Gabe Dunn

Gabe Dunn (born June 1, 1988) is an American writer, actor, pop journalist, comedian, LGBTQ activist, and podcaster. They were a writer and director for BuzzFeed Video, before leaving to focus on their YouTube comedy show and podcast Just Between Us with fellow former BuzzFeed writer Allison Raskin.[1]

Gabriel Shane Dunn
Born (1988-06-01) June 1, 1988
Florida, U.S.
Alma materEmerson College
Occupations
  • Actor
  • writer
  • journalist
  • podcaster
Years active2010–present

Dunn's writings as a journalist have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Playboy, Vice, The Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, Salon, and Slate. Their joint novel with Raskin, I Hate Everyone but You, was released on September 5, 2017 through Wednesday Books.[2] It reached the top ten on The New York Times bestsellers list.

Since 2016, they have hosted Bad with Money, a podcast that launched at the Panoply, which primarily focuses on economy lessons, while also delving into poverty and economic oppression.[3][4] They were a producer of the independent community radio station WFMU. Their web project, 100interviews.com, was named "Best Blog" by The Village Voice in 2010.[5]

Early life and education

Dunn was born on June 1, 1988. They used the name Gaby Dunn prior to transitioning. They attended David Posnack Jewish Day School in Plantation, Florida. They attended Emerson College, where they majored in Multimedia Journalism, graduating in 2009.[6] They are Jewish.[7]

Dunn began performing during their first 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 they were urged to take the audition slot of a former boyfriend who had become sick the day before and could not perform. Their audition was successful and they became a member of the troupe. At the time they considered themself a better writer than actor, and working in CCC allowed them to do both, since members were expected to write and perform their own sketches.[6]

During their second year, Dunn began a two-year stint as a crime reporter for The Boston Globe. They worked the 6:30 pm – 2:30 am shift, using a police scanner to monitor potential news items, and then driving to the scene of the crime to write about it. After their junior year, Dunn worked as an intern at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.[8]

Career

100 Interviews

In October 2010, Dunn created 100interviews.com, a Tumblr blog in which they 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.[9] Their initial inspiration for the project stemmed from their 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.[8]

Because 100 Interviews was an independent project, Dunn sometimes solicited interviews with 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.[10] After trying and failing to interview Colbert by crashing a $2,000 a plate dinner gala,[11] Dunn settled for asking him questions during a pre-show Q&A for The Colbert Report.[12]

Dunn's attempts to gain wider exposure for what they called their "diary journalism"[13] were initially met with rejection.[14] Dunn has been recognized as a success case of the use of social media for self-promotion,[10] particularly Twitter and Tumblr, the micro-blogging service and web application platform through which they initially self-published their interviews.[15] The success of 100 Interviews caused Dunn's work to be noticed by the Village Voice and New York Times culture editor Adam Sternbergh.[16]

Just Between Us

In 2014, Dunn created a YouTube channel with their best friend Allison Raskin called Just Between Us (JBU). The two play characters based on themselves, which they describe as an odd couple. Dunn plays a sex-positive, bisexual, feminist in contrast to Raskin's uptight, straight, single character. They began with giving love advice, and then added sketches. The advice show sometimes features guest stars, which in the past have included family members and close friends. Just Between Us now has more than 670,000 subscribers and over 160 million views.

Bad with Money with Gaby Dunn

In August 2016, Dunn began a podcast with the intent of exposing and analyzing money problems that most people face yet no one talks about. The podcast was called Bad with Money with Gaby Dunn.[17] On their podcast they discuss their financial experiences in regards to their debt,[18] career, and also systematic financial systems in place that make earning money difficult. Their guests have ranged from financial psychologist Dr. Brad Klontz[18] to Senator Elizabeth Warren to feminist scholar and writer Roxane Gay.[19]

A book based on the podcast called Bad With Money: The Imperfect Art of Getting Your Financial Sh*t Together was published in 2019. Dunn toured with the book, which went into three printings.[20]

This podcast stems from a long conversation Dunn has had around money and the internet. After an article they wrote for Fusion went viral in December 2015, Dunn became one of the leading spokespeople for the intersection of being famous online and making a living.[21] Many YouTubers, while "internet famous", cannot profit off of their celebrity for fear of being seen as disingenuous, as Dunn describes in the documentary Vlogumentary (2016), in which they show one of the jobs as a courier and also the fans they run into as they’re working.[22]

I Hate Everyone But You

Dunn's debut novel, written with Allison Raskin, was published on September 5, 2017.[23] A follow-up novel was released in July 2019, titled Please Send Help.

In 2019, Dunn was also a consulting producer on the Netflix animated series, Big Mouth, created by comedian Nick Kroll.

Apocalypse Untreated

In 2020, Dunn created, wrote, and starred in an Audible Original fiction podcast called Apocalypse Untreated about teenagers in a wilderness rehab and troubled teen program trying to survive after a meteor strike.[24]

Bury The Lede

In October 2019, Dunn's debut original graphic novel, Bury the Lede[25] was released in partnership with BOOM! Studios. It is a queer crime thriller that was inspired by Dunn’s own experiences working as a young reporter at the Boston Globe. Bury the Lede was illustrated by Claire Roe.

GRINDR BABY

In December 2022, Dunn's directorial debut short film Grindr Baby was selected as Frameline Voices 2023, a curated program of short films and episodic content representing experiences unique to LGBTQ+ people and communities.[26]

Personal life

Dunn has a younger sister, Cheyanne Dunn. Dunn is bisexual and polyamorous.[27] In a July 5, 2021 interview on the Gender Reveal podcast, Dunn said that they had been exploring their gender and were probably non-binary, and had begun using they/them pronouns, which they later confirmed as a permanent change.[28] In January 2023, Dunn revealed their new name, Gabe, via social media.[29]

References
  1. "Home". Allison Raskin. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  2. "I Hate Everyone But You – Gaby Dunn – Macmillan". Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  3. ""Life was always a financial hellscape": Gaby Dunn's "Bad With Money" wants to break th..." August 30, 2016. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  4. Hess, Amanda (December 6, 2016). "The Best New Podcasts of 2016". The New York Times. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  5. "Village Voice Web Awards: The Winners!". Village Voice. December 8, 2010. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
  6. Goodman, Elyssa (December 4, 2009). "Gaby Dunn and the Pursuit of Comedy: Featured Female Start-Up". Her Campus. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
  7. https://www.heyalma.com/jewish-comedian-gaby-dunn-is-bad-with-money/
  8. 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. Archived from the original on January 19, 2013. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
  9. Dunn, Gabby (September 20, 2010). "The Finished List". 100 Interviews. 100interviews.com. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
  10. Weinmann, Karlee (April 12, 2011). "How Gaby Dunn Self-Promoted Her Way To Internet Fame". Open Forum. openforum.com. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  11. Dunn, Gaby (April 12, 2011). "I crashed a $2,000/plate gala to find Stephen Colbert". Open Salon. salon.com. Archived from the original on July 27, 2013. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  12. 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.
  13. Gordon, Kyana (November 12, 2010). "100 Interviews: Gaby Dunn and the Art of Face-to-Face Meeting". psfk.com. PSFK. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  14. 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.
  15. Orsini, Lauren Rae (October 4, 2011). "100 Interviews Get People Talking". The Daily Dot. The Daily Dot, LLC. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  16. Stoeffel, Kat (February 2, 2012). "New York Times Magazine Hires Thought Catalog Writer". The New York Observer. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  17. "Panoply Media: A Podcast Network from Slate Magazine". www.panoply.fm. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  18. "Gaby Gets Her Head Examined (aka Plan Bay) from Bad With Money With Gaby Dunn". www.stitcher.com. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  19. "Tokens For Your Tokens from Bad With Money With Gaby Dunn". www.stitcher.com. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  20. Dunn, Gaby (January 1, 2019). Bad with Money. ISBN 978-1-5011-7633-3.
  21. "You Can Have Millions of Subscribers on YouTube—And Still Be Flat Broke". Fusion. Archived from the original on November 18, 2016. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  22. Shaytards (October 26, 2016), Vlogumentary, retrieved December 2, 2016
  23. "New Kids' and YA Books: Week of September 4, 2017". PublishersWeekly.com. August 31, 2017. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
  24. Apocalypse Untreated.
  25. "Here's an Exclusive First Look at Gaby Dunn's New Graphic Novel, "Bury the Lede"". Autostraddle. March 12, 2019. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  26. "Frameline Voices". Frameline. Retrieved January 6, 2023.
  27. Dunn, Gaby (January 7, 2016). "Polyamorous, Pansexual, and Proud: Why I'm 'So Out and Outspoken'". Women's Health. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  28. Woodstock, Tuck (July 5, 2021). Episode 98: Checking in with Gaby Dunn (Podcast). 11:25 minutes in.
  29. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm2-UelrC9G/?hl=en
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