Music lovers are no strangers to celebrities attempting to change their persona, specifically in the case of artists who once appealed to children trying to be seen as more “adult.” This is recently the case of former Dance Moms and Nickelodeon star Jojo Siwa.
Over the past several months, Siwa has been making it known across the internet, primarily on Tiktok and Spotify, that she intends to enter a new era. From a sleeve of new tattoos to feverish dance moves promoting her new single “Karma”, Siwa’s been making waves everywhere for all the wrong reasons.
Now that the official music video for “Karma” has been released, it only solidifies the confusion and scorn people feel toward Siwa’s new, more adult persona. Siwa has inadvertently left an audience with no idea where any motivation to rebrand came from, and the ridicule to follow.
A recurring point about Siwa’s failure to gain favor is that her new music isn’t anything different from her Nickelodeon era of output. “Karma” is just as poppy and loud as Siwa’s other hit “Boomerang”. The lack of change in Siwa’s music has made me realize that, really, not much has changed with her identity as a whole.
The point of rebranding is for an artist to pivot into a completely different direction. There can be influences and ideas that remain from previous eras, but the works of a rebranded artist should be able to stand on their own without reminding the audience of the past. If anything, newer work should be elevated because of the artist’s experience in the industry. As much as Siwa claims how this is a ‘new’ version of her, she has not detached herself from her roots enough to make an effective statement.
This new form of Siwa’s stage presence doesn’t have any substance. Her music and style of dance continue to be overly bombastic and insincere. The message within “Karma” is just as bare-bones as everything before it—which seems counterintuitive to the point of this new, grown version of Jojo Siwa. When making art that’s meant to be catered to more adult tastes, simply adding explicit lyrics or racy choreography feels lazy. There needs to be an analysis of why one makes art in the first place. Take Lil’ Nas X, for example. His first major hit “Old Town Road” was largely popularized because of the children who caught onto it. Especially when Kidz Bop covered the song, which only continued to further its skyrocketing popularity.
To properly distance himself from a child-heavy fanbase, Lil’ Nas X took a step back and thought about what kind of direction and message he wanted to take with his art. He had to decide what he wanted to say with his music. In the end, Lil’ Nas X decided to rebrand with his next major album MONTERO, which made bold comments about homosexuality in religious spaces. Overall, this drastic switch in programming did what a rebrand is meant to. Lil’ Nas X gained a reputation aside from the impact of “Old Town Road” and has continued to build up that persona in his following work.
This is different from Siwa’s attempt to be taken seriously. Where all of the songs in MONTERO have complex meanings and intention behind them, “Karma” is a poppy breakup anthem and nothing else. Siwa’s been in the public eye ever since she was a child and has enough experience to comment on how that affected her as a person. She could gain a new fanbase for being someone who has grown and matured and not been broken by the industry’s harmful practices. Instead, though, it feels like Siwa’s not made any effort into making her work meaningful. It feels as though she’s leaned full force into a rebellious teen era rather than the adult she wants to be seen as.
Siwa stated in an interview with billboard that “no one has made this dramatic of a change yet. No one, in my generation, has made this extreme of a switch, and I am the first of a generation.” However, the steps she’s taken don’t back this statement up. In the last two months, Jojo Siwa failed to do anything other than remind the world that she is an impulsive 20 year old, and that the majority of those years were spent in the public eye as a rambunctious, immature child star.
