Lena Dunham: The internet was a game I wanted to win
Lena Dunham has opened up about some of her struggles with fame.
Lena Dunham developed a toxic relationship with the internet after finding fame.
The 39-year-old actress shot to stardom as the creator, writer, and star of the hit HBO series Girls, which premiered in 2012, and Lena now admits to developing an unhealthy obsession with online chatter.
She told the Guardian newspaper: "If you have an addictive personality, which clearly I do, any hit of the dopamine of positivity [is welcome] and there’s also a hit of adrenaline that comes from the negative. And then, because you see something negative, you want to see something positive to erase it, and you end up in this cycle.
"It’s easy when you’re young to feel the internet’s a game you want to win.
"I remember breaking up with a guy in my early 20s and him writing an email that was really mean. And my father said, ‘Well, why don’t you just ignore him? You’ve broken up, you don’t have to do anything else.’ And I was like, ‘Because I don’t want him to have the last word.’ And then you meet up with the person and they act sweet so you kiss them, then they act mean again. And that’s the relationship you’re in with the internet."
Lena thinks up-and-coming female stars can learn a lot from her experiences of fame.
The actress confessed to being particularly naive in the early years of her career.
Lena - who was just 25 years old when Girls first aired - said: "I am one of the many examples they have of what [can happen] and there’s a sense of people learning how much vulnerability is useful and how much is not. And I did not have any of that. I didn’t have any sense about even just simple things like posing, or style, or how to show your body, or how to show your face."
