The Harsh, Central Truth of the Viral ‘Bad Art Friend’ Story
The main character’s flaws are a reflection of our own.
Updated at 4:45 p.m. ET on October 7, 2021.
The title of the journalist Robert Kolker’s cunning essay in The New York Times Magazine, “Who Is the Bad Art Friend?” is a bit of misdirection: There are no friends here. The article’s URL, which ends “dorland-v-larson,” is more revealing. The story swiftly became an obsession among the very online, as readers debated its moral and meaning.
Kolker’s tale is one of aggression. At first the aggression is of the passive kind, originating from the slighted and smarting to the .)
