Background Information
You may have heard of the famous children's pop star, Jojo Siwa. She first became famous on the toxic reality TV show, Dance Moms. After that, though, she started to release music for young girls. Jojo practically invented the sparkly, neon aesthetic that most girls toys have today. Over time, she released 33 songs, most of them singles about girl power and optimism. One important thing to know: Her music is terrible! With cheesy lyrics, and often repetitive songs, her fanbase was huge, but very limited. It was generally only elementary school girls.
She eventually got too old to be a children's pop star, so her popularity has died down. She lost her crazy high pony, and trimmed her hair. Also, she came out as gay, which was a shock to everyone, and did get her some positive press. However, Nikelodeon was not very nice about it, and started excluding her from things. That got negative press. She started becoming one of those irritating tiktok influencers, too. We have heard many students at McCall discuss her as, "having all those tattoos now." Clearly, her public image has changed dramatically.
What Is Going On With Her Now?
Jojo just released news of her new single, Karma, along with her new era. She unveiled her new look at the iheart radio awards. It will be released on April 5th, at 12.00 a.m., eastern time. Jojo is officially into her "bad girl" phase. When she announced this new period of her music, she was literally wearing a black glittery cat suit with lots of buckles. However, this does not mean that her songs will be better, or even less stupid.
She also released a clip of the song recently, and the first line is I was a bad girl, I did some bad things. This cliche, bad song is all about how karma ruined her life, and she made a bunch of terrible decisions. Her instagram has a countdown for this song, and the cover art is insane. Pictures of her with clown makeup, lots of piercings, and on a movie set, with a black and white filter litter her page. She is clearly trying to look like some sort of sort of goth rebel, but it is not working.
There are numerous reasons for this. First of all, her new image is way to stereotypical goth. If she was doing something new, even if it was still cheesy, the world would not mind it too much. She needs to find something unique, so she will seem more interesting.
Second of all, none of this new aesthetic is true to herself. Jojo Siwa may not be very girly anymore, but emo is not a word that describes her at all. Everything about her now feels forced; it seems as though she does not even mean anything she does.
Lastly, her lyrics are just awful. The rhymes she uses are forced, and everything is so cheesy! She even tries to add "cool" lyrics by swearing numerous times. We played some of the song for some students, and they were very shocked and distressed with how stupid it was.
People are also comparing Jojo's new look to a Wrestlemania outfit, which honestly makes sense. However, they do not mean it in any positive way. Lil Nas X and Meghan Trainor are both being supportive, though, and have encouraged her to keep exploring her adult brand. Gene Simmons, who was a base drummer for the metal band KISS, also defended her new look. He sort of had to speak out about it, because she now looks suspiciously like his "Demon" persona. Relievingly, he had no issue with the similarity!
Conclusion
Jojo Siwa may seem like she is going sort of insane, but she is in a very difficult spot right now. She may feel like she has to do something extreme so she can step out of her old image, and into a more adult one. Hopefully, she will lower the intensity of all of this once she feels like people have gotten the message.
Sources
How the Internet Fell Out of Love With Jojo Siwa- Youtube