🔗 Share this article

The performer appears on the digital interview and immediately launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, seeming truly apologetic. She is only a bit late, she wants to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is just what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those who have seen her unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—will already know that Sennott holds plenty to discuss, whether about gender, intimacy, or the merits of creating a youth brawl society. And, by the end her latest eight-part show I Love LA, it is clear that she holds even more insights regarding the darker side of young adulthood (At 30, Sennott serves as a bridge to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for straddling different age groups).

Guiding Lights and Creative Vision

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, naming it alongside the classic series, Insecure and the innovative program as inspirations for her series, which tracks the journey of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also new talent manager Maia. Notably, the largest presence on concept belonged to the popular sitcom, that show depicting an emerging Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it during COVID-19, became “captivated”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The concept for this project emerged—to some extent—from her own, originally fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a popular event for followers. This represented a phase that included her learn major truths, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she says. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Starting Out

Raised in the East Coast, the star began writing and performing comedy while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”

She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with her friend and posting hysterical (and very) weird online content online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being caught in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her path, she explains, has been peers supporting her, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Manifesting Dreams

Individuals who were skeptical about her previously will likely be regretting it now. As part of she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to created an ideal role. Previously she posted a video called on LA life on social media, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about city dwellers managing benefits of digital stardom (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your client being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could tempting to make a program about digital influence that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. The series does neither, creating a representation of affluent twentysomething life that’s candid about the chaos and the shine.

Balanced Perspective

“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she says. “I think that young people have been through a lot – I’m mostly thinking of people younger than me, like my little sister, who went to college during Covid, so she had to come home, or my other sister who was doing school online.”|“The younger generation has faced significant