It should be known that the controversies of Dance Moms, Abby Lee Miller, and now this Jojo and her own mother is just a microcosm of the dance world writ large. That Jojo initially thrived in this environment and is now turning into a confused and sad, gay little attention whore is not surprising in the least.
I say this as former studio enrolled dance fanatic (sadly started too late - and was too poor - to ever make anything of it). The joy of artistic movement is one of the great loves and passions of my life; I watched a Christmas performance of the Nutcracker this year and got choked up numerous times witnessing the jumps and pirouettes. Forget world peace, I just want to live in a world where we can develop dance talent without unleashing the demons of frustrated never-made-its or developing monstrous egos in talented but impressionable kids who don't know any better.
That's intriguing insight into a world and culture I know very little about. I take it that Siwa is far from the only dancer to fall victim to this kind of thing? It's sad that so many fields, mediums, what have you of art tend to encourage this sort of development - the cut-throat competitiveness, the bloated egos, the grooming of talented children into monsters. I saw a glimpse of it when I was in high school band. The movie "Whiplash", in my opinion, epitomizes the senseless hyper-competition of something as absurd as high school jazz bands that fosters and rewards borderline sociopathy over the music itself.
Something dark I've realized is that I mistook "Wrecking Ball" and such songs for Taylor Swift. This is both a sign of Pop Stardom's interchangeability and ironically faceless amorphousness and also that I'm frankly bad at following it.
That isn't a bad thing. But you also aren't wrong - there's not much about this highly-processed artists that can be swapped out and replaced with another manufactured pop star. I always say that, at this point, I don't know who half the most streamed artists of the year are and I'm also afraid to ask.
Right around the time she first made this change is the first time I heard of Siwa. My wife mentioned her to me after work one day. I don't remember for sure, but I believe she asked me something along the lines of, "Did you hear about Jojo Siwa's new look?"
To which I promptly responded, "Who the fuck is Jojo Siwa?" My initial guess was some JoJo's Bizarre Adventure cosplayer. I'd like to think I wasn't far off the mark.
Nevertheless, she explained she was some teeniebopper star who pulled a Miley, showed me the pictures, and we had a good time laughing and mocking before we moved on and I forgot about her existence. Thus your article, while well written and interesting as always, has committed a minor slight against me that's been nagging at me since I read it.
It reminded me Jojo Siwa and those around her exist. Thanks for that. My New Year's is now ruined.
...okay, okay, I'll put the hyperbole away. Solid write-up as always, and despite that minor sin, I am curious to see where the story goes next time.
Sometimes, I feel like my articles are the pop culture equivalent of that scene from Clockwork Orange where Malcom McDowell is strapped to the chair with his eyes forced open and made to watch horrifying scenes play out in front of him. But, much like my wicked father Yakub, evil is in my heart and ruining lives by exposing the tender hearts of the unaware to intolerably obnoxious influencers/public figures is in my blood.
In all seriousness, I'm glad you found it interesting. Rest assured that the next installment will be more heartening.
I hate reality-tv child stars more than the others. It is even more exploitive than acting, because the whole public influences their character development and they never have the opportunity to divorce their professional public persona from their private one.
Well Ape, this teller has to admit, he was blissfully ignorant of this Jiwa. Only the warm embrace of his clan, many descended from the northlands has preserved him from starting the year out with this.
It's certainly a rollercoaster coaster of strange stuff and odd cameos and...
"I’ll tell you what happened. Next time."
You punk!
Well, Happy New Year, dredger of the digital jungle.
There's no doubt that wrenching her hair back so tightly for years did nothing to help her hair situation. The original draft had a lot more Norwood Scale jokes, since I was under the impression her hairline was the result of tying her hair back so far and so tight, but when I found out she suffered from stress-induced hair loss they just seemed tasteless, so I removed them. Well, all but the one. It was impossible not to keep one in there.
Count me in the "I've never heard of this woman" club as well. Thanks for this nuanced take on it, and kudos for trying to empathize with her perspective in spite of all the misguided things she's done. My immediate reaction to her Darker and Edgier phase was how much the eye makeup reminded me of video gaming's most obnoxious character, Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3 (see this writeup by the sadly late Shamus Young: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=31743).
My brain also hurts trying to make sense of what "naturally flavored with other natural flavors" even means. So many layers of BS there, haha. As much as I hate advertising of this kind of garbage to kids (like I've ranted about here before), sometimes the absurdity is just too much and you have to laugh. On the other hand, that Nickelodeon movie poster was genuinely depressing. I still can't believe the company that once brought us The Adventures of Pete and Pete are making stuff like this.
"Strangely, this seemed to only effect self-professed lesbians, because all the gay guys I knew were well-aware of their leanings well before high school and didn’t go out of their way to advertise it."
Isn't that simply because being an openly gay boy in high school actually did lead to being socially ostracized back then in many/most places, or even the risk of actual violence? Even today, I get the impression it's not always as easy as you might think, with the political and corporate celebration of everything Alphabetical. Not even here in oh so progressive and tolerant Scandinavia. The whole thing with lesbians being basically ignored while so many men and boys feel so intensely threatened and disgusted at the idea of potentially being the object of unwanted sexual attention for once is probably enough for ten essays in itself, and it's kind of fascinating.
The 30% Alphabet ratio among young people is pretty staggering too, even if it's probably inflated by stuff like non-binary and asexual/aromantic that can be changed at a whim when they grow up. Still, it's pretty pathetic when celebrities and media personalities try to act like it's so brave and cutting edge to be gay (or "queer"), when it's more like you're seen as boring and uncool if you aren't. Whoever said that it's hard to be subversive when megacorps and city halls are flying your flag was right IMO. For a recent, great example of this, see the game Dustborn. I saw an interview with the devs in Norwegian media where they acted like they were making this super subversive and boundary-pushing thing by basically putting together a distilled blend of every single trope of American wokeness over the last ten years. Regardless of how you feel about that political project, they were running at a wide open door with a battering ram at this point.
Anyway, you had an effective cliffhanger there for sure, and since I'm completely ignorant of TikTok and its trends, I'm looking forward to hearing more in part 2.
"Naturally flavored with other natural flavors" has to be some mealy-mouthed way of admitting there's nothing natural about it while also duping rubes into thinking that there's something other than Red Dye 40 and High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. But that's, like, 90% of everything that comes in a box in the average American supermarket. RFK can't come soon enough.
As for the gay/lesbian thing, I'll admit that you have a point. Pretty much all of the gay kids at my school came out in earnest during or shortly after college, but it was kind of an open secret during high school that nobody really talked about. One of my best friends since first grade was gay and we just... never really talked about it. I knew, I knew he knew that I knew, but it wasn't something we discussed openly until after we were out of high school. Again, pretty much everyone could guess which way he leaned and he was still well-liked and never had any issues. I think we also went to a rather abnormal high school, though - aside from one or two kids who openly brought trouble on themselves by antagonizing kids no one with any sense would antagonize (or in one case, defecating their pants in class regularly), classic bullying was almost non-existent and pretty much every social strata and clique left one another alone. It was a very "Go along to get along" atmosphere. The only incident of what could even come close to being described as "homophobia" was because one guy was caught making out with another guy... but he was a dick and postured as a top-dog alpha male, so I think the backlash was not because he was gay so much as he was so virulently insistent that he WASN'T gay and spoke very poorly of homosexuals that he set himself up for being a target when it turned out he was. But he just leaned into it and basically said, "Yeah, I'm gay, what are you going to do about it?" and everyone just kind of collectively forgot about it. Ironically the guy he was making out with was a friend of mine who'd come out to me in private, but, again... he was a guy where I wasn't surprised when he told me. I'd like to say that homophobic backlash against coming out in adolescent environments is overstated by the media, but I'll also admit that my own experiences could have been rare; I attended a thoroughly middle-class high school where most had thoroughly middle-class sensibilities and temperaments - I wouldn't be surprised if it's an entirely different scenario in "underprivileged" schools.
I'm certain that the 30% is inflated for the reasons you said above - most people who profess to be bisexual, in my experience, never actually express any interest in the same sex and I believe are most likely claiming such to "fit in" with what's cool in the zeitgeist. It's easy to claim that you're "queer" and then do nothing to present or act as such. I have a feeling that the number of true homo/transexuals in Gen Z is probably greater than previous generations (hormones, chemicals, endocrine disruptive in the tap water, anyone?), but not nearly 30%.
Oh, don't we all. What a treasure, and such a loss that he died so early. He's still my hero when it comes to anything critique-related, and a major inspiration for my own essays. He really was a beacon of light in a part of the internet that's so full of vitriol, identity politics and superficial hot takes. Along with John Michael Greer, he also had the best commentariat on the internet, and interestingly enough, for apparently the same reasons: moderating every comment by hand and insisting on a baseline of politeness and decency.
You know, I've never heard of her and I'm usually up to date with all the internet trash. My six year old just watches Caylus play GTA5 videos and fortnite shit.
Very funny and well written. I know it's good cause in the beginning I thought "oh yeah I've seen her before" and then in a blink I was halfway into Jojo's music controversies. You tricked me into learning more than I ever wanted to know about Jojo Siwa. You've earned my sub, well done.
I hate to inform you that the Scissor Sisters are the gayest band of the 2000's. I think the only straight member of the group was the token woman in their line-up.
I should have guessed, since they were catapulted to relative fame by that gay Dr. Who series, but their name and style were so over the top I figured it was a joke.
My daughter wanted that atrocious rainbow bow. And I bought it for her. It was around $20 and the biggest scam imaginable. I wish I could pull that off.
It's a devious but ingenious racket - manufacture the bows for pennies on the dollar in a Manila sweatshop and sell them for $20! I won't lie, I'd do it if I could, too.
Oh man, this was such a fun read. I have watched several videos about the downfall of JoJo, but I somehow missed the 'gay pop' incident. I am just walking around the house blurting out "What's gay pop?" Cracking myself up over and over.
Glad you enjoyed it. I'm surprised videos on her fall from grace don't have the gay pop incident - to me, it seems like perhaps her biggest public blunder since it pretty much burned all her street cred with the people she was attempting to court. It is undeniably funny. Like, you can't think of one gay pop star? George Michael? Who's that?
It should be known that the controversies of Dance Moms, Abby Lee Miller, and now this Jojo and her own mother is just a microcosm of the dance world writ large. That Jojo initially thrived in this environment and is now turning into a confused and sad, gay little attention whore is not surprising in the least.
I say this as former studio enrolled dance fanatic (sadly started too late - and was too poor - to ever make anything of it). The joy of artistic movement is one of the great loves and passions of my life; I watched a Christmas performance of the Nutcracker this year and got choked up numerous times witnessing the jumps and pirouettes. Forget world peace, I just want to live in a world where we can develop dance talent without unleashing the demons of frustrated never-made-its or developing monstrous egos in talented but impressionable kids who don't know any better.
That's intriguing insight into a world and culture I know very little about. I take it that Siwa is far from the only dancer to fall victim to this kind of thing? It's sad that so many fields, mediums, what have you of art tend to encourage this sort of development - the cut-throat competitiveness, the bloated egos, the grooming of talented children into monsters. I saw a glimpse of it when I was in high school band. The movie "Whiplash", in my opinion, epitomizes the senseless hyper-competition of something as absurd as high school jazz bands that fosters and rewards borderline sociopathy over the music itself.
Something dark I've realized is that I mistook "Wrecking Ball" and such songs for Taylor Swift. This is both a sign of Pop Stardom's interchangeability and ironically faceless amorphousness and also that I'm frankly bad at following it.
That isn't a bad thing. But you also aren't wrong - there's not much about this highly-processed artists that can be swapped out and replaced with another manufactured pop star. I always say that, at this point, I don't know who half the most streamed artists of the year are and I'm also afraid to ask.
Right around the time she first made this change is the first time I heard of Siwa. My wife mentioned her to me after work one day. I don't remember for sure, but I believe she asked me something along the lines of, "Did you hear about Jojo Siwa's new look?"
To which I promptly responded, "Who the fuck is Jojo Siwa?" My initial guess was some JoJo's Bizarre Adventure cosplayer. I'd like to think I wasn't far off the mark.
Nevertheless, she explained she was some teeniebopper star who pulled a Miley, showed me the pictures, and we had a good time laughing and mocking before we moved on and I forgot about her existence. Thus your article, while well written and interesting as always, has committed a minor slight against me that's been nagging at me since I read it.
It reminded me Jojo Siwa and those around her exist. Thanks for that. My New Year's is now ruined.
...okay, okay, I'll put the hyperbole away. Solid write-up as always, and despite that minor sin, I am curious to see where the story goes next time.
Sometimes, I feel like my articles are the pop culture equivalent of that scene from Clockwork Orange where Malcom McDowell is strapped to the chair with his eyes forced open and made to watch horrifying scenes play out in front of him. But, much like my wicked father Yakub, evil is in my heart and ruining lives by exposing the tender hearts of the unaware to intolerably obnoxious influencers/public figures is in my blood.
In all seriousness, I'm glad you found it interesting. Rest assured that the next installment will be more heartening.
NOT THE OLE LUDWIG VAN!!!
I hate reality-tv child stars more than the others. It is even more exploitive than acting, because the whole public influences their character development and they never have the opportunity to divorce their professional public persona from their private one.
It's a very insidious pipeline, to be sure. Unconscionable in my opinion.
Well Ape, this teller has to admit, he was blissfully ignorant of this Jiwa. Only the warm embrace of his clan, many descended from the northlands has preserved him from starting the year out with this.
It's certainly a rollercoaster coaster of strange stuff and odd cameos and...
"I’ll tell you what happened. Next time."
You punk!
Well, Happy New Year, dredger of the digital jungle.
Happy belated New Year yourself, Mr. Teller. This dredger of the digital jungle endeavors not to make you wait too long for the next installment ;)
I remember making fun of "Satanna Montana" back in the day. Little did I know I had glimpsed the future.
I’ve wondered if GoGo Seaworld’s hairline wasn’t overly stressed by years of being winched backwards mimicking the stress of her monetized childhood.
There's no doubt that wrenching her hair back so tightly for years did nothing to help her hair situation. The original draft had a lot more Norwood Scale jokes, since I was under the impression her hairline was the result of tying her hair back so far and so tight, but when I found out she suffered from stress-induced hair loss they just seemed tasteless, so I removed them. Well, all but the one. It was impossible not to keep one in there.
Count me in the "I've never heard of this woman" club as well. Thanks for this nuanced take on it, and kudos for trying to empathize with her perspective in spite of all the misguided things she's done. My immediate reaction to her Darker and Edgier phase was how much the eye makeup reminded me of video gaming's most obnoxious character, Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3 (see this writeup by the sadly late Shamus Young: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=31743).
My brain also hurts trying to make sense of what "naturally flavored with other natural flavors" even means. So many layers of BS there, haha. As much as I hate advertising of this kind of garbage to kids (like I've ranted about here before), sometimes the absurdity is just too much and you have to laugh. On the other hand, that Nickelodeon movie poster was genuinely depressing. I still can't believe the company that once brought us The Adventures of Pete and Pete are making stuff like this.
"Strangely, this seemed to only effect self-professed lesbians, because all the gay guys I knew were well-aware of their leanings well before high school and didn’t go out of their way to advertise it."
Isn't that simply because being an openly gay boy in high school actually did lead to being socially ostracized back then in many/most places, or even the risk of actual violence? Even today, I get the impression it's not always as easy as you might think, with the political and corporate celebration of everything Alphabetical. Not even here in oh so progressive and tolerant Scandinavia. The whole thing with lesbians being basically ignored while so many men and boys feel so intensely threatened and disgusted at the idea of potentially being the object of unwanted sexual attention for once is probably enough for ten essays in itself, and it's kind of fascinating.
The 30% Alphabet ratio among young people is pretty staggering too, even if it's probably inflated by stuff like non-binary and asexual/aromantic that can be changed at a whim when they grow up. Still, it's pretty pathetic when celebrities and media personalities try to act like it's so brave and cutting edge to be gay (or "queer"), when it's more like you're seen as boring and uncool if you aren't. Whoever said that it's hard to be subversive when megacorps and city halls are flying your flag was right IMO. For a recent, great example of this, see the game Dustborn. I saw an interview with the devs in Norwegian media where they acted like they were making this super subversive and boundary-pushing thing by basically putting together a distilled blend of every single trope of American wokeness over the last ten years. Regardless of how you feel about that political project, they were running at a wide open door with a battering ram at this point.
Anyway, you had an effective cliffhanger there for sure, and since I'm completely ignorant of TikTok and its trends, I'm looking forward to hearing more in part 2.
"Naturally flavored with other natural flavors" has to be some mealy-mouthed way of admitting there's nothing natural about it while also duping rubes into thinking that there's something other than Red Dye 40 and High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. But that's, like, 90% of everything that comes in a box in the average American supermarket. RFK can't come soon enough.
As for the gay/lesbian thing, I'll admit that you have a point. Pretty much all of the gay kids at my school came out in earnest during or shortly after college, but it was kind of an open secret during high school that nobody really talked about. One of my best friends since first grade was gay and we just... never really talked about it. I knew, I knew he knew that I knew, but it wasn't something we discussed openly until after we were out of high school. Again, pretty much everyone could guess which way he leaned and he was still well-liked and never had any issues. I think we also went to a rather abnormal high school, though - aside from one or two kids who openly brought trouble on themselves by antagonizing kids no one with any sense would antagonize (or in one case, defecating their pants in class regularly), classic bullying was almost non-existent and pretty much every social strata and clique left one another alone. It was a very "Go along to get along" atmosphere. The only incident of what could even come close to being described as "homophobia" was because one guy was caught making out with another guy... but he was a dick and postured as a top-dog alpha male, so I think the backlash was not because he was gay so much as he was so virulently insistent that he WASN'T gay and spoke very poorly of homosexuals that he set himself up for being a target when it turned out he was. But he just leaned into it and basically said, "Yeah, I'm gay, what are you going to do about it?" and everyone just kind of collectively forgot about it. Ironically the guy he was making out with was a friend of mine who'd come out to me in private, but, again... he was a guy where I wasn't surprised when he told me. I'd like to say that homophobic backlash against coming out in adolescent environments is overstated by the media, but I'll also admit that my own experiences could have been rare; I attended a thoroughly middle-class high school where most had thoroughly middle-class sensibilities and temperaments - I wouldn't be surprised if it's an entirely different scenario in "underprivileged" schools.
I'm certain that the 30% is inflated for the reasons you said above - most people who profess to be bisexual, in my experience, never actually express any interest in the same sex and I believe are most likely claiming such to "fit in" with what's cool in the zeitgeist. It's easy to claim that you're "queer" and then do nothing to present or act as such. I have a feeling that the number of true homo/transexuals in Gen Z is probably greater than previous generations (hormones, chemicals, endocrine disruptive in the tap water, anyone?), but not nearly 30%.
Oh, don't we all. What a treasure, and such a loss that he died so early. He's still my hero when it comes to anything critique-related, and a major inspiration for my own essays. He really was a beacon of light in a part of the internet that's so full of vitriol, identity politics and superficial hot takes. Along with John Michael Greer, he also had the best commentariat on the internet, and interestingly enough, for apparently the same reasons: moderating every comment by hand and insisting on a baseline of politeness and decency.
You know, I've never heard of her and I'm usually up to date with all the internet trash. My six year old just watches Caylus play GTA5 videos and fortnite shit.
“…but people have always followed silly trends to fit in since the first cro-magnon got the bright idea to shove a squirrel’s tibia through his nose.”
This is why I read this author!
Slymenstra Hymen from Gwar did it better
Very funny and well written. I know it's good cause in the beginning I thought "oh yeah I've seen her before" and then in a blink I was halfway into Jojo's music controversies. You tricked me into learning more than I ever wanted to know about Jojo Siwa. You've earned my sub, well done.
"This quote taken from Aja Romano’s article on Jojo Siwa, published on Vox Day..."
Umm... your link goes to Vox DOT com. Not Vox Day's site.
I'll be sure to change that as there's a pretty big difference between vox.com and Vox Day. I completely forgot about Vox Day, to be honest.
Wait... Scissor Sisters is an for real gay band? I thought it was just a gimmick. Damn.
I hate to inform you that the Scissor Sisters are the gayest band of the 2000's. I think the only straight member of the group was the token woman in their line-up.
I should have guessed, since they were catapulted to relative fame by that gay Dr. Who series, but their name and style were so over the top I figured it was a joke.
My daughter wanted that atrocious rainbow bow. And I bought it for her. It was around $20 and the biggest scam imaginable. I wish I could pull that off.
It's a devious but ingenious racket - manufacture the bows for pennies on the dollar in a Manila sweatshop and sell them for $20! I won't lie, I'd do it if I could, too.
Oh man, this was such a fun read. I have watched several videos about the downfall of JoJo, but I somehow missed the 'gay pop' incident. I am just walking around the house blurting out "What's gay pop?" Cracking myself up over and over.
Glad you enjoyed it. I'm surprised videos on her fall from grace don't have the gay pop incident - to me, it seems like perhaps her biggest public blunder since it pretty much burned all her street cred with the people she was attempting to court. It is undeniably funny. Like, you can't think of one gay pop star? George Michael? Who's that?