“Lena Dunham Does Not Pay”

“Why stars like Lena Dunham ask aspiring performers to work for free”

What stuns me here is Ms. Dunham and her publisher, Random House, and the writer for the “New York Times” were completely unaware of the Amanda Palmer kerfuffle.

Yes, Amanda too wanted her fans to perform for free. But the crushing blowback caused her to compensate them. How could the above entities be completely unaware of not only that blowback, but the whole situation?

That’s the world we live in. Where everybody’s in their narrow silo and the rest of us don’t only not care, we’re completely unaware.

Did you see Prince put out a couple of new albums? Did something on Yahoo I think. But he’s still living in 1984, he thinks MTV still rules and “Purple Rain” reigns when the truth is no one is paying attention. The youngsters have completely tuned out and the oldsters have been burned so many times and albums require so much dedication that we all just shrug and move along.

The diehard fans yell loudest. Kind of like those complaining to CBS over Nipplegate. Everybody’s so afraid of their shadow that they pay attention to the minor minions and change course when the truth is most of these people have nothing better to do than complain and should be ignored.

Were any of those bitching at Amanda Palmer fans? No, her fans were eager to play for free. But the system crashed down upon her, she was suddenly the poster girl for ungrateful ingrate.

But Amanda Palmer was marginal compared to Lena Dunham. How could it be no one in the food chain was aware of Amanda’s travails? And how come the press gives a pass to this woman although talented would have a hard time holding Roseanne Roseannadanna’s purse.

I watched “Tiny Furniture,” I read the “New Yorker” article. If you think that’s great filmmaking, you’ve never seen Francis Ford Coppola never mind Billy Wilder.

As for “Girls”… I don’t care that she’s parading her less than perfect body nude, I’ve yet to be hooked.

But I keep having her and her story jammed down my throat. She’s the voice of a generation! Are we that hard up for heroes that a neurotic twentysomething is exalted to the heavens?

But who cares about Lena Dunham. And that’s exactly my point. The entire media business seems unaware the internet happened. They think it’s solely a publicity tool, a way to hammer their message in a million forums. And they keep blaming theft and all kinds of bogeymen for their reduced sales while failing to realize we’re interested in other stuff and don’t care about what they’re talking about.

Yes, media has become an echo chamber.

Furthermore, the publishing business is now taking a page out of the music business’s book. I’m surprised Lena’s tour/show isn’t booked by Live Nation, the promotion giant would have done a much better job. Because providing tickets and security and putting on a gig is much more complicated than those living in front of the camera realize.

So I hate the new world. Because I just can’t figure it out. Nothing seems to matter. Yet everybody who could be asking hard questions refuses to, for fear of being left out of the circus.

The truth is to go mainstream you must whittle your message down narrowly or wait until your broad message is slowly picked up by the masses. You can be in the “New York Times” and no one can care.

And you wonder why YouTube stars generate all this heat.

Lena Dunham could have done something really different, she could have had a day long YouTube extravaganza, it’s nothing new, One Direction did it last Thanksgiving. But no one at Random House, never mind Lena, seems to know that either.

Is anybody paying attention?

Does anybody realize we know “Wake Me Up” and “Hey Brother” and don’t care about the rest of Avicii’s album? And that other than “Get Lucky,” few have time to delve into Daft Punk’s?

And the wannabes are even worse. They don’t want anything to change for fear of being left out, because they’re dummies who refuse to enter the uncharted future. But that’s what artists do, take risks.

And artists have influences.

Turns out Lena Dunham’s been living in her own echo chamber for so long she’s got no idea what’s going on.

“Turning a Book Tour Into a Literary Circus (and a Hot Ticket)”