I Took a Photo!

I took a photo of the moment Lena Dunham became famous. 
She had just won Best Narrative Film at the 2010 SXSW Awards and was being interviewed on TV for the first time. The movie was a super low budget film she shot on a cheap Cannon DLSR filmed mostly at her childhood home with her friends and family as actors. After it won Judd Apatow developed GIRLS with her for HBO and she became super famous for better or worse. 👇

I was at the awards as press so I got the winners list before it was announced and I was hanging out with the Tiny Furniture crew when I got the email and I just had to keep it a secret so they could enjoy winning in the moment.
I was there because I dated one of Lena's best friends in like 2005 and through that Lena found out about the band I managed (The Gaskets) and fell in love with them. The lead singer of the Gaskets (Teddy) then met Lena's other close friend and they dated for several years (quite a bit of the plot of Girls season 1 was based on that time).
Teddy ended up doing the music for Tiny Furniture and I ended up running the Tiny Furniture Twitter account.

Running the Tiny Furniture Twitter account was such a good lesson in how context completely changes how people view things. I had to read EVERY SINGLE review of Tiny Furniture and nearly every review was incredibly positive before the announcement of GIRLS and after that nearly every single review had such a negative light. They all talked about how she had famous parents (her parents are artists you have absolutely never heard of) and how she was some sort nepo baby and how the movie was navel gazing which is ridiculous if you compare it to similar "mumblecore" movies at the time.

I visited the set of GIRLS during the first season and Lena told me I could be an extra in this Bushwick loft party scene. I wanted to play myself so I was gonna be in the background taking photos, but when I met the producer she thought I looked perfect for that scene (I was a hipster, let me live) and two days later they gave me speaking line. 
Saying one line in a TV show is an amazing gig. I got nearly $1000, I got to eat free food and had my own trailer and a several of my friends were extras and they had to stand on the other side of the room from me which was hilarious. Sadly my scene got cut, but 10/10 recommend.

When GIRLS came out it was a huge hit, but so many people didn't get that she was making fun of the characters. There was a line in the season 1 trailer that said something about her being "the voice of a new generation" and somehow people though she was talking about herself and not making fun of the character that said it. 
Lena just got destroyed by people after that and she certainly said some stuff during that time that it's fair to criticize but so much of it just seemed to come from a place of jealousy and quite a bit of sexism. 
It's 100% fair to not like Lena's work (Even I stopped watching GIRLS after season 2) but people were so brutal to her. She's had a ton of health issues on top of dealing with the mental struggles from dealing with all that abuse and it all just bums me out so much because she is honestly one of the kindest most thoughtful people I have ever known. 
I haven't talked to Lena in probably close to a decade but still wish her a ton of success and happiness cause she deserves it. The end.