The most impactful lesson I’ve learned is to appreciate people for who they are and where they are in their journey, regardless of whether they share my beliefs or experiences. This mindset has liberated me from constantly comparing others to myself and judging them based on similarities or differences. For instance, I’ve come to accept that individuals, especially those younger than me, may not arrive at the same conclusions or beliefs at the same time as I do, and that’s perfectly fine.
This outlook extends to my approach to pop culture—I don’t feel compelled to critique or oppose everything that doesn’t cater to my preferences. When my dad expresses frustration about certain aspects of modern entertainment, like rap songs in movie credits, I remind him that not everything is designed for his demographic, and that’s okay. I notice kids jump up and enthusiastically dance to the closing hip-hop sequences, as intended.
If something doesn’t resonate, I’ll consider that maybe it wasn’t created for me. I hope this explains why I don’t weigh pop culture strictly against my ideas to decide if it’s good or not.
But, every once in a while, a piece of pop culture is done so poorly that it’s near-universally rejected. We don’t know who JoJo Siwa’s target audience for her song “Karma” was supposed to be, but it didn’t land well even with ordinary pop music enthusiasts.
For those unaware of JoJo Siwa, she is a former child star popularized on the “Dance Moms” TV show. She went on to eclipse the rest of the Dance Moms cast in fame, launching to YouTube and Nickelodeon stardom, in a side-pony tail to captivate child audiences with truly terrible music and sell them half a billion dollars worth of hairbows. (Forbes reported 80 million hairbows sold, worth $400 million in 2020.)
In 2021, Siwa came out as a lesbian, at a young 17 years old, and before separating herself from being a child star and marketing guru targeting children, which many parents didn’t appreciate. Now, Siwa has attempted to break into mainstream pop music, and has been recently sporting makeup reminiscent of the rock band KISS… because she’s not just a lesbian, guys, she’s a bad-girl lesbian, okay?
Saturday Night Live, the culturally broken clock that is right every once in a while, nailed the awkwardness of her latest release in a skit on Weekend Update:
Viewer discretion: the chorus of Siwa’s song has the lyrics, “Karma’s a b****,” and the vulgar word is included in the background music of many videos critiquing the release, including this one:
For context, Siwa said in an interview that she wanted, “to start a new genre of music, called gay-pop.”
Even the gay community is pushing back against Siwa’s idea that she has invented, or re-invented “gay pop” music. Um, Elton John, David Bowie, Prince, and George Michaels (plus so many others) would like to have a word. Also, I’m not sure what kind of music Siwa thinks Lady Gaga has been doing all these years, but Siwa believes that she is the first of her generation to do it.
SNL hilariously spoofs this by having comedian Chloe Fineman, acting as a Siwa, proclaim:
I’m the first gay girl in the world! Bet you never met a gay girl before!
Siwa is truly using shock factor marketing of her good-to-gay (?) transition in the most cringe way while purporting herself to be a pioneer, which is objectively untrue for anyone who has the most basic knowledge of music from disco to today.
While I figured she and Sam Smith might be sharing a stylist, Siwa overlooks lesser-known artists like the Billboard charting Chappell Roan who just made a resounding statement of her growing popularity at Coachella. Or, a Norwegian artist known as Girl in Red, who opened for headliner Taylor Swift. Admittedly, these are more niche lesbian-geared artists, but I know about them, so who is JoJo Siwa paying attention to in her quest to start a new genre?
Apparently: nothing and nobody… which reflects in the unrelatable aspects of the song, costuming, and dance choreography. The lyrics are dumb, the vocals are worse, and the accompanying music video is terrible.
But, sometimes even bad songs can experience a boost in popularity if a trendy TikTok dance can catch on. For Siwa’s “Karma,” the choreography is something like stomping and seizing, and nobody likes it.
Again, vulgar lyric warning:
I find it refreshing that SNL, the left, and the gay community didn’t feel the need to praise JoJo as “stunning and brave,” because this is a contrived and unpalatable attempt at using performative sexuality as a marketing tool or metric of artistry. It’s not. It’s not relatable, it’s not taboo the way she thinks it is, and it’s anything but charting a course for the totally new and never-before-thought-of genre of “gay pop.”
It sucks.
And for once, sucky pop culture isn’t being touted as something worthy of celebration just because it’s gay-themed. I can only hope that the left realizes that they can take their own trash out, and we will clap for that.
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