A Karen is typically a white Generation X woman who disapproves of a lot of things (e.g. famously, African-Americans having a barbecue) and ruins other people’s fun by doing things like calling the authorities.

Whether you agree with her opinion, she did nothing the university should be ashamed of. Academic freedom should mean that students and professors are able to express these kinds of thoughts without any punishment. For a university to jump in (even if they were getting pressure) and apologize, as if what she’d done had somehow embarassed and implicated the entire organization, is outrageous, and sends a message that only some opinions are going to be protected by the school.

That’s a really good point about the original interview.

When one of Ms. Dessen’s author-friends Tweeted, “F*** that f****** b****,” Ms. Dessen responded, “I ❤️ you;” and when a second author-friend said she wanted to add “raggedy ass” before “b****,” many including Ms. Dessen, responded with likes, high fives, etc. Those two women were “piling on” the student in a public forum, where ALLLL of their hundreds of thousands of followers could witness the hatred thrown out being met with adoration, especially from the aggrieved Ms. Dessen.

Surely, it doesn’t surprise anyone that fans would emulate their idols. And, surely, as you note, these adult women knew the strong possibilities that other “fanatics” would feel the urge to “f*** that f****** b****” in true Twitter fashion. The initial author/ friends’ fun “bash the reader who dared to hurt our friend” party only stopped when they recognized that the narrative had gotten beyond their control, and they were being exposed for careless, callous, immature, and uninformed rhetoric that actually and directly harmed a young woman, who did nothing more than answer an interviewer’s question about why she joined a volunteer committee.

Honestly, why the interviewer chose to print the very specific quotations about Dressen is perplexing because she surely recognized that the words would sting and that there was no need to single out any author whose work wasn’t selected. If she’d simply reported that the student joined the committee to ensure a book with a strong and timely cultural topic was selected, the news would’ve remained local. Even if she’d included the unflattering comment about YA literature in general without naming Sarah Dessen, the Twitter world would never have exploded.

(I can understand Ms. Dessen’s hurt feelings over that. But, good Lord! Eat a cookie, woman. Take some of your lots of dollars and have a spa day. Sheesh.)

Anyway, your take resonates with me on many levels, and I look forward to reading Sorrywatch.com from here forward!

Could someone translate this phrase into ordinary English for me? I don’t have the faintest notion what it means (though I assume it’s a bad thing to be).

Thanks.

I hate the framing that all young adult authors are drama divas, and that YA lit (because girls) is inherently dramatic, but there’s definitely some big stuff under the surface that continues to erupt every single time… and will continue to do so, I guess, because there’s no way for people to work out their issues on social media.