Is JoJo Siwa’s ‘Karma’ a Flop or a Flop?

JoJo Siwa is here, and she’s ready to shock you. Are you shocked yet? How about now? The singer(?) released her new song “Karma” on April 5, and the music video finds her bedecked in Kiss cosplay, getting close with two separate women, dry-humping, and falling in the water. She’s a good girl gone bad, and by “bad,” we mean “low quality.” And yet, the music video is garnering Siwa huge amounts of attention, trending on YouTube, and forcing her into the pop-girl conversation. So let’s give her what she wants, shall we? Rebecca Alter and Jason P. Frank gather to discuss “Karma,” this rebranding, and why we can’t stop watching even when it isn’t working. Is it a flop or is it a flop?

Rebecca Alter: Jason, you are the emissary for Gen Z in this Google Doc. Do you claim this? Please tell me what is happening.

Jason P. Frank: JoJo Siwa is self-consciously becoming a bad girl and managing to do it without getting a single fleck of dirt on her pristine costumes. Siwa, the effervescently bright Dance Moms star who was the most popular girl in the world among 6-year-olds, is fed up with being perceived as a sexless clown for babies. And so, she’s donning Kiss makeup, humping girls, and performing pop music. Is it punching down to make fun of this?

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

JPF: Objectively, yes.

RA: We’ve seen lots of child pop stars rebrand as a bad girl, but she might be one of the first to reinvent herself as bad girl. Because oh, brother, this stinks! And to answer your question, no way it’s punching down to make fun of this. Siwa’s an empire. Cardi B couldn’t afford to book her for her daughter’s birthday. She has her own branded Lunchables and asbestos-laced makeup! And on top of it all, once she graduated out of being a kids’ entertainer herself, she went on to become the Abby Lee in her own story, managing a kids’ girl group called XOMG POP! With all the care and sensitivity of Larry Plumb.

But XOMG POP! is a Dateline episode for another day. We’re here specifically to talk about her new single and music video, “Karma.” Let’s make like JoJo at the 1:21 mark of the music video and dive flop in. This song … It’s no good, Jason.

JPF: Certainly! A thumping, uninspired beat, with faux-edgy lyrics (“She said ‘bitch’!”) performed with all the conviction of the elementary-age students who used to be her fans.

RA: It’s funny how in the chorus, she keeps saying “bitch,” but in a way that quotes a familiar saying. Then, she immediately says “effed around,” which is so Christian dad of her.

JPF: The central problem is that it’s so transparently that — a recalculation of a brand. There’s no sense that there was any real artistic muse, from her or from anyone else on her team. In interviews, she’s made reference to other “good girl gone bad” moments from pop — Britney, Miley, etc. — but when all you’re doing is regurgitating other people’s efforts, you end up with a facsimile of a changed image. You know what this reminds me of, Rebecca? Sugar and Spice from Drag Race — one is sweet (wears pink), the other’s scary (wears black), but ultimately, they’re still in the same outfit.

RA: Except Sugar and Spice took inspo from Bratz dolls, and one of the fundamental issues with this video is I kept thinking, JoJo Siwa has American Girl Doll face.

The way she’s still committed to the tight slicked-back hair (now in some sort of faux-hawk instead of a pony) makes her head look like a big ol’ egg! A bedazzled egg! It’s not quite cherubic, more Schumeric. She has always had bouba face with kiki energy, bringing to any situation a constant sense of unease and conflict. It makes all of her jagged, fast, hard humping in this video (so much humping) really uncanny! She humps like she dances, and she dances like …

What would you call this? Are we being too mean? I think my fight-or-flight is activated because I’m scared!

JPF: We aren’t being too mean, but I do worry we’re giving too much credit. Were you actually uncomfortable with this? Does it even warrant that? The music video is so conscious of the reaction it’s intending to provoke that I can’t work up more than an eye roll. You wanted “good girl gone bad” and you went with … Kiss? And the music doesn’t reference that band at all? If she wanted to shock me, she’d actually get messy. Instead, it’s the same overly polished, heartless work that she’s always done. The humping is embarrassing, of course, but that’s because it’s sexless. She treats it the same as any other dance move — a motion to be executed.

RA: Took the words right out of my mouth — I’m alarmed and disturbed because it’s physicality without sexuality or sensuality. I wouldn’t even say “robotic,” because fembots? Famously sexy. I wouldn’t say overly polished either; look at the background dancers’ control on the choreo over the way she hits every beat too hard. It’s jagged, but it’s also too much. And, yeah, whether the makeup is Kiss or Alice Cooper, you don’t get any of that in the music. Speaking of which, those lyrics really are something else. Not sure what my favorite lyric is between “Like when a tree falls in the forest, no one hears it,” and the part where she rhymes “boring” with “snoring.” What are your takeaways from the song itself?

JPF: It’s interesting you make fun of her for rhyming “boring” with “snoring,” because I was about to use both those words to describe the song.

RA: Hahaha, she sang “When I lay me down to sleep …” and you were like, “That’s me.”

JPF: I can’t think of a funnier moment than the opening line itself: “I was a bad girl.” It’s so blunt. And I’m not a monster; I don’t need subtlety in pop music. But the song is not about her doing bad things, it’s her gesturing at “being” a “bad girl.”

RA: Well, I’m actually confused on that point. Because the chorus starts, “Karma’s a bitch, I should’ve known better / If I had a wish, I would’ve never effed around,” but then the rest of the song is about her girlfriend with some other girl making her jealous? Even in her bad-girl fantasy, she won’t let herself be the bad guy.

I’m only saying this because I’m on the song’s Genius page right now, and I actually have a new favorite lyric: “Cold blue eyes look back at me / the mirror has no sympathy / my guilt’s become a symphony.” She’s one of those girls who says, “My eyes look so blue when I cry.”

JPF: Oh, like Kenzie from Survivor this season. At least she has tattoos.

RA: No, exactly. 

JPF: Did you notice that JoJo never actually kisses either of the girls in the music video? They touch faces, she humps, she gets a little tongue to the neck, but she never bothers to actually kiss either. To me, that’s the whole song. For all its attempts to shock audiences with queer sexuality, there’s no sexuality on display.

RA: None! When she was phantom-humping without eye contact or physical contact, I wanted to yell at her like a Yorkiepoo: Jojo, you stop that right now! Not on the rug!

JPF: Are you offended by this? When I wrote the thing about queer sexuality above, it occurred to me that it was possible to be offended — a capitalist is using her sexless sexuality to scandalize the nation without actually committing to the bit, yada yada. And yet, I can’t work up the energy to care. It’s the kind of art content that, despite our 1,200 words on the subject, eschews actually think-piecing. Obviously, it’s worked for her in terms of the real goal, which is “getting attention” (1.4 million views by this morning already, and counting), but is it even worth trying to delve into this for some political point?

RA: WELL, NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT [*unfurls scroll that rolls across the entire room*]. Countless pop stars have done gay shit as a career tool. Siwa, at first, did something kind of different when she came out as actually gay (technically, she first came out as the “best gay cousin ever”). It was her identity, her sexuality, and it didn’t detract from her rainbow and unicorn merchandise lines. But also: She’s been kind of cringe every step of the way.

But now she’s tried to incorporate it into some manufactured comeback for shock value, play-acting her own identity. The sweatiness of figuring out how to reinvent herself in the public eye is actually kind of authentic to who she is, in a way. Loudly and proudly cringe.

JPF: The most shocking thing that happened in my day was the earthquake that just hit. Sorry, JoJo.

RA: Like being dry-humped by Mother Earth …