Before it falls “Karma” song on Friday, JoJo Siwa spent several weeks letting the world know she was done with bows and sparkly pastels. In March, he posted a parental advisory message on her Instagram grid — teasing a new (and clearer) era.
It was immediately clear that the 20-year-old was hoping for a rebrand based on shock value: photos of the openly gay star hugging two girls at once, wearing Kiss-inspired paint and teasing lyrics about being a “bad girl.” were released in the weeks following the content warning. Once dropped, “Karma” was a major change from her usual anti-hater power-up fodder. Instead, Siwa sings about how cheating leads to bad karma, a nod to some romantic drama the singer was involved in not too long ago.
We've seen this play out many times before: in recent decades, a child star making a dramatic leap into a more mature public image has become a rite of passage. In the 80s, Michael and Janet Jackson perfected the form, not only regaining control and independence, but also establishing themselves as musical geniuses in the process. By the 2000s, a new wave of teenage pop heavyweights were desperately trying to branch out and expand the age range of their audience — and thus their cultural cache. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera kissed Madonna onstage at the VMAs (and further explored what it means to be sexual in both their music and public appearances). Justin Timberlake teamed up with Timbaland and Pharrell to make bigger, sexier R&B. Years later, Miley Cyrus would cross her path Bangerz era, rejecting all memory of her kingfisher Hannah Montana days, while both Justin Bieber and Nick Jonas would take a few pages out of the blue-eyed Timberlake's R&B playbook.
For women exploring a professional coming-of-age moment, something as simple as wearing a little less clothing or singing more openly about sex and relationships beyond Radio Disney's friendly lyrics about hand-holding and heartbreak it was enough to create a storm in the media, anger. parents and alienate the more conservative public. Over the years, gimmicks have been so cut from every pop star that they seem almost a given when a teenage star is between 18 and 21 years old. The shock of it all has lessened, especially as the cultural conversation around sex and sex education has become moderately more open-minded and realistic since the days of child stars wearing purity rings.
Siwa's 'Karma' wants it badly. Arguably, Siwa was the biggest network-backed child star since the Disney days of Cyrus and Jonas. While Ariana Grande and Zendaya exited Nickelodeon and Disney respectively in the following years, both didn't become household names until they left those shows. Siwa, however, had built a children's entertainment empire with her massive promotions, YouTube channel, tours and Nickelodeon specials. Her approach was much younger than the child stars who were famous in the years before her rise. looks like Hannah Montana and Victorious Just as boy bands of any generation appealed more to the double-digit tween base, Siwa's content crazed the kindergarten set who would proudly wear her frosted bows and rainbow-embellished outfits.
Based on Siwa's own taste for the ostentatious, it makes sense that she would prefer an exaggerated and hyper-referential version of her career coming of age. He didn't shy away from noting how much he wanted her Bangerz dot. The failure, however, isn't just the lack of a previous teen pop moment that transcended her audience and would have given this moment more weight (her musical offerings were pretty minimal before “Karma”), but also her faith that much of what he does is culturally shocking in the first place. There's certainly overlap in Siwa's core audience with those who attend tours for big-ticket pop stars like Olivia Rodrigo, whose music transcended teen pop even when she was still stuck on the Disney show. At Rodrigo's Madison Square Garden shows, there are as many twenty-somethings as grade-schoolers screaming “I still love you” during “Drivers License.”
Regardless of reality TV, YouTube views, and merchandising deals, it's clear that Siwa is banking on music as her priority going forward. She said so in my interview with her in 2019, citing Freddie Mercury as her biggest inspiration. “I literally sleep with a piano in my bed,” he said. “I see myself doing more musical music that will be timeless.” She tried her hand at brainstorming a young group of girls on her reality show competition Siwa's Dance Pop Revolution. Since then, a former cast member, mother and sources close to the production recently spoke out Rolling rock about the group's experience, alleging a toxic environment created by Siwa and her mother, as well as allegations of bullying and grueling hours of rehearsals for the underage performers. (The Siwas denied all allegations in a response through their lawyer, claiming the member's mother was the abusive one.) Even with the looming controversy, Siwa's music career is moving full steam ahead, releasing music through a major label company for the first time.
During this 2019 interview, Siwa also expressed her feelings about what it was like for previous generations of child stars, especially when they start to feel trapped and need to break out of their family chrysalis. But it seems that relying on tepid shock and hate watches could be more of a trap for her than any high ponytail with a bow could ever be.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/commentary-jojo-siwa-karma-rollout-controversy-1235001758/
