Gaby Dunn

Gaby Dunn (born 1988) is a comedian, journalist and blogger who lives in Los Angeles. She is currently a video actor and writer for Buzzfeed and has a weekly YouTube comedy show with fellow comedian and best friend Allison Raskin. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, Salon and Slate. She leads the Peoples Improv Theater house team BIRDS, and is a producer of the independent community radio station WFMU. Her web project, 100interviews.com, was named "Best Blog" by The Village Voice in 2010.

Early life and education

Dunn was born in 1988.[1] She attended David Posnack Jewish Day School in Davie, Florida,[2] and Emerson College, where she majored in Multimedia Journalism, graduating in 2009.[1]

Dunn began performing during her freshman year at Emerson, with the sketch comedy troupe Chocolate Cake City (CCC). Dunn had wanted to audition for CCC, but was too scared to do so until she was urged to take the audition slot of a former boyfriend who had become sick the day before and couldn't perform. Her audition was successful and she became a member of the troupe. At the time she considered herself a better writer than actor, and working in CCC allowed her to do both, since members were expected to write and perform their own sketches.[1]

During her sophomore year, Dunn began a two-year stint as a crime reporter for The Boston Globe. She worked 6:30pm – 2:30am shift, using a police scanner to monitor potential news items, and then driving to the scene of the crime to write about it. After her junior year, Dunn worked as an intern at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.[2]

Career

100 Interviews

In October 2010, Dunn created 100interviews.com, a Tumblr blog in which she intended to publish transcripts of 100 interviews, given over the course of a single year, with a variety of different people. Interview subjects included a transgender person, a rocket scientist, an Abraham Lincoln expert, and Stephen Colbert.[3] Her initial inspiration for the project stemmed from her own personal desire to meet different people and hear their stories. However, Dunn also wanted to offer readers the opportunity to "vicariously meet people" whose lives were different from their own. "That's something I don't think journalism does anymore." Dunn explained in an interview with Yeshiva University's The Commentator. "If you're liberal, you'll watch certain news channels and if you're conservative you'll watch different channels. Journalism used to present one truth that each side could interpret. Now it panders to one side or the other."[2]

Because 100 Interviews was an independent project, Dunn sometimes solicited interviews with her candidates in non-traditional unexpected ways. Children's horror author R. L. Stine agreed to sit for an interview after Dunn "cold-tweeted" him on Twitter.[4] After trying and failing to interview Colbert by crashing a $2,000 a plate dinner gala,[5] Dunn settled for asking him questions during a pre-show Q&A for The Colbert Report.[6] She also used Help a Reporter Out, an online service that connects journalists with expert sources.

Dunn's attempts to gain wider exposure for what she called her "diary journalism"[7] initially met with rejection.[8] Dunn has been recognized as a success case of the use of social media for self-promotion,[4] particularly Twitter and Tumblr, the micro-blogging service and web application platform through which she initially self-published her interviews.[9] The success of 100 Interviews caused Dunn's work to be noticed by the Village Voice and New York Times culture editor Adam Sternbergh.[10]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Goodman, Elyssa (December 4, 2009). "Gaby Dunn and the Pursuit of Comedy: Featured Female Start-Up". Her Campus. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Botwinick, Simeon (April 1, 2011). "From the Top 5 Cutest Maccabeats to 100 Interviews in 1 Year: 15 Questions with Gaby Dunn". The Commentator. Yeshiva University. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
  3. ↑ Dunn, Gabby (September 20, 2010). "The Finished List". 100 Interviews. 100interviews.com. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Weinmann, Karlee (April 12, 2011). "How Gaby Dunn Self-Promoted Her Way To Internet Fame". Open Forum. openforum.com. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  5. ↑ Dunn, Gaby (April 12, 2011). "I crashed a $2,000/plate gala to find Stephen Colbert". Open Salon. salon.com. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  6. ↑ Tenore, Mallary Jean (August 30, 2011). "’100 Interviews’ project puts new twist on old adage: Everybody has a story". Poynter. poynter.org. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  7. ↑ Gordon, Kyana (November 12, 2010). "100 INTERVIEWS: GABY DUNN AND THE ART OF FACE-TO-FACE MEETING". PSFK. PSFK. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  8. ↑ Binder, Shaun (October 5, 2012). "No Fun, Gaby Dunn! An Interview with a Thought Catalog Editor". Uloop: Huffington Post College. Huffington Post. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  9. ↑ Orsini, Lauren Rae (October 4, 2011). "100 Interviews Get People Talking". The Daily Dot. The Daily Dot, LLC. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  10. ↑ Stoeffel, Kat (February 2, 2012). "New York Times Magazine Hires Thought Catalog Writer". The New York Observer. Retrieved November 5, 2012.