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The Saga of the 'Bad Art Friend' (Patreon)

Published:
2021-10-08 01:06:20
Imported:
2024-06
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David and @joyonapping discuss Robert Kolker's riveting article in The New York Times, "Who Is The Bad Art Friend?"  

Patrons: You can get this bonus audio in your podcast app by going to patreon.com/davechen, going to the "My Membership" section, and copying and pasting the RSS link to your podcast app. Thanks as always for your support!

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Comments

Claxton26

I feel like once you make a determination that the likely reason for someone’s misbehaviour is some kind of mental health issue, which I think Dawn’s is, you can’t apply normal metrics like is this person an asshole. I don’t know what Kind of trauma she went through to get to a point in her life where she is seeking validation by giving up an organ for Likes, but I think it’s something likely profound. For her part, Dawn mentions childhood trauma and abuse). So having this public pile-on, where everyone is dunking on this damaged person just feels unnecessarily cruel. Yes by normal standards what she’s doing is wrong, and she has escalated it publicly, but it’s like watching the disturbed guy on the bus yelling obscenities and then whispering to your friend “it’s rude to raise your voice in a public place”. I don’t think either you or Joy said anything offensive or cruel, but I just question the value of discussing someone’s public meltdown on anything other than mental health terms. The Times article felt very much like cocktail party gossip where you passingly acknowledge deeper issues and surface level empathy before getting to the fun stuff and savaging your target. I also thought the points made about what artists are allowed to use as grist for the mill is fair and difficult to challenge, but there is something predatory about using a very specific mental health breakdown as the seeds of a story that takes those mental health issues and reframes them as a personal moral failing that you can use to adopt a position of moral superiority. I think “mean girl” is giving her a bit of a pass. It feels to me (and this is subjective) very opportunistic as a person who may not be suffering from the same level of mental health challenges to use that privilege to take someone’s unraveling and use it so directly as fodder for your story. I know as artists we don’t have responsibilities to anyone or anything but after watching Dave Chapelle dunk on Trans people again in his new Netflix special, I am finding it harder and harder to look the other way as artists profit on inflicting obvious harm on less privileged groups. Its hard to believe Sonya didn’t know that she would be inflicting psychic harm on this disturbed woman, but judging by the group text threads, cruelty might not have been the point, but it certainly wasn’t a roadblock either. Wow, that was really long and I apologize if I sound holier than though. Just have watched people close to me suffer unnecessarily because of casual indifference and one size fits all judgment. Everything I rambled on about is just my opinion and I’m self-aware enough to know but I make mistakes about this kind of stuff all the time.

David Chen
>>69491529

Great points, thanks for sharing! I think it is hard to know what mental issues Dawn is suffering from, but I think it’s totally fair to question the legitimacy of the article being published and/or our conversation around it.

Michael Zhang

Dave would love your and Joy's thoughts on this article that just hit Salon: https://www.salon.com/2021/10/10/k-dramas-asian-men-tv-crash-landing-on-you/