Jamie Loftus

Jamie Loftus
Jamie Loftus in 2017
Born (1993-08-18) August 18, 1993 (age 31)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
MediumStand up, animation, television
Alma materEmerson College
GenresAlternative comedy

Jamie Bethany Loftus (born August 18, 1993 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American writer, stand up alternative comedian, animator, podcast co-host, and actor based in Los Angeles. She is known for her solo work, such as her one-woman shows I Lost My Virginity on August 15, 2010 and Boss, Whom is Girl.[1][2] She has also written comedic articles, and written and starred in video content, for media sites such as Adult Swim, Comedy Central, Paste, and Super Deluxe.[1] She was nominated for an Emmy for her work on Robot Chicken in 2020.[3]

Along with fellow comedian Caitlin Durante, she has co-hosted The Bechdel Cast, a weekly podcast about the representation of women in film since 2016.[2][1][4] She has also produced and hosted limited run podcasts for iHeartRadio: My Year in Mensa, Lolita Podcast, Aack Cast, and Ghost Church.[5][6][7][8]

Early life

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Loftus grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts.[9] Her father was a hockey reporter and her mother ran a daycare center.[10] She worked at a hot dog truck.[11]

Career

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Loftus's first job out of college was at The Boston Globe. She was fired from the role when she tweeted after a standup set, "crushing so hard at an open mic that I cum bloods." A local radio show referenced this as "the end of journalism."[12]

Her often absurdist humor, sometimes bordering on performance art and documented for websites such as Paste, has included pretending to date an American Girl doll, joining Mensa as a joke, selling "Shrek nudes" with her body painted green to raise money for Planned Parenthood, and attempting to eat a copy of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.[1][13]

She has written and performed several one-woman live shows. One is called I Lost My Virginity on August 15, 2010.[1] Another show, Boss, Whom is Girl, was workshopped at the Lyric Hyperion Theatre in Los Angeles. It was then brought to the United Kingdom with shows in London and at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe.[2] Its run at the Fringe was recommended by newspapers such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and The Daily Express.[14][15][16]

In April 2018, a three-part web series she wrote and starred in, Irrational Fears was released on Comedy Central Digital.[1]

In summer 2018, she was hired as a writer for the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken.[1]

She is also a canvasser for the Democratic Socialists of America.[17][18]

Podcasting

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Since November 2016 she has she has co-hosted The Bechdel Cast with Caitlin Durante, a weekly podcast about the representation of women in film.[2][1][4]

On January 1, 2020, Loftus released a four-part podcast entitled My Year in Mensa that chronicles the events surrounding her applying to join Mensa for the purpose of writing a series of humorous articles for Paste.[19][20][12]

On November 23, 2020, Loftus began releasing a new 10-part podcast entitled Lolita Podcast about the pop cultural imprint, misinterpretations, and adaptations of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita.[21]

On June 28, 2021, she began releasing another podcast series, this time about the comic Cathy, titled Aack Cast.[7]

In 2022 Jamie released a nine episode podcast series Ghost Church, where she explores the history and current state of the Spiritualist religion in the United States.

In May 2024 she began a new weekly podcast for Cool Zone Media titled Sixteenth Minute (of Fame), in which she talks to and about "internet main characters" who have achieved some level of brief notoriety online.[22]

Raw Dog

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In May 2023 Loftus released the book Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, published by Macmillan.[23] In the book, Loftus tells of her varied experiences of hot dogs in the United States while explaining hot dogs' rise to popularity in the United States during the Great Depression thanks to Greek, Polish and German immigrants.[11]

Credits

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Live credits

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  • Death Wish – Writer/Performer/Director (2014)
  • Basketball City – Writer (2015)
  • Bad Art – Writer/Performer (2015)
  • I Lost My Virginity on August 15, 2010 – Writer/Performer (2017)
  • The Hacker Who Codes – Writer/Performer (2018)
  • Boss, Whom is Girl – Writer/Performer (2019)
  • Jamie Loftus, Jamie Loftus – Writer/Performer (2020)
  • Mrs. Joey Chestnut America USA - Writer/Performer (2021-2023)
  • The Tiny Man is Trying to Kill Me - Writer/Performer (2024)

Film and television credits

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Weekly podcasts

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  • The Bechdel Cast - Co-hosted with Caitlin Durante (since 2016)
  • Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) (since 2024)

Limited series podcasts

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  • My Year in Mensa (2020)
  • Lolita Podcast (2020)
  • Aack Cast (2021)
  • Ghost Church (2022)

Bibliography

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  • Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs (2023)[24]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Escandon, Rosa (September 7, 2018). "25-Year-Old Jamie Loftus Is Bringing Fringe Comedy to the Mainstream". Forbes. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d Crae, Ross (July 24, 2019). "Fringe Q&A: Jamie Loftus reckons comedy festival is the perfect antidote to the world being an "active hell"". The Sunday Post. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  3. ^ "Jamie Loftus". Television Academy. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  4. ^ a b Zaino III, Nick A. (April 25, 2019). "How the Women in Comedy Festival inspired a new wave of talent". Boston Globe. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
  5. ^ Zhang, Cat (March 9, 2020). "Jamie Loftus, the Comedian Who Infiltrated Mensa". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  6. ^ "Lolita Podcast". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  7. ^ a b Quah, Nicholas (July 12, 2021). " "In Aack Cast, Jamie Loftus Goes to Bat for 'Cathy'". Vulture. Retrieved July 26, 2021.[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ "Ghost Church". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  9. ^ @jamieloftusHELP (November 16, 2022). "the menu was made for bad feral percect evil bitches from brockton massachusetts ONLY!!!!!!!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  10. ^ Berkowitz, Joe (May 23, 2023). "Jamie Loftus has mastered the art of the messy deep dive". Fast Company.
  11. ^ a b Rascoe, Ayesha (May 21, 2023). "Comedian Jamie Loftus's book 'Raw Dog' chronicles her hot-dog eating travels". NPR.
  12. ^ a b Zhang, Cat (March 9, 2020). "Jamie Loftus, the Comedian Who Infiltrated Mensa". New Yorker.
  13. ^ Boult, Adam (June 15, 2017). "Woman spends year eating copy of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
  14. ^ Logan, Brian (August 12, 2019). "Edinburgh festival 2019: the shows we recommend". The Guardian. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
  15. ^ "The best of what's on at the Edinburgh festival". The Times. August 18, 2019. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
  16. ^ Kitchener, Shaun (July 23, 2019). "Edinburgh Fringe 2019: 37 unmissable shows at this year's festival". Daily Express. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
  17. ^ @DemSocialists (April 24, 2022). "THIS AFTERNOON.Join @BillFletcherJr @bell4ky @ZohranKMamdani @jamieloftusHELP and many more as we Meet the Moment as Socialists with DSA's Recommitment Drive launch call at 1 PT/3 CT/4 ET" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  18. ^ @pghDSA (April 30, 2021). "Our comedy show tonight features abortion media experts @jamieloftusHELP and @GraceGFreud. We've raised $12K for our local abortion fund so far, but we can go higher" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  19. ^ Loftus, Jamie (December 31, 2019). "Jamie Loftus's Year in Mensa Ends at the Mensa Annual Gathering". Paste Magazine. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  20. ^ "This Week in Comedy Podcasts: Jamie Loftus's Year in Mensa". Vulture. January 2, 2020. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  21. ^ Coburn, Randall (November 23, 2020). "Jamie Loftus' new podcast unpacks how Nabokov's Lolita has been "twisted" over the years". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on November 23, 2020. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
  22. ^ Quah, Nicholas (May 16, 2024). "Jamie Loftus's Main Characters". Vulture. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  23. ^ "Raw Dog – The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs Author: Jamie Loftus". Macmillan Publishers. Retrieved October 4, 2022.
  24. ^ "Raw Dog - The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs Author: Jamie Loftus". Macmillan Publishers. Retrieved October 4, 2022.
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