If you’ve bee online this week, you’ve probably seen people on Twitter talking about kidneys or being “bad art friends” or protecting your group chats. The twist: all three of those things are connected. In a piece written by Robert Kolker for The New York Times, titled “Who Is The Bad Art Friend?,” we got a deep dive into the battle between Dawn Dorland and Sonya Larson in the Boston-area literary community. The story itself is filled with firsthand accounts of what happened between the two writers, from their time in Boston to now.
But this story has three key elements being talked about online right now, and it is important to explore each of them and what is happening. First, there’s the kidney aspect of it all. Dawn Dorland donated a kidney without a specific recipient in mind—just wanted to donate it to help one of the many people out there who need a kidney and can’t find a suitable donor. And to encourage others to do the same.
But when the people she shared the news with people in her writing community on Facebook, including Larson, and they didn’t seem that excited about the donation and didn’t interact with Dorland’s posts about it, Dorland became confused as to why people didn’t care more about her donation—especially after Larson began getting attention for writing a story involving kidney donation—an her fixation on that gave people the impression that attention was part of the appeal for her.
This Is Just To Say
I have not read
the piece
that was in
the Timesand which
you were probably
Tweeting about
all dayForgive me
but what the fuck
so seems
there was like a kidney invovled?— Daniel José Older (@djolder) October 6, 2021
The movie adaption of the kidney story must include Rosamund Pike. Right?
— Sam Sanders (@samsanders) October 6, 2021
This is just to say
I have donated
my kidney
to someone
I didn’t knowand which
you were probably
waiting
to congratulate me onForgive me
I needed the praise
so sweet
and so unsolicited— Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) October 6, 2021
AITA for refusing to engage in the kidney discourse?
(Please, I want no part of it.)
— Am I the Asshole? (@AITA_online) October 6, 2021
Still trying to wrap my mind around “I was just wondering if you’d heard about my kidney donation because you haven’t mentioned it”
— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) October 6, 2021
Boston lit scene sounds like murder town & I shall be on my best behavior next time I’m there lest I lose a kidney
— Gabe Hudson (@gabehudson) October 6, 2021
Maybe the real kidney is the bad art friends we made along the way.
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) October 6, 2021
friendly reminder to everyone still talking about dawn’s kidney donation today: some people are trying to do their jobs trafficking organs on this site, and now have to sift through all your kidney donor takes!
please think about others before posting!!
— Rajat Suresh (@rajat_suresh) October 6, 2021
And I began to wonder…why hadn’t she liked any of my kidney donation posts? pic.twitter.com/15u8ZgevhT
— ✨ Charlotte Flyte ✨ Ampetelečalawin ✨ (@CharleyFlyte) October 6, 2021
The end of the “bad art friend” piece is basically this whole sketch pic.twitter.com/2uVPiWyMy7
— chingy “hole emoji” nea (@TheGayChingy) October 6, 2021
The next aspect is the “bad art friends” portion. Larson wrote a short story that explored race, addiction, and growth as human beings, and was inspired by Dorland’s story and the letter that she wrote to her kidney recipient. While Dorland was not wrong in assuming her life was the inspiration, including an early draft that used Dorland’s actual letter largely unchanged, Larson went on to completely change it and admit that she was inspired by it and certain phrases within the letter.
But when Dorland contacted Larson about the similarity, she felt Larson insinuated she was being a “bad art friend” for objecting to being used as inspiration. Later, she came to feel that the story was more than just “inspired by” her and that Larson was, in fact, the “bad art friend”—and thus spawned an entire saga of legal action between them as Larson’s story grew in popularity.
let the bad art friend story be a reminder that not liking my posts is a slippery slope to being sued
— JP (@jpbrammer) October 5, 2021
Truly though I don’t think the Bad Art Friend ethics questions are about art at all, they’re about how to handle the dynamics of a situation where one person thinks a relationship is a friendship and the other doesn’t.
— Danielle Evans (@daniellevalore) October 6, 2021
I feel like everyone’s answering “who was the bad art friend” incorrectly when there’s one very clear villain here pic.twitter.com/cIS0jd150G
— maura quint (@behindyourback) October 6, 2021
Okay I’ve slept on it and I feel like my final bad art friend takeaway is: you can’t sue someone into liking you.
— Dana Schwartz 🫀 (@DanaSchwartzzz) October 6, 2021
Some personal news: my new job is reading everything every single person has to say about Bad Art Friend, no time for other work.
— Burydeath Maggoty (@manymanywords) October 5, 2021
i read the bad art friend piece and my primary takeaway is that i am grateful i was mercilessly bullied in my youth lol
— taylor garron (@taylorgarron) October 6, 2021
I don’t usually do this, but in light of Bad Art Friend, I am offering some free legal advice: you cannot make someone your friend by suing them
— The Ghost of Vinny Unions (@UnionSaltBae) October 5, 2021
And then, the scary part for every friend group: The Group Chat Subpoena. There are many frightening aspects of this story, but when you’re just casually having fun reading it and get to the aspect of it where the “Chunky Monkeys” writer group has printouts of personal communications (emails, texts, etc.) between them, about Dorland, brought in to help Dorland’s case? Well, that’s a nightmare.
The conversations showed that Larson and her friends were privately mocking Dorland over many things, and while the messages certainly were not kind, who among us hasn’t shared thoughts on someone, among friends, that they wouldn’t want to be made public? This group had private conversations about that are now part of this very public story.
So … the group chat being subpoenaed? That is a true Halloween fright.
This is all completely and utterly batshit but I think the one thing we can all agree on is the horrifying prospect of a subpoena for the group chat https://t.co/eOy9TOYxb1
— Harriet Marsden (@harriet1marsden) October 6, 2021
Don’t subpoena my group chats, you’re gonna get your feelings hurt. 🥴
— Caroline Renard (@sankofa_bird) October 6, 2021
honestly go ahead and subpoena my group chats, some of you could use the feedback
— Carly Lewis (@carlylewis) October 5, 2021
when they subpoena the group chat pic.twitter.com/WXF4z4v1XS
— sara david (@SaraQDavid) October 6, 2021
POV: you’re reading my messages from the subpoena group chat pic.twitter.com/HEIYX96O5F
— 👻Jenna Voris 👻 (@JennaVoris) October 5, 2021
between relationship texts and group chats, I’ve never been more afraid of a subpoena in my life
— danielle tcholakian (@danielleiat) October 5, 2021
those who subpoena the group chat do so at their own peril
— Amanda Hess (@amandahess) October 5, 2021
every writer today getting to the part of the kidney story where the group chats and texts get subpoenaed: pic.twitter.com/ZSy6jnTx35
— Xiran Jay Zhao (@XiranJayZhao) October 6, 2021
my contribution to the kidney story memes pic.twitter.com/PDf5LCD41l
— Pumpkinhead Spice Latte (@joyfulrivers) October 6, 2021
The story is absolutely horrifying. It’s one that shows a white woman and her determination to tear down an Asian-American woman and her career over a story about race, and she will clearly stop at nothing to get her “justice” even though Larson made changes to her story specifically to avoid issues of plagiarism.
It’s a wider conversation about artistic expression and inspiration and who we have to credit for what inspires our stories, but it also hits uncomfortably close to the themes of Larson’s story, as she told her friends: “I feel like I am becoming the protagonist in my own story: She wants something from me, something that she can show to lots of people, and I’m not giving it.”
Hopefully, Larson can find peace in her work and Dorland can focus on her own writing, but now you know why Twitter is so obsessed with “Bad Art Friend.”
(image: ABC)
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