JoJo Siwa’s Shockfest New Single ‘Karma’: Bop or Flop

JoJo Siwa is right here, and she or he’s able to shock you. Are you shocked but? How about now? The singer(?) launched her new tune “Karma” on April 5, and the music video finds her bedecked in Kiss cosplay, getting shut with two separate girls, dry-humping, and falling within the water. She’s lady gone dangerous, and by “dangerous,” we imply “low high quality.” And but, the music video is garnering Siwa large quantities of consideration, trending on YouTube, and forcing her into the pop-girl dialog. So let’s give her what she desires, we could? Rebecca Alter and Jason P. Frank collect to debate “Karma,” this rebranding, and why we will’t cease watching even when it isn’t working. Is it a flop or is it a flop?

Rebecca Alter: Jason, you’re the emissary for Gen Z on this Google Doc. Do you declare this? Please inform me what is going on.

Jason P. Frank: JoJo Siwa is self-consciously changing into a nasty lady and managing to do it with out getting a single fleck of dust on her pristine costumes. Siwa, the effervescently brilliant Dance Mothers star who was the preferred lady on this planet amongst 6-year-olds, is fed up with being perceived as a sexless clown for infants. And so, she’s donning Kiss make-up, humping women, and performing pop music. Is it punching right down to make enjoyable of this?

RA: What you’re saying is, she’s fed up with being perceived as a sexless clown for youngsters, so she’s rebranding as a clown for grown-ups who fucks dangerous.

JPF: Objectively, sure.

RA: We’ve seen a number of youngster pop stars rebrand as a nasty lady, however she could be one of many first to reinvent herself as dangerous lady. As a result of oh, brother, this stinks! And to reply your query, no means it’s punching right down to make enjoyable of this. Siwa’s an empire. Cardi B couldn’t afford to guide her for her daughter’s birthday. She has her personal branded Lunchables and asbestos-laced make-up! And on prime of all of it, as soon as she graduated out of being a children’ entertainer herself, she went on to develop into the Abby Lee in her personal story, managing a children’ lady group known as XOMG POP! With all of the care and sensitivity of Larry Plumb.

However XOMG POP! is a Dateline episode for one more day. We’re right here particularly to speak about her new single and music video, “Karma.” Let’s make like JoJo on the 1:21 mark of the music video and dive flop in. This tune … It’s no good, Jason.

JPF: Definitely! A thumping, uninspired beat, with fake-edgy lyrics (“She mentioned ‘bitch’!”) carried out with all of the conviction of the elementary-age college students who was once her followers.

RA: It’s humorous how within the refrain, she retains saying “bitch,” however in a means that quotes a well-known saying. Then, she instantly says “effed round,” which is so Christian dad of her.

JPF: The central drawback is that it’s so transparently that — a recalculation of a model. There’s no sense that there was any actual inventive muse, from her or from anybody else on her group. In interviews, she’s made reference to different “good lady gone dangerous” moments from pop — Britney, Miley, and so forth. — however when all you’re doing is regurgitating different individuals’s efforts, you find yourself with a facsimile of a modified picture. You recognize what this jogs my memory of, Rebecca? Sugar and Spice from Drag Race — one is nice (wears pink), the opposite’s scary (wears black), however in the end, they’re nonetheless in the identical outfit.

RA: Besides Sugar and Spice took inspo from Bratz dolls, and one of many elementary points with this video is I saved pondering, JoJo Siwa has American Lady Doll face.

The best way she’s nonetheless dedicated to the tight slicked-back hair (now in some type of fake-hawk as a substitute of a pony) makes her head appear to be an enormous ol’ egg! A bedazzled egg! It’s not fairly cherubic, extra Schumeric. She has all the time had bouba face with kiki power, bringing to any state of affairs a continuing sense of unease and battle. It makes all of her jagged, quick, exhausting humping on this video (a lot humping) actually uncanny! She humps like she dances, and she or he dances like …

What would you name this? Are we being too imply? I believe my fight-or-flight is activated as a result of I’m scared!

JPF: We aren’t being too imply, however I do fear we’re giving an excessive amount of credit score. Have been you truly uncomfortable with this? Does it even warrant that? The music video is so acutely aware of the response it’s intending to impress that I can’t work up greater than an eye fixed roll. You needed “good lady gone dangerous” and also you went with … Kiss? And the music doesn’t reference that band in any respect? If she needed to shock me, she’d truly get messy. As an alternative, it’s the identical overly polished, heartless work that she’s all the time finished. The humping is embarrassing, in fact, however that’s as a result of it’s sexless. She treats it the identical as another dance transfer — a movement to be executed.

RA: Took the phrases proper out of my mouth — I’m alarmed and disturbed as a result of it’s physicality with out sexuality or sensuality. I wouldn’t even say “robotic,” as a result of fembots? Famously horny. I wouldn’t say overly polished both; take a look at the background dancers’ management on the choreo over the best way she hits each beat too exhausting. It’s jagged, but it surely’s additionally too a lot. And, yeah, whether or not the make-up is Kiss or Alice Cooper, you don’t get any of that within the music. Talking of which, these lyrics actually are one thing else. Unsure what my favourite lyric is between “Like when a tree falls within the forest, nobody hears it,” and the half the place she rhymes “boring” with “loud night breathing.” What are your takeaways from the tune itself?

JPF: It’s fascinating you make enjoyable of her for rhyming “boring” with “loud night breathing,” as a result of I used to be about to make use of each these phrases to explain the tune.

RA: Hahaha, she sang “After I lay me right down to sleep …” and also you have been like, “That’s me.”

JPF: I can’t consider a funnier second than the opening line itself: “I used to be a nasty lady.” It’s so blunt. And I’m not a monster; I don’t want subtlety in pop music. However the tune shouldn’t be about her doing dangerous issues, it’s her gesturing at “being” a “dangerous lady.”

RA: Properly, I’m truly confused on that time. As a result of the refrain begins, “Karma’s a bitch, I ought to’ve identified higher / If I had a want, I’d’ve by no means effed round,” however then the remainder of the tune is about her girlfriend with another lady making her jealous? Even in her bad-girl fantasy, she gained’t let herself be the dangerous man.

I’m solely saying this as a result of I’m on the tune’s Genius web page proper now, and I even have a brand new favourite lyric: “Chilly blue eyes look again at me / the mirror has no sympathy / my guilt’s develop into a symphony.” She’s a type of women who says, “My eyes look so blue after I cry.”

JPF: Oh, like Kenzie from Survivor this season. No less than she has tattoos.

RA: No, precisely. 

JPF: Did you discover that JoJo by no means truly kisses both of the women within the music video? They contact faces, she humps, she will get a little bit tongue to the neck, however she by no means bothers to truly kiss both. To me, that’s the entire tune. For all its makes an attempt to shock audiences with queer sexuality, there’s no sexuality on show.

RA: None! When she was phantom-humping with out eye contact or bodily contact, I needed to yell at her like a Yorkiepoo: Jojo, you cease that proper now! Not on the rug!

JPF: Are you offended by this? After I wrote the factor about queer sexuality above, it occurred to me that it was attainable to be offended — a capitalist is utilizing her sexless sexuality to scandalize the nation with out truly committing to the bit, yada yada. And but, I can’t work up the power to care. It’s the sort of artwork content material that, regardless of our 1,200 phrases on the topic, eschews truly think-piecing. Clearly, it’s labored for her by way of the true aim, which is “getting consideration” (1.4 million views by this morning already, and counting), however is it even value attempting to delve into this for some political level?

RA: WELL, NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT [*unfurls scroll that rolls across the entire room*]. Numerous pop stars have finished homosexual shit as a profession software. Siwa, at first, did one thing sort of completely different when she got here out as truly homosexual (technically, she first got here out because the “greatest homosexual cousin ever”). It was her id, her sexuality, and it didn’t detract from her rainbow and unicorn merchandise strains. But additionally: She’s been sort of cringe each step of the best way.

However now she’s tried to include it into some manufactured comeback for shock worth, play-acting her personal id. The sweatiness of determining learn how to reinvent herself within the public eye is definitely sort of genuine to who she is, in a means. Loudly and proudly cringe.

JPF: Essentially the most stunning factor that occurred in my day was the earthquake that simply hit. Sorry, JoJo.

RA: Like being dry-humped by Mom Earth …