The Year of Mess
Fans are sniffing out disingenuousness, and gravitating toward the messiness of stars like Charli XCX.
Background reading for today’s story:
If you asked me in 2023 who would have been on my 2024 backlash bingo card, I would not have picked Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez, and Katy Perry. Yet it was those three who faced a negative turn in public sentiment, in spite of their combined Vogue covers and Met Gala invites, endorsement deals, ticket sales, and product lines that had made their status feel immutable.
All three released cultural products that were mid at best and un-consumable at worst. But it’s not like these women haven’t turned out flops before. I think the backlash was more so a reaction to disingenuousness. To recap:
Blake Lively promoted It Ends With Us, adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, with all-floral fashions because her character was a florist. But the film is actually about domestic violence. Her commentary at promotional events didn’t suggest she appreciated the seriousness of this, as she tried to position the movie as a fun, Barbie-esque girl time. On her media tour, she also shilled her new hair care and soda brands and husband Ryan Reynolds. It didn’t help that this happened during the slow news month of August, but she was further undone when the internet discovered a particularly cringe interview from an old press junket where she was clearly over it and didn’t give a damn about putting on airs for the reporter (I have to imagine Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were aware of this when promoting Wicked, hence their spectacular junket interviews). Audiences then felt inspired to revisit her plantation wedding and the antebellum fashion editorial she published on her defunct lifestyle site Preserve.
Jennifer Lopez released her lowest-performing album This Is Me… Now in the spring, along with two films stemming from it. Can you name a single song from it? Right. She then had to cancel a planned tour following low ticket sales. Audiences accused her of “creative narcissism,” but the backlash had been building over years, as she promoted her skincare line while claiming she had never had Botox and launched a booze line even though she’d said she didn’t drink. Then, there was that poorly received pandemic video of her throwing her valuables away on a beach because “love don’t cost a thing.”
Katy Perry released her seventh album 143 to terrible reviews (“Katy Perry's '143' doesn't have a single redeeming song,” went the typical headline). She made the perplexing choice to release as the first single “Woman’s World,” a ghastly attempt at a “female empowerment” anthem, produced by Dr. Luke, a man who Kesha alleged abused her. The music video was going for Fifth Harmony but giving nineties issues of Stuff magazine.
While all this was going on, of a few women — Charli XCX, Chappel Roan, Sabrina Carpenter — were experiencing the opposite trajectory, following a different, messier template than the one that had made stars of Lively, Lopez, and Perry. It used to be that Anna Wintour and a movie studio or record company and a fashion designer could anoint a star. Now, the internet chooses its stars, its notions of taste malleable instead of dictated from on high. And the public is attracted to performers who are a little unpolished, a little messy, who reject the glossy perfectionism practiced by celebrities like Lively and Lopez.
Charli XCX’s Brat album cover featured a blurred font and acid green that purposely looked, as she described it, “crap.” She said her manager, creative director and friends all thought the cover text was “the stupidest idea ever,” but it allowed her to save money on a photo shoot. Then, it became iconic “brat green.”
“I really enjoyed that some people absolutely hated it,” she told Billboard. “It had to be like really untrendy and uncool, because there’s nothing worse than vibes — you know, boo to cool vibes.” It was purposefully messy. And she became a fashion personality without the usual funnel. Unlike Lively, she didn’t do the cover of American Vogue this year (she did Vogue Singapore and Vogue Australia). But her “Apple” dance was going viral on TikTok all summer, as fans went crazy for her not-cool, nonsensical, appealingly empty vibe — which then became a cool vibe. Her endorsement deals this year included H&M, Valentino, Converse, Acne, Skims, and Marc Jacobs.
Another internet star who needed no one’s permission was Chappel Roan, whose image is inspired by drag and who dressed like a “medieval warrior queen” at the VMAs. She has talked freely about toxic fans, and called fame “abusive.” She used to wear only black on stage, but then after “Pink Pony Club” came out and started gaining traction, she changed up her image. “[T]he second that I took myself not seriously, is when things started working and that was really scary,” she said.
Sabrina Carpenter is also a bit of a pop oddity. She wears old Victoria’s Secret slips and Caché dresses for marketing campaigns and public appearances. Her signature lyric is “that’s that me espresso.” As one Reddit user said, “She's doing this mélange of Dolly Parton-meets-60s pop star-meets-contemporary R&B that suits her really well and distinguishes her from her peers who are riding the Y2K revival trend at the moment.” Her Netflix Christmas special is “A Nonsense Christmas,” a necessary acknowledgement of the inanity of Christmas content. She’s now a face of Versace.
It’s not surprising that this happened right after the pandemic, when celebrities were avoiding Covid on private planes and in mansions and posting tone-deaf content on social media. People were looking for stars who seemed less removed from the average person and who had a sense of humor about themselves. This is different from the sort of celebrity image that has been buffed and waxed by puff piece after puff piece over the years. Of course people are going to react when, after we’ve been told endlessly how perfect they are, these stars release mid content and top it off with cash-grabby product lines.
What I can’t figure out is why traditional fashion media doesn’t give the newer stars more covers and air space. I know it’s hard to book anyone for a photo shoot these days, but, hey, Sabrina Carpenter agreed to do Vogue World.
Earlier in Back Row
I think there's validity in all this about the type of celebrity people are gravitating to, but also I think there's something to just the quality of the art...if Katy Perry released an album half as good as brat, I think people would be into it. Shit just wasn't good!
Ha! For a minute there when I saw your headline I thought you were doing a @JessicaDeFino type collab with @EmilyKirkpatrick aka I Heart Mess!
She is synonymous with Fashion and Mess in the same sentence.