Girls, Girls, Girls. That was all anyone seemed to be talking about when HBO debuted the darkly comic Sunday night drama, created, written and directed by then 25-year-old Lena Dunham. The story of four friends in their mid 20s trying make it in New York, Girls premiered to universally positive reviews. “It’s raw, audacious, nuanced and richly, often excruciatingly funny,” TIME’s James Poniewozik wrote of the show. But suddenly, Dunham was everywhere. Long think pieces in the New York Times, the Huffington Post and The Nation hailed Girls as a recession-era Sex and the City, or bemoaned its portrayal of a generation of women embroiled in postmillennial ennui. Quite a few people, perhaps unacquainted with the show’s frequent nudity, wanted to know why so many middle-aged men watched it. Media pieces parsed the praise for, and backlash against, Girls, then even more stories examined what that acclaim or criticism said about the current state of society. Dunham was nominated for four Emmys and signed a $3.5 million book deal for a collection of essays titled Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s Learned. One thing she’s apparently learned is that it’s important to vote: In the last few weeks of the election, Dunham’s ad for President Obama, in which she coyly compares voting for the first time to losing one’s virginity, went viral. The new season of Girls is slated to start in January, ensuring we’ll see plenty of Lena Dunham in 2013.
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9. Much Ado about Lena Dunham
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Top 10 Animal Stories
Top 10 Apologies
- 10. Comedian Daniel Tosh, for Making Rape Jokes
- 9. Joe Biden, for Upstaging the President on Gay Marriage
- 8. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, for Agents Gone Wild
- 7. Libyan President el-Magariaf, for the Benghazi Attack
- 6. Kristen Stewart for Cheating on Her Twilight Co-Star
- 5. Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld, for Bungling Facebook’s IPO
- 4. Congressman Todd Akin, for His Comments About ‘Legitimate Rape’
- 3. Apple CEO Tim Cook, for the Crappy Maps App
- 2. David Petraeus, for His Extramarital Affair
- 1. Mitt Romney, for His ‘47%’ Fiasco
Top 10 Buzzwords
Top 10 Comebacks
Top 10 Crime Stories
- 10. ‘Cocaine Queen’ Griselda Blanco Murdered
- 9. Drew Peterson Convicted
- 8. Anders Breivik Sentenced
- 7. The Saga of Kim Dotcom
- 6. Trial of Jerry Sandusky
- 5. The Wisconsin Sikh Temple Shooting
- 4. The Worst Possible Way to Lose Face
- 3. Solved at Last? The Murder of Etan Patz
- 2. The Dark Knight Rises Massacre
- 1. The Trayvon Martin Shooting
Top 10 Feuds
- 10. Jon Hamm vs. Kim Kardashian
- 9. Oscar de la Renta vs. Cathy Horyn
- 8. Drake vs. Chris Brown
- 7. Anderson Cooper vs. M.I.A.
- 6. Jackson vs. Jackson
- 5. British Royals vs. the Paparazzi (Episode 6,213)
- 4. Silicon Valley vs. SOPA
- 3. The NFL vs. the Refs
- 2. Bloomberg vs. Big Soda
- 1. Rush Limbaugh vs. Sandra Fluke
Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
Top 10 Memes
Top 10 Numbers
Top 10 Quotes
- 10. “Listen, Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Damn it, go back onboard!”
- 9. “It’s like a real Chinese version of The Shawshank Redemption.”
- 8. “Mom, gold is good!”
- 7. “The players kind of look to us like the substitute-schoolteacher syndrome, like, ‘Let’s see what we can get away with.'”
- 6. “What defines me? Ryan Lochte.”
- 5. “I had a bet with Gordon Kane of Michigan University that the next particle wouldn’t be found. It seems I have just lost $100.”
- 4. “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.”
- 3. “We’ve been waiting for it for 7,000 years. For the first time in history, we have our own President, elected by us.”
- 2. “You can make people buy broccoli.”
- 1. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Top 10 Religion Stories
- 10. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Pat Robertson.
- 9. The War on (the Date of) Christmas: The Pope Weighs In
- 8. Who Do Burma’s Buddhist Monks Hate? Muslim Migrants
- 7. The Conquest of Jerusalem by Ultra-Orthodox Jews
- 6. The Church of England’s Woman Problem
- 5. The Revolt of the Nuns
- 4. Pussy Riot vs. the Russian Orthodox Church
- 3. Syria’s Alawites: A Sect Under Siege
- 2. The Pope’s Butler Did It
- 1. Innocence of Muslims
Top 10 Scandals
- 10. Football’s ‘Bountygate’
- 9. Banks Sued for Rigging LIBOR
- 8. Bo Xilai Falls from Power
- 7. The Secret Service and Its Prostitutes
- 6. The Boy Scouts’ Hidden ‘Perversion Files’
- 5. Penn State, Part 2
- 4. Chick-fil-A and Gay Marriage
- 3. Lance Armstrong Is Stripped of His Titles
- 2. Susan G. Komen Defunds Planned Parenthood
- 1. The General’s Mistress: David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell
Top 10 Overreported Stories
Top 10 Underreported Stories
Top 10 Best Tweets
- 10. Twitter Breaks the News
- 9. Olympics Backlash
- 8. Beliebers Have Feelings, Too
- 7. Twit Lit
- 6. We Live-Tweet Everything — and We Mean Everything
- 5. Obama’s Tweet Slam
- 4. Tweet if You Love Big Gulps
- 3. Tweets from Mars
- 2. When Athletes Snap at 140 Characters
- 1. Election Night, and the Most Popular Tweet of All Time
Top 10 Worst Tweets