Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest to God, I'd like to pursue writing, but I just CANNOT STAND writer Twitter. And it seems like you have to have a Twitter following to get published. Have some other folks decided not to take certain career paths because of social media nonsense?

Hi, I'm a published novelist and not on Twitter, as are lots of my author friends.

Most of us are on Insta, which can be annoying in its own way, but def. not mean and toxic like Twitter.

Anonymous wrote:Honest to God, I'd like to pursue writing, but I just CANNOT STAND writer Twitter. And it seems like you have to have a Twitter following to get published. Have some other folks decided not to take certain career paths because of social media nonsense?

Anonymous wrote:Lol this story has so many phases.

Phase 1: NYT Mag story comes out, bunch of blue checkmarks on Twitter are like "Wow, Dawn is a B, Team Larsen" unprompted. Lots of people like/agree with these posts.
Phase 2: Something smells off to some folks, they dig around, those chat transcripts get widely circulated, suddenly a lot of people who liked/agreed with the blue checkmarks are like "Oh."
Phase 3: Some people get way over-obsessed and start harassing not only the blue checkmarks but even some of the people who were pointing out issues with the original story in Phase 2. So now even some defenders of DD are like "whoa, stop -- ya'll are crazy."

It's too much! Yes, it's a more nuanced story than the NYT's article original represented. Yes, Celeste Ng seems like a real B at this point. Yes, Dorland got done dirty by Grub Street, Larsen, Kolker, and those damn blue checkmarks. But also.... people need to dial it down. Yelling at people online and treating this as some kind of showdown between a saint and a villain is not the way. Everyone in this story is flawed, including Dorland. There is no clear "winner" here and trying to anoint one was the whole problem with the initial reaction to the story.

I say this as someone who think Larsen was the instigator here, but can relate to aspects of both Larsen's and Dorland's experiences. I've been bullied/ostracized by a group of people who thought they were too good for me. But I've also had someone go after me beyond any reasonable measure simply because they were Big Mad and I know how helpless Larsen probably felt as Dorland was calling all her employers and publications and demanding they destroy Larsen. Like, it's all not great. I still think Larsen to some extent brought this on herself (with the help of the CMs who look worse and worse every day) and should have just written a better story about the same subject but less obviously based on Dorland. But she didn't murder someone! People need to take the intensity down from 11 to like a 4.

Anonymous wrote:Lol this story has so many phases.

Phase 1: NYT Mag story comes out, bunch of blue checkmarks on Twitter are like "Wow, Dawn is a B, Team Larsen" unprompted. Lots of people like/agree with these posts.
Phase 2: Something smells off to some folks, they dig around, those chat transcripts get widely circulated, suddenly a lot of people who liked/agreed with the blue checkmarks are like "Oh."
Phase 3: Some people get way over-obsessed and start harassing not only the blue checkmarks but even some of the people who were pointing out issues with the original story in Phase 2. So now even some defenders of DD are like "whoa, stop -- ya'll are crazy."

It's too much! Yes, it's a more nuanced story than the NYT's article original represented. Yes, Celeste Ng seems like a real B at this point. Yes, Dorland got done dirty by Grub Street, Larsen, Kolker, and those damn blue checkmarks. But also.... people need to dial it down. Yelling at people online and treating this as some kind of showdown between a saint and a villain is not the way. Everyone in this story is flawed, including Dorland. There is no clear "winner" here and trying to anoint one was the whole problem with the initial reaction to the story.

I say this as someone who think Larsen was the instigator here, but can relate to aspects of both Larsen's and Dorland's experiences. I've been bullied/ostracized by a group of people who thought they were too good for me. But I've also had someone go after me beyond any reasonable measure simply because they were Big Mad and I know how helpless Larsen probably felt as Dorland was calling all her employers and publications and demanding they destroy Larsen. Like, it's all not great. I still think Larsen to some extent brought this on herself (with the help of the CMs who look worse and worse every day) and should have just written a better story about the same subject but less obviously based on Dorland. But she didn't murder someone! People need to take the intensity down from 11 to like a 4.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love to know what Reese thinks of this situation - she’s the ultimate loyal friend who goes out of her way to bring women up.

Reese Witherspoon?

Makes sense, Reese needs to not pick any of these authors for her book club.

Reese seems like someone with a lot of integrity. And I think it’s part of her brand to be nice and uplifting to women. I bet she picks a book next based on illness or disability for her book club but doesn’t comment on the discourse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://twitter.com/rafiazakaria/status/1446942572677672960?s=20

Apparently this write Rafia Zakaria has completely new "evidence" (or tea) that involves both parties...

Ooh thanks for this (hint of) tea. She’s posting it only if people pay to subscribe later tonight and suggests it paints SL in a negative light. We’ll see!

Hard to imagine what else could come out that paints Sonya in an even worse light...

Uncool that this lady (Rafia) is trying to profit off this. Looks really tacky.

Anyone pay for this? I am dying to know because I went too far down this rabbit hole but I draw the line at paying to read more.

It doesn't seem to be behind a paywall anymore. It's about the writer Celeste Ng. It looks like she was initially heavily inspired by a real Chinese woman's life for the plot of Little Fires Everywhere.

"Bei Bei Chow’s story, framed in Ng’s gripping fiction, is close to an actual one that took place in Indiana, a few hours’ drive away from Cleveland and Shaker Heights. In that case, a young Chinese immigrant, Bei Bei Shuai, was charged with murdering her newborn baby in March 2011. Shuai, who had fallen in love with a Chinese man who left her when she became pregnant, had tried to kill herself by ingesting rat poison. While Shuai survived, the baby died two days after it was born. Shuai became the first woman to be prosecuted for a suicide attempt, under Indiana’s feticide statute, originally enacted to protect women and their children from third parties such as abusive boyfriends and husbands."

I wonder how Be Bei Shuai would feel knowing her tragic circumstances inspired this book. Looking at it, it seems Celeste Ng has done a much better job at taking the initial nugget of inspiration and turning it into a new, fully-formed thing that stands on its own (possibly not being inspired by malice and the desire to mock someone for your friends' amusement makes you much better at doing this.) Still, it's interesting that a poor Chinese immigrant is in a very similar position to Dawn Dorland, at the hands of writers from the same group of friends/colleagues, and in Bei Bei Shuai's case has no avenue to fully express how she may or may not feel about this.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, agree. Sure, there are obsessives writing about the Holocaust and Weinstein. Obviously they are nuts and should be disregarded. But that's not most of the discourse, and trying to conflate the obvious crazies with legitimate criticism is really just a redirect attempt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://twitter.com/rafiazakaria/status/1446942572677672960?s=20

Apparently this write Rafia Zakaria has completely new "evidence" (or tea) that involves both parties...

Ooh thanks for this (hint of) tea. She’s posting it only if people pay to subscribe later tonight and suggests it paints SL in a negative light. We’ll see!

Hard to imagine what else could come out that paints Sonya in an even worse light...

Uncool that this lady (Rafia) is trying to profit off this. Looks really tacky.

Anyone pay for this? I am dying to know because I went too far down this rabbit hole but I draw the line at paying to read more.

It doesn't seem to be behind a paywall anymore. It's about the writer Celeste Ng. It looks like she was initially heavily inspired by a real Chinese woman's life for the plot of Little Fires Everywhere.

"Bei Bei Chow’s story, framed in Ng’s gripping fiction, is close to an actual one that took place in Indiana, a few hours’ drive away from Cleveland and Shaker Heights. In that case, a young Chinese immigrant, Bei Bei Shuai, was charged with murdering her newborn baby in March 2011. Shuai, who had fallen in love with a Chinese man who left her when she became pregnant, had tried to kill herself by ingesting rat poison. While Shuai survived, the baby died two days after it was born. Shuai became the first woman to be prosecuted for a suicide attempt, under Indiana’s feticide statute, originally enacted to protect women and their children from third parties such as abusive boyfriends and husbands."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol this story has so many phases.

Phase 1: NYT Mag story comes out, bunch of blue checkmarks on Twitter are like "Wow, Dawn is a B, Team Larsen" unprompted. Lots of people like/agree with these posts.
Phase 2: Something smells off to some folks, they dig around, those chat transcripts get widely circulated, suddenly a lot of people who liked/agreed with the blue checkmarks are like "Oh."
Phase 3: Some people get way over-obsessed and start harassing not only the blue checkmarks but even some of the people who were pointing out issues with the original story in Phase 2. So now even some defenders of DD are like "whoa, stop -- ya'll are crazy."

It's too much! Yes, it's a more nuanced story than the NYT's article original represented. Yes, Celeste Ng seems like a real B at this point. Yes, Dorland got done dirty by Grub Street, Larsen, Kolker, and those damn blue checkmarks. But also.... people need to dial it down. Yelling at people online and treating this as some kind of showdown between a saint and a villain is not the way. Everyone in this story is flawed, including Dorland. There is no clear "winner" here and trying to anoint one was the whole problem with the initial reaction to the story.

I say this as someone who think Larsen was the instigator here, but can relate to aspects of both Larsen's and Dorland's experiences. I've been bullied/ostracized by a group of people who thought they were too good for me. But I've also had someone go after me beyond any reasonable measure simply because they were Big Mad and I know how helpless Larsen probably felt as Dorland was calling all her employers and publications and demanding they destroy Larsen. Like, it's all not great. I still think Larsen to some extent brought this on herself (with the help of the CMs who look worse and worse every day) and should have just written a better story about the same subject but less obviously based on Dorland. But she didn't murder someone! People need to take the intensity down from 11 to like a 4.

Aside from a couple clearly unhinged Twitter accounts, I don't think there is a lot of people truly in Phase 3, but I do think a lot of the blue checks who jumped in at Phase 1 are trying very hard to claim that people in your Phase 2 are actually in your Phase 3.

This is what made me realize we are in Phase 3:

Dan Nguyen is one of the people who started Phase 2 and was like "hey hold up guys, the NYT article distorts some stuff here and Dorland is actually not the villain." Like he was very helpful in clarifying these things and defending Dorland. But if people are DMing him about how the CMs are like Nazis (much the way someone in this thread compared SL to Harvey Weinstein, which was way over the line) then, yes, people are taking it too far.

No argument there, but that seems much more unusual than the tweets from the blue checks trying to minimize things. There will always be unhinged people (they were there in Phases 1 and 2 also), and the presence of a few of them doesn't take away from the attempts to make people in Phase 2 sound like Phase 3.

All in all I think it is disturbing how much some blue checks have circled and continue to circle the wagons here. Do I think Dorland did everything right? Absolutely not. She seems like a flawed person with real issues. But this isn't a "both sides" thing either. As it turns out (for instance) Kolker has written a lot about sexual harassment in the past. Can we still trust that reporting? Is there a conversation to be had about men depicting women as crazy? But I see on Twitter a sort of "well, they are all crazy so let's stop talking" approach and I think that is just an attempt to stifle conversation.

Anonymous wrote:This thread has better writing than that story.