Jojo Siwa Tries Hard To Shock Us With ‘Karma’

Before he falls her song “Karma” on Friday, JoJo Siwa spent weeks letting the world know she was done with bows and bright pastels. In March, he published a parental advisory message on his Instagram grid – teasing a new (and more open) era.

It was immediately clear that the 20-year-old was hoping for a new brand built on shock value: pictures of the gay star hugging two girls at once, wearing kiss-inspired face paint and jokes about being “a girl bad” were issued in the weeks following the content warning. Once it dropped, “Karma” was a big departure from his usual diet of empowering haters. Instead, Siwa sings about how deception leads to bad karma, a sign of the romantic drama the singer was involved in not long ago.

We’ve seen this played out many times before: over the past few decades, the child star leaping into the mainstream has become a rite of passage. In the eighties, Michael and Janet Jackson perfected the form, not only regaining control and independence but also establishing themselves as musical elites in the process. By the 2000s, a new wave of teeny-bopper pop singers were eager to branch out and expand the age range of their audience – and therefore their cultural repertoire as well. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera kissed Madonna on stage at the VMAs (and further explored what it means to have sexual agency in their music and public performances). Justin Timberlake teamed up with Timbaland and Pharrell to make the most catchy and catchy R&B. Years later, Miley Cyrus would cross her path Bangers era, leaving any memory of his halcyon Hannah Montana some days, while Justin Bieber and Nick Jonas would pull a few pages from Timberlake’s blue-eyed R&B playbook.

For women who discovered it during their professional teenage years, something as simple as wearing less clothing or singing more openly about sex and relationships than Radio Disney-worthy lyrics about holding hands and heartbreak was enough to cause a media firestorm, outrage. parents, alienating more conservative audiences. Over the years, these tricks have been so cut and pasted by every pop star that they almost seem like they’re released once a teen star is between the ages of 18 and 21. The shock of it all has been minimized, especially like that. Cultural conversations about sex and sex education have become more open and honest since the days of child stars wearing chastity rings.

Siwa’s “Karma” wants it badly. Arguably, Siwa was the biggest internet-backed child star since Cyrus and Jonas’ Disney days. While Ariana Grande and Zendaya appeared on Nickelodeon and Disney respectively in the following years, neither of them achieved household name status until they left the show. Siwa, however, had built a children’s entertainment empire with his mega-deals, YouTube channel, tours and Nickelodeon specials. His reach was much smaller than the child stars who were popular in the years leading up to his rise; it shows like Hannah Montana and The winner similarly boy bands of any generation drew a double-digit base while Siwa’s content resonated in the kindergarten set who would proudly sport his ornate bows and rainbow-embellished dresses.

Based on Siwa’s own taste in experience, it makes sense that he would look for a high-quality and high-quality reference version of the future of work. He’s not ashamed to admit how much he wants her Bangers minutes. The failure, however, is not only missing the previous period of the pop youth career that broke more of his audience-bubble and would have given this time more weight (his musical output was limited before “Karma”) but also his belief that most of what he does is still culturally shocking in the first place. There is certainly an overlap in Siwa’s core audience with those who attend the tours of pop giants such as Olivia Rodrigo, whose music jumped into youth pop even when she was still attached to her Disney show. At Rodrigo’s Madison Square Garden shows, there are as many twenty-somethings as there are schoolchildren shouting “I still love you so much” during “Driver’s License.”

Regardless of reality TV, YouTube views and marketing deals, it’s clear Siwa is funding music as his priority going forward. He expressed this in my 2019 interview with him as well, citing Freddie Mercury as his biggest inspiration. “I sleep with a piano in my bed,” he said. “I see myself getting into more music that’s timeless.” He tried his hand at organizing a group of teenage girls on his own reality competition Siwa’s Dance Pop Revolution. Since then, the former member, mother and sources close to the production recently spoke to A rolling stone about the group’s experience, with allegations of a toxic environment created by Siwa and her mother as well as allegations of bullying and hours of hard practice for junior artists. (The Siwa denied all these claims through their lawyer claiming that the member’s mother was the abuser.) Even as the controversy continues, Siwa’s own music career is moving forward, as he releases music through a major record label. for the first time.

During that 2019 interview, Siwa also expressed his own 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-friendly chrysalis. But it seems like relying on a sharp shock and hateful hours may be more of a trap for him than any bowed ponytail could ever be.