With Elon Musk’s awful $44 billion takeover having turned Twitter into Parler (when he could have instead paid a couple of hundred million to buy the far-right social media network, if he just wanted rabid far-right commenters to compliment him all day), it’s much easier to be fooled by parody accounts than it ever has been. So, when fans of Doja Cat saw her latest tweet slamming her old music and announcing a new album title, they might have thought it was just another Twitter Blue-ser trying to stir up controversy. Yet, it seems the American rapper really did tweet about how her fans loved “mediocre pop.”
This ungenerous view of her fans was followed by an announcement that her new album would be called First of All.
The rapper is no stranger to controversial and strange moves, and is known for her great understanding of the nuances of internet culture and ability to ride social media waves and memes into more popularity. However, even for her, calling her fans basic and tasteless feels a bit far.
With that said, it appears lovers of the musician are glutons for punishment. Plenty of the top replies to her tweet are complimentary still, with many commenters saying they can’t wait to hear the new album if the old one wasn’t even her trying very hard. It turns out that admitting something was a cash grab won’t always stop people from trying to give you more cash.
Doja isn’t the first (nor last) famous musician to dump on her fans. One Direction and Justin Bieber are both known to not really enjoy playing their earlier work, and being critical of fans who refuse to accept they’ve moved on musically. And, given that Doja started out as a rapper and only really got her fame after some parody songs and meme magic, it makes sense that she might have felt pigeonholed by agencies and others around her to make music that she considered generic and mediocre. After all, people like something familiar, and those who are more daring are often punished for it. Plus, who doesn’t like a payday?
The interesting thing is that both albums she’s trashed in the tweet were fairly well-received critically for their genre fluidity and conceptual nature — something that most generic pop doesn’t really feature. So, it seems we’re either about to get something completely out of left field, or we’re being trolled by a rapper who knows exactly what she’s doing, and finding it all hilarious. Whatever the real reason for her mini-tirade, it’s going to be an interesting ride.
