“You can’t be meek in this industry because if you’re meek, someone else will get the job.” Billie JD Porter is clear about what she wants and how to get it. At just 23, she has built an intimidatingly wide-ranging portfolio career as a writer, film-maker, TV presenter and occasional model.
But the face of BBC Three’s Secrets of China and Channel 4’s The Joy of Teen Sex sees herself as a journalist first and foremost. She has written for Vice, i-D, NME, Wonderland and other trendsetting magazines. “I only really do a couple of TV projects a year and in between, I write.”
It hasn’t been an easy ride, however. Porter’s parents were unemployed throughout her childhood and suffered with depression. But it was their encouragement to read that sparked a love of writing. “From a young age I knew I wanted to do something that would allow me to write and travel,” she says.
As an only child she was forced to be independent early on. “Coming from quite a modest background made me a lot thirstier to do stuff myself.”
Porter couldn’t wait to leave her “really awful” comprehensive school in north London, but when she got a place at the sixth-form college of her dreams at 16, she got cold feet just before she was meant to enrol. “I was so exhausted by the idea of going back into school, and by that time I was already writing and being paid for it.”
Her first paid writing jobs came at 15 after she sent an angry complaint to a club night promoter about a dodgy new year’s eve rave that got shut down before midnight. “He was apologetic and said I seemed pretty ‘on it’, so I wound up working for him.” She started interviewing bands for his company’s website and has been carving out a media career on her own terms ever since.
“Every day is different. One day I’ll have to wake up at the crack of dawn to do a shoot, then finish an article and go to an event in the evening. And there’ll be days when I have to make myself more work. As a freelance journalist, the days you don’t have anything on aren’t days off – your job is to have the initiative to do something. I’m always emailing pitches, trying to organise meetings with people, and helping friends with their projects.”
There are people she admires, such as the writer Jay McInerney and the film-maker Carol Morely, but she finds the idea of role models limiting. “Even if there’s someone you think is amazing, you could do more than that. It’s important to find your own path, otherwise you’ll just be comparing yourself to everyone else, and that’s one of the most destructive parts of the world we live in right now.”
It’s crucial to work out what you want in your career as early as possible, Porter advises. “I’ve got friends in their 30s who are like ‘shit, I’ve just realised I don’t want to work in this industry anymore’. It’s easy to float around, but if you work out when you’re young what inspires you, and what’s good, it’s so much easier to have a drive.”
It’s motivating to imagine what your ideal future would look like. “Some of it can be completely fucking stupid and irrationally optimistic but it’s really good to do that,” says Porter, who eventually wants to write a novel, and a screenplay, and to experience living outside of London. “Daydreaming, as harmful as it can be when you snap back into reality, can also make you think ‘that’s never going to happen if I just sit here watching Broad City all day’.”
Temporarily quitting drinking two months ago provided the push Porter needed to start taking networking more seriously than she once did. “I now go to events and actually get something out of it. Whereas before I’d be like ‘oh shit, there’s a free bar – invite all your friends’.”
She takes a no-nonsense approach, and is direct about what she wants and the kinds of opportunities she’s looking for. “The nature of networking is embarrassing, stupid and dumb, and I think everyone is aware of that. I just say to people straight up, ‘here’s my email address, let’s go for a meeting next week’, I follow it up when I get home, and it works.
“People want to get shit done and if you’re suggesting a good idea, and you can help each other, why wouldn’t they want to do it?”
But it can be difficult to get taken seriously as a young person in the media – particularly as a woman. “There are many things I’ve said, and debates I’ve had, where I felt if it was a man in his 30s saying the same things, it would’ve be seen as someone who’s passionate about their job and standing their ground.
“But when it’s a young girl doing it, it’s ‘she’s a diva,’ ‘who does she think she is?’ and ‘why does she think she knows better than everyone?’”
Porter used to lie about her age in emails to editors, but she thinks it’s now less necessary for young people wanting to get noticed to be dishonest. “You can create your own platform online, and people can decide for themselves if it’s good or not. You don’t need to wait for your big break anymore – that’s so exciting.”
Don’t be shy in contacting the employer of your dreams or people you admire, she advises, you have to put yourself out there. “You could be sat at parties or events with people who you want to ask for a job, and not do it, and just see it go to someone else.
“If you try something and get knocked back, at least you tried. The worst feeling is missing an opportunity for no reason – I know from personal experience. It’s really annoying.”
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