Oh geez, oh golly, oh boy.

Let’s get into this. As mentioned in the video I have a LOT of content I need to lay out here for y’all so… I’m going to break these down into sections, with the rest of the formatting and structure becoming apparent as I go. Good? Good. Let’s go.

part 1 – Film Daze

I’m lucky enough to be able to write for Film Daze, here’s a link to my entire log of articles. Now as you might be able to garner from this, my primary role at Film Daze is to write reviews/features on animation, I love animation, and I would LOVE for it to be regarded with the same esteem as live-action.

In addition to this, as a known home of sexual, I am also focusing more on writing about queerness in cinema (more on this soon), however, this slots nicely into Film Daze’s goal to “diversify cinema” which also fits neatly back into my personal goal of becoming a cultural critic.

So, as a part of writing for Film Daze I’m hoping to not only set myself up for the future and land myself one day with a job in criticism (assuming the market ever recovers from c*vid-19), but also to diversify the landscape of cinema. As various studies show, diversity in criticism discourages on-screen hegemony (as this lovely article notes, female reviewers were more inclined to gives Captain Marvel a higher rating than male reviewers, a neat little case study to make my point, and while I personally don’t feel that Captain Marvel is the best example as it did make over ONE BILLION DOLLARS (christ) and anything that comes out of the Disney factory requires a different analytical lens on account of it being the product of a massive greedy corporation, the point still stands).

Film Daze is also pushing for more thoughtful analysis. We’re launching the Film Daze magazine this month which features essays exclusively, much in the vein of Bright Wall/Dark Room, but again with a focus on representation. While I can’t show evidence of the (modest) hand I’ve had in shaping it for privacy reasons I can show that it is happening and say that I have writing forthcoming in it, so more evidence and iterations soon to come (it’ll cost like $1 to subscribe, our first issue is on vampires!!! it’s so cool)

Time-Frame: Uh, now with no planned end date (is that a timeframe?).

Addressing my future: 2-5 years from now, depending on whether I do honours+grad school lol. and the entertainment industry 5 years from now.

Goals:

1. To land myself a cultural criticism job when I finish all my studies.
2. To diversify the critical landscape.
3. To diversify on-screen representation and encourage positive representation with my writing.

Obligatorily tying in ideas from lectures: This is all about the reduction of othering!!! If I had to quantify what successful execution of my goals are, it would be to make the concept of othering obsolete. This of course is very pie-in-the-sky, so here’s another way of defining it: I want to get to a point where representation is so good that [blank] movie features [blank] minority is no longer a selling point, no longer a discussion point, it just is.

Feedback: Here’s some links of me sharing to Twitter. This counts as feedback.

Tweet 1/Tweet 2/Tweet 3

part 2 – Manic Media

Manic Media is a literature and fine art blog I made with my friend Lily Dalby because she went home once c*vid-19 hit. You can look at it here. The tone is WACKY and FUN and INFORMAL. This is very IMPORTANT to me. As we wrote in the about page: “We write about culture because we care. We care about culture because no one stopped us.”

We care.

If I had to describe an issue I have in academia everywhere, but especially in literary communities, it’s that there’s this big rush to not care too much, to view the world with an air of detachment. The literary community, like every community in the world, was made by straight white men who had some serious issues and hated everyone that is not straight white and male. They decided that emotions in literature were BAD and that people who had them were in bad taste. Jo Weldon (queen of my heart) describes these communities as “likely to be feminine, ethnic, queer, deviant; not manly, not practical, not businesslike, not serious.”

What I have to say to that is… hell yeah we are.

Manic Media is designed to make literature fun again, to be a space where we can care. Where we write about how something made us feel, what Anna Wilson calls full bodied reading.

It’s still very early days for Manic Media, and the direction Lily and I can take it are varied. We could start columns, figure out how to monetise, create social medias; we’ve been discussing starting a book club style podcast (I am well aware of the irony of this, don’t worry). For the student reading and responding to this, I am actively calling you to provide resources on running a better blog!!! Help me help you help me!!!

Anyway…

Timeframe: There’s really three timeframes for this.

1. Now until we get bored.
2. Now until we both get jobs and have no time for this.
3. Now until forever because we figure out how to profit from this.

Addressing my future: 7-months when I see my grandparents at Christmas and they pointedly ask me “so what does one use an English Literature degree for?”. After that it’s addressing the same things as above.

Goals:

1. To make literary academia fun again!
2. To make my English literature degree worthwhile.

Obligatorily tying in ideas from lectures: uh, we’re doing some Futurist think here? let’s go with that.

I’m saying that there could be a future where my English Literature degree was worthwhile, and the Literary community embraces emotions as a relevant part of academia.

It’s probable that there will be a demand for this post-c*vid-19 as we’re already seeing a push toward humanistic thought.

I would prefer this to be the case. That is what is preferable here.

Feedback: I tweeted about it here.

This is our hits thus far, outlook not so good.

part 3 – freelancing

Whoopdidoo I freelance too!

So far I’ve had criticism published at Cosmic, Screen Queens, Flip Screen, Chattr (lol), Memoir Mixtapes, and Rough Cut.

Ok, so, if my writing at Film Daze and Manic Media are more concerned with broader holistic goals, like diversity and reclaiming the fun of literature, then this is purely selfish aspect. This is me, looking out for me. I WANT to be a cultural critic. I WILL be a cultural critic. No one can STOP me.

The key to becoming a cultural critic, of course, is to get my name out there, which is what I’m doing! At present I have one freelance article published a month (this is my first month since March without one getting published actually, whoops).

Key to this is building up a Personal Brand™. I’m achieving this through a variety of channels. First there’s my website with it’s retro design, this is the hub of activity, where people find me. Networked out from this is my non-Uni twitter, which has a very specific tone:

for #TransDayOfVisibility just wanna shout out two of my absolute favourite directors: the wachowski sisters.

their work never fails to inspire me and fill me with hope. literally everything they create is ahead of its time, it drives me absolutely crazy (stream cloud atlas!) pic.twitter.com/SuorzrhrPt

— josh sorensen (@namebrandjosh) March 31, 2020

been brainstorming some films to watch while Social Distancing:

– Paddington
– Paddington 2

let me know what y’all think

— josh sorensen (@namebrandjosh) March 18, 2020

just gonna leave this here. tag urselves (im gothel (naturally)) pic.twitter.com/RoGpzIdq88

— josh sorensen (@namebrandjosh) August 9, 2019

Then there’s my Insta, which has a very retro aesthetic.

And finally my Letterbox account, which again builds out my brand and Tone:

The purpose of these is to be informal support aspects for my writing, like little side-rivers (forget what they’re actually called) splitting off frame the main river, but still connected. Terrible explanation, but you get it.

I’m also applying for the MIFF-online critics campus, so, like, that’s cool and I’ll get feedback from that assuming I get in.

I’ve based this website, supporting content model off of several of my favourite essayists (sidenote: I think “favourite essayists is the lamest concept in the world?), including Fran Hoepfner, Karen Han, and Peyton Thomas.

Timeframe: Short term, to get something freelance published each month. Long term, that 2-5 year employment window.

Addressing my future: I WISH TO BE EMPLOYED.

Goals: TO BE EMPLOYED. Also here’s some albums with anniversaries I would like to write on this year:

Obligatorily tying in ideas from lectures: Oh geez, uh, I guess all this online content makes me a cyborg? Let’s say that. I plan to be cyborg-y as a means of becoming employed.

Feedback: Um, well I’ve gotten more pitch acceptances vs rejections, so that counts. And, uh, y’all have to give me feedback too, so I’m counting that, bless.

part 4 – creative writing

Like an insane person, I am also trying to get creative writing published.

At present I’ve had one short story published and I’m working on getting a play and another short story in there, too.

Why, to what purpose? Uh, I want to publish a novel one day, and these are the building blocks. Having your name out there in the world, among the literary journals, is the kind of stuff publishers want to see. That combined with my slowly building Brand™ I should hopefully be able to lob whatever terrible content I throw at them one day (assuming I ever finish writing my novel) and they’ll be like “it’ll sell I guess”.

I also just like writing and the thrill I get from someone being like, “I like this enough to publish it”, so that’s a factor too.

Timeframe: There’s a great Lindsey Ellis video essay on getting a novel published. I will be at this for the foreseeable decade.

Addressing my future: It would be cool to publish a novel. It would make me feel like there’s an immutable, resolute Thing I Made that will exist after I die.

Goals: Don’t make me say it, I’m tired.

Obligatorily tying in ideas from lectures: Look I dunno honestly. Futurists write books, my book is science-fiction (among others)? Um, my short story that I’m trying to get published is about dwindling bee populations? This is futurism I think.

Feedback: This is what my submittable looks like:

part 5 – the podcast

All this brings us back to the original DA, the podcast. I’m tired and running out of steam (I’ve written this in one long post and I REFUSE to edit it).

Um, the original concept still stands, I feel like I re-covered the what of this pretty well in the video so I’m not covering it here.

Timeframe: To get something, something on the board by week 13.

Addressing the future:

Uh *throws dart*… Eleonora Barbieri Masini said “…there is not just one future, there are many futures…” and that ties into *throw dart*… the issue of that Sadar raises of “The pretension that exploration of the future is, or can be, and exact field of inquiry is both naïve and dangerous”… and this all is why *throws dart*… it’s a fiction podcast about possible apocalypses.

Feedback: *shrugs* I dunno what to tell you.

That’s it, that’s all I got. Bye.