2024/25 Projects update

Hey everyone, as promised this is an update on what's going on with Sophie From Mars (the brand not the woman). As usual it'll be a bit of a loose one because you have probably all gathered how I am with deadlines by now. Also as usual I have a few plates spinning at once.

First up I'd like to remind everyone to check out Red Planet if you haven't already, we're doing great work on there, we recently interviewed Alexis Daloumis who made a documentary about his time fighting against ISIS alongside the IFB, YPJ and YPG in North Eastern Syria. The show could always use more support to reach new heights so please tune in on Sundays or catch the podcast weekly. In January we're looking at taking another trip to the ZAD to film some more footage and then finally finish the ZAD documentary we started in late 2023. You can read more about it on the pinned post on my tumblr.

After a break from work to deal with things in my personal life I'm finding my feet again with making videos. I was very happy with how The Endings Machine came together, and I've got stuff I'm looking forward to putting out much more coming up.

The first and most significant is The Mad & The Mentally Ill: Against The Diagnostic Model. This is my current big project (similar in scale to something like The World Is Not Ending) and it is a thesis on mad liberation and the interplay of marginalisations and madness as well as how we approach madness and mental illness (distinctly) to best organise ourselves as part of building a better world. This year during my hiatus I've been doing a lot of therapy reading as well as a lot of reading on psychology and psychiatry and it naturally fed into this project as I've been working on understanding my own mind better and at the same time supporting friends and comrades through various periods of poor mental health, as I have been as part of regular life for years. All I can say for when to expect the video is some time in the next few months. I'd love to have it out before New Years but I can't make any promises. The first half of the essay is available in text form already. There will definitely be other essays and different projects out before it.

I'm writing something for the sake of sheer catharsis about how much I hate Wes Streeting, the blairite politician Starmer has installed as Health Minister who banned puberty blockers for trans kids. It'll probably be out in a few weeks and is intended as entertainment primarily. Catharsis, as I said. Speaking of entertainment I have been working for a while on a media analysis essay about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which should be lots of fun. I can't be sure if it will come before The Mad & The Mentally Ill or afterwards, just that it'll probably be quite long and that I'll have fun talking about one of my favourite shows.

I have two projects related to Palestine underway. One is about Aaron Bushnell, the airforce senior serviceman who self-immolated in protest of Israeli genocide earlier this year. I found out shortly afterwards that they had been a stream chatter, viewer and patron of mine and wanted to reflect on how their protest relates to our (the online left's) politics. Unfortunately the project has stalled a little despite making it as far as my editing timeline, because I think it needs rewrites to reflect how some of my feelings have changed since and to incorporate more of the recent events of the genocide. This ongoing nightmare in Palestine unfolds utterly novel horrors almost daily, and it is a challenge of itself to even approach describing what has happened as it's happening. The other project is about Israel's role in capitalist imperialism. I think the end product will occupy quite a similar space to Our Changing Climate's video Why Palestine Must Be Free, but I hope I can bring something new to the conversation.

The other projects on the horizon are playing within my wheelhouse very securely - we're talking about conspiracy theories, and we're doing monster men again!

I've had an essay in development for a long time roughly titled "misinformation and the internet" but over christmas 2023 I read Naomi Klein's new book Doppelganger and it clicked a lot of stuff into place for me to finally approach what had started to feel like an impossibly big topic. The political epistemology of misinformation and conspiracy theories is my specialist area and I've wanted to closely examine the relationship between misinformation and the internet for years, so I'm glad to finally have some momentum on that. You can also expect my essay Mirror Maze: Misinformation and the Internet some time in the next few months, most likely it'll be the next thing I work on after The Mad & The Mentally Ill is finished, but it may overtake it if inspiration strikes.

I haven't made a Monster Men video in ages and a part of that is that I lost interest in the one I had been writing, but now that I'm back to work I've looked at the essay I had planned for the next episode after it, to focus on ghosts (and aliens) titled I Want To Believe and I feel much more enthusiastic about that. After rewatching some of Kaiju recently as well I'm very excited to get back to Monster Men some time in 2025.

I hope you're all as well as you can be, and if you're struggling then solidarity friends - we can at least struggle upwards and together.

Sophie