The Chaser Report - 'Bad Art Friend': A Group Chat Nightmare | Nina Oyama

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Nina talks us through the 'bad art friend' controversy that recently featured in the New York Times and made everyone who group chats with their friends feel terrified that they too were about to inspire a really scathing short story. Plus, Charles and Dom took a stab at predicting this week's news last week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report on Thursday the 14th of October 2021. I'm Dom Knight. Hello, Charles Firth. Hello, Dom. Now, this was actually pre-recorded last Friday, right? Us talking now was actually done last Friday.

Yeah, we're having the week off. It's been fantastic, I hope. But I thought it's an interesting Thursday challenge. Why don't we just try and riff on the news of the day, even though we don't know what the news of the day is? What do you reckon? Oh, we'll give it a go. May as well work it a little. bit.

Yeah. So, Dom, don't you think the corruption allegations against that federal politician are pretty amazing and very saucy? I mean, amazingly saucy, amazingly serious. And, I mean, the obvious question is, why haven't they resigned yet? Why haven't they been sacked? Why have there been no consequences? But I suspect they'll just basically get away with it, Charles.

Where is Scott Morrison on this? Where is he? I mean, if he's not in Hawaii physically, he's certainly mentally in Hawaii. And most of the time, in fact. And look, very disappointing news about the climate change stuff, isn't it? I mean, all the stuff, you know, you'd think in the lead-up to Glasgow, they'd be really set on making some tough decisions. But, gee, it really puts Australia to shame, don't you think?

It does. I just think it's very clear we're not going to do anything. And I must say that, on a personal note, I'm very disappointed in Danilich, who we had on the podcast last week plugging his huge, amazing joke. worker-keeper's scheme, and it's been revealed that he's actually just being funded by Petro dollars. It's just all money from BP and Mobile and Shell. Dan, I'm so disappointed. I thought you were a true believer, mate. No, exactly.

You shill? Yes, and look, I think it was very odd, Scott Morrison choosing this week to take off and go to Hawaii. I mean, you know, like he should have learnt last time from the bushfires. It's just not on to do that. Well, I just think basically on his way into the plane when he goes overseas, he presses some sort of button that unleashes a crisis of the sort that we've seen this week. Let's make sure we edit this so that it's correct. The bushfires, the floods, the earthquake, the typhoon,

Godzilla rising from the ocean off Melbourne. A second global pandemic? Yeah. The nuclear strike that happened on Perth this week, entirely because Scott Morrison left the country. Mind you, that wouldn't be a disaster. Oh, and Charles, the spike in case numbers in New South Wales, we predicted last week that it was coming. Who would have thought it would come so soon under Dominic Peritay's relatively negligent approach

to managing the crisis? I'm amazed. I mean, it doesn't even make scientific sense for it to happen so quickly. No, you would think that it would take two weeks or so to incubate. But no, it turns out he's the COVID-friendly Premier. But it is nice to hear that Dominic Peritone, has his seventh, eighth and ninth child on the way. Very exciting.

That was very exciting news. Congratulations, Premier Dom on all the extra offspring. In the world of entertainment, I can't believe Daryl Summers has brought back hey, hey, it's Saturday this week. He's been nagling for that for so long. Actually, isn't there actually a reunion? Like, in all since then. Yeah, I think there is a reunion cover.

That risks being true, Don. Well, maybe if I say it now. We don't want that to happen. So let's not prophesize it. Maybe if I prophesied, it will definitely not happen because I'll be wrong. And in the world of sport... Yes. Oh, that controversy with the NRL players.

I mean, I can't believe it. Why did they film it? Why did they film it? And how did they get that volume of drugs in a pandemic? Yes, I know. It's like there's a semi-trailer of this stuff. It's like... Because I thought they'd put on an Instagram filter,

but there was actually just all the powder in the room. It's just amazing. Have we done everything? Is that enough riffing on topical news? What about the business news, Charles, for next week? What's the stock market doing on Thursday? Well, I must say, look, when I said last week that there'd be a massive crash in the stock market and everything was going to go terribly wrong.

You were just trying to short it, weren't you? You were just trying to manipulate the market with your interest. I was just trying to short it. But actually, it's turned out to be completely true. And anyone who took all their money out of the stock market on Friday has just made an absolute Motser today. I think that's enough. It shows you how cookie cutter our podcast is.

It is. We should just basically spend a day recording about 10 possible scenarios and just copying and pasting the words in. The one thing that we haven't done is I haven't winged about my life. Oh, yeah, Charles. I should probably just have a quick whinge about that. Oh, God. I hate everything.

Oh, my God. Everything's terrible. Charles, you're a very negligent parent. Charles, you're a very poor businessman. Charles, your life is a complete shambles. Should we just interview Nina? Is that a better way to do this? I think we could.

And I mean, the eagle-eyed fans of the podcast may suspect that our chat with Nina was slightly too short to hit the same length that we've been going for with all the other episodes. But it is incredibly fun. Nina tells a great yarn. But before we do that, Charles, let's go to Rebecca Dina Muno in the Chaser Newsroom. A man who found time to drop by Hawaii in the middle of a massive bushfire crisis engulfing the nation has said that he's suddenly too busy to visit another country for a few days at the beginning of November. Scott Morrison said that he wanted to attend the climate change conference in Glasgow,

but that it sounded like too much work, and he'd heard the beaches there aren't very good. Peter Dutton has abruptly cancelled Australia's new space program just one day after it began. The Defence Minister pulled out of Australia's partnership with NASA after learning that space is full of illegal aliens. A local man has slammed the new Superman movie for being unrealistic after the creators decided to portray the character as bisexual. The man said that it was a tragedy that the movie makers would take Superman

in such an unrealistic direction. seeing as the rest of the comic book character was based on fact. That's the latest Chaser News you can't trust. Remember to subscribe to the podcast in your app of choice. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno, and I believe that I can do anything I want. Sorry, I've just been doing a self-actualisation course, and that was one of the things I'm supposed to say. Don't worry, I know I can't.

Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fiz.C. Nina Ayama is on our show every week, so we don't really need to introduce her.

What, really? I've never heard of her. She's one of Australia's most exciting. New stand-up comedians, I saw her show earlier in the year. when that was legal the last time, and she was absolutely excellent. The room was eating out of her hand. She's also the rudest person on Australian Twitter,

which I very much enjoy. And she's been in all kinds of shows, hasn't she? Utopia and Question Everything. She's on every panel show. Every panel show going, Nehism. Every podcast. She's basically everywhere all the time. We're genuinely flattered that Nina still makes time to speak to us here on The Chaser Report.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Nina Ayama. If you've been on the internet this week, you've probably heard of the short story, bad art friend. It was more like a piece in the New York Times. It wasn't a short story. It was a write-up about two writers and one of them had written a short story. And it was very interesting because both of the writers were basically bad. But it all started off with this one lady called Dawn and she's like this kind of unself-aware white lady

who used to be part of a writer's group in Boston. And she donated a kidney. And then she made her kidney donation, her entire, identity and she made like group chats that are like hey guys just you know I donated my kidney and then like every year she'd celebrate like happy kidneyversary and she noticed that one of the people in the group chats that she thought was her friends from this writer's group in Boston which is not where she lives anymore um wasn't responding so she reached out to this lady and she asked her hey did you notice that I donated my kidney and then the lady who was also

right I was like yeah that's great job dude anyway so then after that the kind of unselfware I'm going to call a kidney lady, kidney lady and short story lady. So then kidney lady then gets paranoid that no one in the writer's group likes her. Even though, again, like, she doesn't live there anymore. They're kind of like not that good friends, but in her mind everyone's her friend. And she gets this message from someone some night that's like, oh, the short story lady has written a story about a woman who donates a kidney and is like really proud of it. And so kidney lady freaks out, thinks the story is about her and then basically like sues the pen.

off short story lady. Oh. And the reason she sues the pants off short story lady is because there's a section of the short story where this white lady writes a letter to her future kidney donor and the kidney lady thought that it reminded her of a letter she had written in a group chat with the short story lady. So that was her legal grounds is that it was plagiarism.

So I'm not allowed to make fun of, in a fictional story of someone I'm in a group chat with? Well, so this is the... I'm abandoning my novel based on Charles's life now. 50,000 words down the drain. I support this legal precedent. Well, this is the thing that I kind of thought was interesting. So the short story lady, her short story is about a white woman who donates a kidney to a half Chinese lady.

And the short story woman is also like half Asian. Basically, like it's very almost like an alternate universe where she is a recipient of the kidney and the white woman is the giver of the kidney. She's changed the names and everything, but, like, the short story is essentially about, like, a fictionalized version of what would happen if the kidney dogeny was to her. Basically, this story blows up. Like, it goes, she, like, wins all these awards. She's on the cover of some writing magazine next to a picture of Raymond Carver, because she's such an iconic short story writer. And the kidney lady sees this, and it just makes her so furious.

And so she, like, goes even harder in terms of the suing. And she, like, reaches out to short story lady to be like, it's not fair for you to use my likeness. And short story lady is like, you just inspired it, but it's not your likeness, right? And this is the thing she says the whole time, it's nothing to do with you. It was kind of inspired by you, but it has nothing to do with you. And then, and then Kidney Lady finds an earlier version of the story where the note written from the kidney lady in the fictional story is exactly the same as the note the original kidney woman wrote. Right. So she actually has legal grounds to be like, this woman plagiarized.

my writing and then she goes even deeper and she gets all these like group chats that the short story lady is in turned over to the lawyer and it turns out the short story lady and the writing friends of the kidney lady are all in a group chat without the kidney lady just bitching about her just being like look how dumb this kidney lady is so she's right she was right all along everyone was making fun of her the moral of the story is believe your gut instinct and perhaps don't donate a kidney. Surely the only, she shouldn't sue over this. What she should do is write a short story

about how awful it is when everyone in your writing group hates you behind your back and write a short story about your life. And this actually happened to me. I wrote a story about like Sydney Uni Student Politics a long time ago. And all these people went around for the next couple of years saying that they were the characters who had inspired the book. And their names were Charles Firth, Julian Morrow, Craig Rukassel and Chaz.

But one of them, um, I didn't know at all. I'd never talk to her. I had no clue who she was. I'd seen her, like, one poster running. And so she was going for years going, I was the person who this whole novel was based on. And I honestly,

I don't know a thing about her. I'm going to sue her. I think that just says that, I think what you should have said about Sydney UniKids is that they're all obviously cookie cutter personalities. They all think it's, well, yeah, they're all massive narcissists,

which is the point of the novel, admittedly, but that's so funny. I think it would be more like, if you wrote that story, And then the girl who claimed the character was based on her to... Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, and then...

But then actually, it turned out that you had completely based it on that. Yeah. And that you were, I don't know what you did back in your day, like writing chain letters about how much she sucked to him. With a quill on parchment. Pigeon, sending pigeons to and fro. Morse code. Being like, this chick is crazy.

This fucking... She's so desperate to have power in the student politics industry of you see. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot dash, dot dot dot dot dot dot, dot dash. That's a point of the story, apart from just making it about me in a crass way, which I always like to do, is that everyone starting out writing anything vaguely fictionalises their friends. That's what everyone does in the history of creating fiction. Like, Lena Dunham, when she's, surely everyone who knew Lena Dunham was like, yeah, that character in girls, that's me.

Like, this is just what happens. You know, where you can get away with it, though, and I'll say this as a biased member of this community, songwriting, because you can make songwriting. I don't think so. You don't think? I don't think so. I think every song is kind of about something or someone. I think you can keep it vague, but internally, like, you know.

That's it, yeah, because I think the thing about songwriting that you can get away with a lot more than I say a short story or a novel format is vagueness and poetry. I've had people whose songs I've written about them come up to me going, is that song about me? And I go, oh, no, it's about this person. And they go, oh, okay. Because I can't prove anything. Metaphor covers everything. But you just lied. And now they think it's about another person and they're going to find out they're going to sue you.

I will say the funny thing about Kidney Lady is that it's very clear from the outset that she was not really that good a writer and the short story writer was quite a good writer. And also, I think that's part of the reason why the community sided with the actual good writer because it was clear that this like kidney lady was totally unself aware and cringe. I would be on Kidney Lady's side if it subsequently emerges that she never donated a kidney at any point. And that she created this entire... She was the only thing she has going for her. Like, she has nothing else that's redeemable. The only thing to me that's redeemable... Oh, and that, and she also got the suspicion that everyone hated her, right.

But it is a weird thing that she herself has not written any published work. And she's, like, her whole brain is wrapped up in the way that everybody's constantly trying to undermine her instead of the way that she could actually create art and move forward. And I think it is... There's something interesting to be said for the fact that kidney lady... is like a very bougie white lady who came from like a poor background but now lives like a very comfortable middle class life in LA and the other lady comes from like a migrant background and so like her attitude to the way she works is like completely different from this white lady who

was like desperate to involve herself in the success of like a woman of color yeah by saying I wrote this letter but I will say the writer lady is also bad because like she did base this story on the kidney lady and the whole time she's like it's not based on you you have nothing to do with it and then all the group chats came out it's like you know you exactly based the story on her I just want to read the story now I want to read what what uh writer lady wrote well yes but then someone wrote a story about the story for the new york times which is another level of awesome this is the other interesting thing so the characters in this in this with this short story writer she wrote this story called the kindness and that's about a lady that donates a kidney and in the kindness

it's like very clear both the characters they're basically like Both of them are wrong and they're unwilling to admit that they are wrong. And then so it's weird because art then mimicked life when, you know, the real writer and then the actual kidney lady, both of them are also unwilling to admit how wrong they are. Which I think is very interesting. Like it's a, you know, it's like a story perception. Yeah. Yeah, like a life imitated art. But the funniest thing is, the reason that it's got a write up in the New York Times is because Kidney Lady reached out to the New York Times and said, a great injustice has been done against me.

So then this author pens an entire article about it, and it doesn't show her in a flattering light at all. It makes everyone seem extremely cooked. So she doesn't have any inside, and she doesn't have a kidney. So I want to meet a kidney lady because everyone who meets her goes on to produce incredibly successful works of writing. Yeah, she's like one of those people, like, now you meet those people who are, what are they called, like foster home relationships

where they always date someone right before that person finds their forever home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like a muse. Her utter terribleness is a muse for great works of writing, quite clearly. Yeah. What do you think for this in stand-up, Nina? Like, if you base a story on a real person, is that complicated? Is that difficult?

I have a lot of stories that are, like, based on real people. And most people don't know, because I make people seem so rude, that everyone goes, did that actually happen? And I think because I, like, cherry pick and then boost the rudeness or maybe slightly you know, with my deaf artistic licence, exaggerate moments of these interactions. I think I kind of get away with it.

But there have been moments where, like, if I've known a certain person is going to be at the show, like, I will take out some jokes. Oh, really? I think, like, there was a time where I was doing that, but then I realized I was just going to take out that joke entirely and then I didn't have to worry about if anyone from the industry was going to figure out who I was talking about.

I think if you did a set on this woman who donated a kidney she might be able to spot it but it is interesting because I think I don't know I I'm not a bitch but like but I think there are like some people that are like chronically unself aware and so there is like an element to where you're like you are

nice to people and civil to people because you don't want to cause conflict but like there are some people that you meet that you go oh that person's a bit of a psycho and then you definitely like make fun of them behind your back and I know this because you're doing it to me no but I think there's like people you meet like that and you always think that they don't notice and I think that

thing that this article has shown is like, no, those people are like very switched on to vibes and they, and that they can tell. They've chosen to lie dormant until the time it's right. Don't you think there's a big, am I the asshole about this as well? Because there's someone who I know and Charles knows, and we've known for decades, who is so unselfaware that their Instagram posts are comedic. They are so funny. And Charles knows who I'm talking about. I can see it in his eyes. They are so funny that every time there's a post, I text it to like five or six people because it is so perfect. That person's going to sue you.

All your group chats are going to be exposed. Don't do it. Can I write a novel based on this person and try to disguise it thinly enough? But then also, I actually read a novel that is exactly like this person's life by a person who can't possibly know them from a different country. So I understand what the ethics of this is, but this person is so hilarious that they demand to be fictionalised. I think the lace and ease that you burn all the evidence.

Like burn the Delete group chats Before you start writing the novel I don't know I reckon in three months Heart Lady will come out and say Kidney Lady stole a gag you know Oh like there'll be a

Like another transplant Hey Transplend Oh I was like You only have one heart Gabby You can't like donate a heart And be alive To get angry and sue someone

Happy five years around the sun With this new beat boy I do like the fixations On kidneys though because there is this weird obsession I think with pop culture and kidneys like the Selena Gomez kidney thing like it is this I don't know great deed yeah back in the day we made many jokes about Carrie Packer's kidney

that he got from his helicopter pilot um yeah and like just think how much earlier Kerry Packer would have died but for getting that kidney I remember my first impersonation the way you'd get into the Kerry Pecker impersonation it would be give me a kidney give me your fucking kidney Well, now the famous kidney getter is Selena Gomez. And because it's so deeply ingrained in pop culture, multiple shows haven't made jokes about her kidney transplant or her kidney donor or whatever. And whenever it happens, she gets really angry.

And she's like, stop talking about my kidneys. I think it's a very funny object in the body. I've got to be really honest. We didn't do a proper outro at this point. We just kept talking for the next half hour. Hey, we were just about to go on holidays. But Nina has heaps of gigs coming up. you can catch a show.

Nina Riyama is doing me right now. It's coming to Melbourne next week. It's going to Brisbane and Perth very, very soon. Lots of details at laughingstock.com. You will just follow Nina on the socials, and I'm sure she'll plug them on there. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important.

Can't take being on hold anymore? Fizz is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.com. Well, Charles, what an exhausting week of long interviews. This hasn't been, given that we recorded them all last week. Only one to go.

I'm exhausted. I might have to take next week off just to take a break from my break. But tomorrow is probably the longest interview that we've done. It's Saul Griffith, who is probably one of the most extraordinary people in the world when it comes to clean energy and breakthrough technology. So keep an eye out for that in your feed tomorrow. Catch you then.