Girls co-creator Lena Dunham is no stranger to social-media controversies, so it was probably inevitable that she’d eventually throw in the towel. In a podcast hosted by Kara Swisher, Dunham said she has someone tweet on her behalf so that she doesn’t have to ever look at Twitter.
“I really appreciate that anybody follows me at all, and so I didn’t want to cut off my relationship to it completely, but it really, truly wasn’t a safe space for me,” she said, adding that all of the hate her social-media presence attracted was creating something “cancerous” inside her.
“Even if you think, like, ‘Oh I can read, like, ten mentions that say I should be stoned to death’ and kind of, like, laugh and move on, that’s verbal abuse,” Dunham said. “Those aren’t words that should be directed at you ever. And so, for me personally, it was safer to stop [using Twitter].”
She’s also given up reading Gawker Media sites, likening the experience to being a domestic-abuse victim, which, oof.
“I used to read Gawker and Jezebel in college and be like, ‘I can’t wait to get to New York where my people will be to welcome me,’” Dunham told Swisher. “And it’s like, it’s literally if I read it it’s like going back to a husband who beat me in the face — it just doesn’t make any sense.”
In other news, I am now seeking unpaid interns for an exciting social-media opportunity (running my stupid Twitter account).