Kidneygate / Bad Art Friend

Overview

Kidneygate / Bad Art Friend refers to the controversy and legal battle between writers Dawn Dorland and Sonya Larson. Larson and Dorland traveled in the same literary circles, and Dorland invited Larson to a Facebook group documenting her blind kidney donation. This inspired Larson to write a story called "The Kindest" in which a rich white woman blind-donates a kidney. The story paints the rich white woman as shallow and oblivious to her own racism. The woman also features clear similarities to Dorland, with Larson going so far as to pull direct quotes from Dorland's Facebook posts and use them in the story. As "The Kindest" drew attention in literary circles, Dorland threatened legal action against Larson and literary festivals featuring "The Kindest." The drama became a popular topic of discussion online in October of 2021 after The New York Times published a piece on the controversy titled "Who Is The Bad Art Friend?"

Background

On October 5th, 2021, The New York Times^[1] published a piece titled "Who Is The Bad Art Friend?" laying out the saga between writers Dawn Dorland, a white woman, and Sonya Larson, a half-Chinese woman. Dorland pitched the story to the New York Times.^[6]

Dorland and Larson were acquaintances in a Boston writing community called GrubStreet, though Dorland later left for Los Angeles. Dorland decided she wanted to do a blind kidney donation, meaning she would donate a kidney without knowing the recipient. She created a Facebook group documenting the journey and invited Larson. At one point, Dorland drafted a letter to the eventual recipient of her kidney in which she suggested they someday meet. She shared this letter in the Facebook group. Larson vented and joked about Dorland's kidney donation in a separate Facebook group with other writers.

In Larson's eyes, Dorland was acting in a self-obsessed manner and with a White Savior complex. This was later confirmed in leaked DMs from Larson's own private Facebook group she had with other writers.^[3]

Larson went on to write "The Kindest," a short story in which a Chinese American woman receives a blind kidney donation from a rich white woman. The rich white woman sends a letter to the protagonist and offers to meet up. When the pair meet, the rich white woman is portrayed in a negative light, expecting to be showered with praise for her donation and committing several racial microaggressions to the protagonist.

"The Kindest" won praise in literary circles, and as it circulated, Dorland discovered that earlier drafts of the piece had essentially copied her own letter to her kidney recipient (they were altered further in the final piece). Citing plagiarism, Dorland hired a legal team to demand that Larson be fired from her positions in literary circles and threatened to sue a Boston literary festival for $150,000 if they distributed a short story collection with "The Kindest" in it. Larson then sued Dorland for defamation, arguing that Dorland's experiences are fair game for fiction. The legal battle between the pair is ongoing.

Redditor SakuOtaku wrote a comprehensive summary of the drama in /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[2]

Developments

The story became a trending topic online in the weeks after it was posted, as people debated who, if either party, was in the right. A blog post on rottenindenmark^[3] argued that at the onset of the saga, Larson was the "bad art friend" for essentially betraying Dorland, but Dorland became the villain once she took her grievances to court.

On social media, users seemed split on who was in the right. Users in the pro-Larson camp tended to agree that Dorland was obnoxious about her kidney donation and overstepped when introducing lawsuits. One particular passage from the New York Times story was a moment where Dorland, after having attended a writers conference where no one talked to her about her kidney, said, "I left that conference with this question, do writers not care about my kidney donation?” Users @DanaSchawrtzzz^[4] and @kvnry^[5] both expressed pro-Larson sentiments on social media (shown below).

Those in the pro-Dorland camp tended to feel that Larson's use of Dorland's story was unethical, and believed that leaked DMs Larson sent to fellow writers about Dorland showed her being unnecessarily catty. User @SkepticalSpice^[7] opined that court documents illustrate how little provocation from Dorland could draw the ire of Larson and her friends (shown below, left). Hank Green^[8] wrote, "Do you have a group chat where you and your friends self-indulgiantly mock IRL friends and acquaintances? Hey! That’s not typical or healthy! Stop it! This concludes my participation in bad art friend discourse" (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References