saying -- I do think this is where you have to accept that no media outlet, no reporter, etc is perfect, and that every bit of reporting you read is imperfect and to some degree biased.

i'm a reporter and i would have done this article differently, but fwiw, i'm the same poster who upthread said we need to remember that kolker is a dude, and by being a dude, simply cannot have the same level of true understanding of what mean girl bullyfests involve and look like, or perhaps even the ability to recognize the mean girl bullyfest as arguably the most compelling part of this story. My bias means seeing the mean girl story.

Kolker's bias in this case, as not just as a man but as a bestselling author, is favoring the larger concepts of who owns an idea; who owns a story; what is and isn't literary license/theft. And I get why he has his biases and I have mine, we both come by them honestly.

Sure, everyone has a bias, but in this case, there is incontrovertible evidence of what actually happened that we can all see. Bias might come in around the edges with any story where there is a framework of undisputed facts, but here, Kolker presumably took a look at the same evidence we all have, yet chose to frame his story in a way that leads the reader away from that same evidence.

There is such profound distrust of the media now, such a deep skepticism that had taken ahold of the country. And normally, I give reporters the benefit of the doubt, because I think they are doing good work that's important for a functional country. But when I read articles like this, where nothing exactly untruthful was said, but yet the factual reality is so very different than what the article conveyed, honestly, I get that skepticism. It especially bothers me because absent the court case, I wouldn't have been skeptical. I would have accepted Kolker's framing entirely, unintentionally compounding what Dorland -- who is the victim here -- went through. And that really bothers me.

So, this is still the same problem. We can have access to the exact same evidence and see different things -- or choose to see different things. We've all watched the Rodney King beating video. The cops are beating him: there is no question. Incontrovertible evidence of what actually happened. But that jury, sworn to follow the law, still let most of the officers off the hook.

Oh, and it would take (mostly white) journalists another 20+ yrs after the OJ trial to finally understand: Maybe the OJ verdict was about 75 yrs of racism by the LAPD? The facts about LAPD's significant and documented racism for decades were always there, too.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be pissed at the article, or that the article is great. I'm saying that even professionals bring bias to the table, and time has a way of changing a narrative. Also, you sound smart, which means you are too smart to be readily accepting 100 percent of Kolker's framing, or anyone's framing, all the time, ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was appalled when I heard about this story and sided with Dawn, but damn when I read her posts about her donation my eyes roll back so far in my head it hurts.

I would have had a very hard time not being sarcastic to her. Maybe my problem is I know too many women who do charity for attention. One message she sent to Sonya she talked about attending a charity function with Jayne Seymore and being so proud that the doctor who took her kidney mentioned her kidney "just gushing urine". Ugh.

I would have stopped talking to her and avoided her but I know I would have made comments to a mutual friend about her. In any group I've been in there would be at least one adult who would shut the nastiness down so we would only go on so long.

No one in that group admitted that they were the ones doing the stalking. What an empty echo chamber they were.

But she didn't just "do charity." She donated an ORGAN.

Listen, I work with a charity organization. While her posts are a little over the top, we need people to make our work sound interesting. We need to ask for money. We need to sponsor cool events so people will participate.

People say Dawn wasn't 100% altruistic with her donation. Well neither are 99.99% of the people out there. Sorry, but I have been doing this long enough that I know you aren't. And I do not care, as long as you help out. If charity bothers you, FINE. But shut up and let those of us doing the hard work do what needs to be done to get to the end result - raising money and awareness.

exactly. I read a lot of what Dawn wrote and its clear she's engaged in purposeful advocacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the court documents were public, how/why did Kolker miss what really happened?

I have wondered the same thing myself. Perhaps he was part of the same literary scene and so took Larson's description as fact, and did not fact check? But then again, I don't think anything he said was overtly untrue, it's just laid out in a way that significantly distorts the truth. I don't know, in other words. But I have wondered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing that gets me in all of this is how irresponsible the NYT author (Kolker) was in the retelling. What if this entire issue had been handled in arbitration (which Larsen refused, Dorland was okay with), meaning there would be no public documents? We would just have had the NYT timeline and framing, not the original source documents, which tell a wildly different story than what the NYT published.

It is bothering me how divergent the actual evidence is from the NYT narrative. In the NYT, Dawn sounds crazy, clinging, annoying, etc. Problematic in many ways. But when you read the actual evidence -- produced by Larsen herself in litigation! -- suddenly that largely falls away. You end up with a vulnerable woman who painfully starts to piece together, over years of time, how she's been maltreated and gaslit, someone who doesn't look anything like what Kolker portrayed.

If the hard evidence hadn't been there for us to assess on our own, how destroyed would Dorland have been by the NYT article? How complicit is the NYT in this entire affair?

larsen refused arbitration? when she was the one who plagiarized? why did nobody advise her to settle asap?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the court documents were public, how/why did Kolker miss what really happened?

Not to excuse him, but many of the documents seem to have been filed after he started working on the story. Still, he should have followed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the court documents were public, how/why did Kolker miss what really happened?

I have wondered the same thing myself. Perhaps he was part of the same literary scene and so took Larson's description as fact, and did not fact check? But then again, I don't think anything he said was overtly untrue, it's just laid out in a way that significantly distorts the truth. I don't know, in other words. But I have wondered.

LOL I thought this board was full of lawyers, not writers. Lawyers of all people should know that court records are fascinating and helpful, but they are never a whole story, and they do not capture emotion, nuance or context. And plenty of court filings are, by design, meant to distort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that gets me in all of this is how irresponsible the NYT author (Kolker) was in the retelling. What if this entire issue had been handled in arbitration (which Larsen refused, Dorland was okay with), meaning there would be no public documents? We would just have had the NYT timeline and framing, not the original source documents, which tell a wildly different story than what the NYT published.

It is bothering me how divergent the actual evidence is from the NYT narrative. In the NYT, Dawn sounds crazy, clinging, annoying, etc. Problematic in many ways. But when you read the actual evidence -- produced by Larsen herself in litigation! -- suddenly that largely falls away. You end up with a vulnerable woman who painfully starts to piece together, over years of time, how she's been maltreated and gaslit, someone who doesn't look anything like what Kolker portrayed.

If the hard evidence hadn't been there for us to assess on our own, how destroyed would Dorland have been by the NYT article? How complicit is the NYT in this entire affair?

+1 Dorland went two YEARS at one point without mentioning it. Meanwhile Larson says something to the effect of “I know I sound obsessed with this” in one of her emails

+2 Dorland even says in a late email that she mentioned it "discretely" to a few friends to get a read on it. That summed up their differences to me. Dorland never mentioned names, or gossiped, literally the opposite of Larson's MO.

BTW Ng sure is silent. Wondering if she's working with a publicist now.

If I had Twitter I would post on hers, helloooo mean girl!