2022 plans!

Hey everyone, Sophie here!

I just wanted to write a little update for everybody about my plans for 2022. There will be a few parts to this, feel free to skip around to the bits you're most interested in. Political platform building, media analysis, podcasting, and other artwork. The most important headlines are these: I'm being more politically direct and active, I'm still making media analysis videos, I'm taking my time to do the things I want and do them well.

The next few big essay projects you'll see from me are (not necessarily in order) : Conspiracy on the Left, The Forgotten City is Genius and Here's Why (video game analysis), Monster Men 4: Kaiju, and Eugenics

Political platform building

So a crucial part of my realisations last year and my plans for 2022 include being more direct about my politics. Let's face it, our planet is on fire, and I'm not the person who is going to be directly impacted by that first, so my imperative from that position of privilege is to advocate as much as I can to help others. With that in mind, I've been working hard to assess who I am, what my platform is, what I can make it into, and what we can do together to help.

Firstly, I'm writing a really big piece that I intend to get out later this year which I call Cyberpunk 2022: A Direction For The Online Left which comprises 9 essays in 3 sections. It will talk about who we are as "the online left", what our goals are, what the obstacles are and who our enemies are, and what we can do to overcome the obstacles and enemies to achieve our goals. I'm very excited about it, I've been working on it for over a year now and I don't know if I'll get it out before the end of the year - it might wind up being Cyberpunk 2023 - but we'll see. I plan to release each section (3 essays) as I complete them and then make a video when the entire project is done covering the cliffs notes version and directing people to the full version.

Secondly, I'm going to be more explicitly political in my essay work this year. That means I'm going to write what people broadly call "theory" and also some more "practical" essays. So I'm working on a project about Eugenics, working title Eugenics: A History of Failing to get Smarter in which I explore the deep ideological roots of eugenics and show its modern presence in our society. This is a huge project covering ableism, racism, queerphobia, class divides, history, anthropology, dialectical materialism and more, and I have no idea when it will be finished. lol. I'm still hyped about it though. I can't share more about it right now but I have no doubt you all will like it a lot. The other politics essay I'm working on is called Conspiracy on the Left and I aim to get it done and out in March. It will tackle the sociological and anthropological questions around conspiracist belief and how it intersects with the modern left. In particular the questions "are conspiracy theories harmful to the left" and "what about when conspiracy theories are true" are particularly significant. It will also focus heavily on a faction of the online left that I call "the conspiracy left" for reasons that will become self-evident. Lastly, I want to say that I'm making a video about surveillance, and that's true, (working title: Eye in the Sky, aim to be out around June maybe) but I'm not just making a video about surveillance, I'm going to be directing a lot of my political focus from here onwards towards questions of surveillance, because I think that it's the single unifying issue that all leftist content creators should care about (I know that "take" won't be popular or immediate intelligible to everyone, give it time and watch the videos as they come out) and surveillance will be a huge focus of Cyberpunk 2022. 

Thirdly, beyond my essay work I'm expanding my political work into other formats. Many of you will have already seen a little public speaking I've done, which hopefully I can continue to do in various venues and on various topics as time goes on. Some of you have also seen Red Planet, a weekly commie roundtable show that I do on Sundays 2pm - 5pm PST.

So far we've talked about general strikes and mutual aid, this coming Sunday we're talking with Mildred from Thought Slime about how to fight despair. We're also going to be covering on-the-ground protest/riot tactics, eviction resistance, renter's unions, squatting, organising your workplace (a presentation from the IWW), opsec & infosec, Medicare 4 All, resisting American Imperialism and many more exciting topics, so be sure to tune in.

On a very similar note, I'm about to start releasing a series of interviews I've been doing with organisers and activists called Organising Interviews on my channel. It's a similar concept but a slightly different format, where I'll be asking people to directly educate my audience on organising and direct action tactics and teach people about where to get involved. The Organising Interviews episodes (first batch) will be weekly starting late January and all through February, but they'll all be available here as soon as they're edited.

The reason I'm doing both shows is that we need to be educated on what we can do to fight back against the oppression of global capitalism, imperialism and climate change, and that's a really complicated topic, so I want to platform people who know what they're talking about. If you are involved with something cool (e.g climate resistance) and want to come on either Organising Interviews or Red Planet, leave a comment, or DM me on twitter (my DM requests are open) and tell me all about it or send me an email at curiopolitics@gmail.com (I still need to update my email haha)

As with my essays, I'll also be doing some more lighthearted stuff. For instance, I've been streaming on twitch diving into some political topics like NFTs and TERFs already and I plan to do more of that this year because it's really fun! I'm also doing an irregularly posted show with Mildred called Cringe Corner available on her channel where we talk about something embarrassing we found online (usually right wing goobers, some harmful, some harmless)

Media Analysis

This year I'm going to be taking my time to make the projects that I really want to make, and do them really well. I want to pay contributors, be able to be really thoughtful not just about what goes in my scripts but also about how the videos are shot and edited, and make videos I really care about.

I'm planning another ___mania series for later this year, intending to focus on the games of Hideo Kojima, working title: Kojimamania. Things could change over the year, but I'm excited to see what comes of it. The intention is to make those videos over a longer period of time but release them grouped pretty closely together at the end of the year, like I did with Witchermania and Resimania, but with those my fatal mistake was working on them during the release schedule, which burned me out really, really badly. Frankly, if I have to push Kojimamania back, I will, and I'm happy for myself that I'm willing to say that.

I also will be making various kinds of content in partnership with Wizards of the Coast, because I've decided to make Magic: The Gathering into hot girl shit. I don't currently know anything about the game or even how to play it, but ultimately that's part of the hot girl appeal of the project. More updates on that as and when I have more details. Magic have sent me a few little freebies including a vampire focused deck, which (again I know nothing about the game) had really pretty art and designs :)

I know that you're all waiting to hear me talk about The Matrix: Resurrections. I'm planning to, don't worry. However, my full essay The Matrix Resurrections is Flawless won't be done until waaaaaaaay later this year, because there's a lot to plan for it and I don't even know everything I want to say yet. I will make an unscripted patreon exclusive ramble about my early thoughts here soon though, so I hope that helps to tide everyone over. Also, my friend Hussein Kesvani said he wants me to come back on his podcast 10kpostspod to talk about it there, which I'm sure we'll do soon.

The projects I'm currently working on the most are The Forgotten City is Genius and Here's Why and the next instalment of Monster Men. The Forgotten City is a game I have a special love for, because it's all just a philosophical and ethical discussion, and I want to get more people to go play it! The next Monster Men is going to be about Kaiju and how they represent the systems of control, organisation and power that shape our world.

This is the thumbnail I commissioned Elliott to draw for the Forgotten City vid, which was originally going to be out in October 2021 before I had some serious personal difficulties to deal with. It's mostly written and I'm aiming to get it done in April or May, and in many ways I'm glad that I shelved the project because now I've had more time to consider it and replay the game.

Doubtless there are going to be other games and movies I want to talk about, and that's why I'm going to do more unscripted public videos this year, just to offer quick takes on things between other bigger projects that require more work. I already did a couple of these in case you missed them, one  on the old and new Candyman movies, and another offering some predictions for the new Matrix movie (some of which I think I got pretty dang right!)

Podcasting

I am currently on two podcasts (three if you count Red Planet, which we'll start uploading in audio-only soon). One is a D&D Comedy podcast that I guest on, called Dice Funk. Each season is a self contained story with new characters, and DMed by Austin Yorski. I may be responsible through my storytelling decisions for Austin losing a bunch of his income, so please go and subscribe to support him and support Dice Funk. It's a great show! We're about to start recording and releasing Season 9, and I joined part way through Season 8, so if you want the full entire lore of the world listen to all of it, but if you just want to know what I did that upset everyone so much, you can catch up pretty quickly with just Season 8!

I also release a weekly TTRPG actual play podcast called Rolling With Rainbows, with That Jess, Nat and our friend Jo. At the moment we're nearly at the end of the first season, playing a Call of Cthulhu campaing I wrote called The Horror At Narragansett. I think it's really heckin spooky and it's all really come together nicely. Season 2 is going to be DMed by Jess and we'll be playing the Star Wars FFG game! Her campaign is called Long Shadow: A Star Wars Story and I think all the characters for it are really cool.

Other Artworks

I said this last year and then got overwhelmed with work, but I really want to make video games. Nat and I are planning to start developing something very shortly, so more details will  HOPEFULLY follow soon, but the real challenge is about finding the time and space in the calendar to do it. With some luck and a lot of effort, spacing out my videos a bit more and relying on the regular off-channel uploads that I make will make that all possible. What can I say? Exciting things in the pipeline, hopefully we can show you some of them soon <3

I also plan to make another video poem. A lot of people really loved my video poem Being Seen where I came out as nonbinary, and I want to make another that talks about the experiences I've had in the first two years of transition. I have, again, no idea when it will be ready but it's been taking form slowly over the last year and a half, and I can't wait to show you all it when it's done!

Okay, that's it. I hope you all enjoy the stuff I'm working on as much as I think you will, and that everyone has a powerful and happy 2022.

Love and solidarity,

Sophie