Lena Dunham Named Time Magazine’s ‘Coolest Person Of The Year’

While at first sight Girls creator, writer, and star Lena Dunham doesn’t typically fit into what’s considered to be ‘cool,’ if you ask Time magazine, she’s the coolest person of the year. The mystery is solved after looking at the kind of year Dunham has had.

Earning Time’s Coolest Person Of The Year title doesn’t seem like the hugest achievement in the world, but it’s something that Dunham has earned after this year. Last year, Dunham was visibly unknown in the industry, and in the last year she went on to write and star in Girls, an HBO show that’s both critically loved and shamed on a week-to-week basis.

Since its creation Dunham has gone on to receive four Emmy nominations for the show, signed one of the most expensive book advances the literary world has seen in a while, and just continues to extend her brand of honest 20-something musings.

On Lena Dunham’s new title, Joel Stein from Time magazine writes:

“The 2012 Coolest Person of the Year is a woman who was unafraid to showcase her flaws. A woman who wore less makeup on TV than in real life and purposely shot herself naked in more unflattering ways than a blackmailer would. A woman whose entire persona is based on doing the wrong thing yet who reportedly got a $3.7 million advance for an advice book. A woman who made an Obama campaign video centering on a double entendre about losing her virginity to the President. A woman who was nominated for four Emmys and, far cooler, zero People’s Choice Awards. A woman who responded to 2010 Coolest Person James Franco’s harsh Huffington Post essay criticizing Girls, the HBO show she created and stars in, by saying she’s a big James Franco fan.”

Unlike Ryan Gosling who was silent about his 2011 Coolest Person of the Year title, Dunham, who has time and time again proved that she’s a product of the internet generation responded to Time magazine’s title:

“Wow, that is—for lack of a better word—really cool. What an honor. Will I get in any Web trouble for being genuinely, unsnarkily excited to be the first woman to win Joel Stein’s Coolest Person of the Year?”

Time magazine isn’t the only person that thinks Lena Dunham is cool. Executive Producer of Girls, Judd Apatow, who first approached Dunham to spin her creativity into a series said of Lena:

“She doesn’t care what you think of her. O.K., she does care. A lot. But she won’t change who she is to please you.”

What do you think about Time’s pick for Coolest Person of The Year? Is it deserving?