This is Brooke with the On the Media Midweek podcast.

When stories, moments, and ideas, even memes go viral on the internet, a good question is to ask why.

Some tug at our heartstrings, like Charlie bit my finger. Others are just silly, like Bernie Sanders and big mittens.

But a few rise in the digital ranks because

they make us argue. We pick sides, and then we pick fights for and against people we don't know.

That was the case this week regarding two women who met in Boston over a decade ago.

Dawn Dorland and Sonia Larsarson were the subject of an article by

Robert Culker in the New York Times entitled The Bad Art Friend. Dorland and Larson were both

regulars at Grub Street, a non-profit writing center known for literary workshops and events. And as far

as facts go, that is at least one that everyone

in the story will agree on. The tale is one of two writers in extremists over perloined letters,

iffy intentions, and charged feelings. But for the internet, particularly the world of Twitter,

it was about so much more. So we called up a friend of ours to talk about his review of the story and the debate.

Journalist Michael Hobbs is host of the podcast Maintenance Phase. Thanks for joining us, Mike.

Thanks for having me back. Okay, so let's start with their initial meeting. The story in the New York Times jumps to 2015, I think,

when Dawn, who had moved away from Boston to L.A.,

made a big decision to donate a kidney to a stranger,

just to put it in the bank.

And then she made a decision to create a Facebook group about it.

Yes. She created a private Facebook group. It's not totally clear how many members of it there were,

but Don says it's roughly 20 to 30. Sonia says it's 250 to 300. It seems like from all of Don's

correspondence, it seems quite clear that she was using this as a

...