JoJo Siwa "Gay Pop" Discourse

Overview

The JoJo Siwa "Gay Pop" Discourse or GayPop Discourse refers to discourse surrounding a viral video of musical artist and dancer JoJo Siwa claiming she invented a new genre of music called "gay pop" following the release of her song "Karma." Siwa made the claim during an interview with Billboard in early April 2024, describing it as "like K-pop but gay pop." The claim inspired criticism and backlash online for being disrespectful as people gave prior examples of music that could arguably be considered gay pop, with LGBTQ+ musicians, including Tegan and Sara, also criticizing Siwa's claim.

Background

On April 4th, 2024, Billboard published a video on YouTube^[1] and TikTok^[2] featuring highlights from an interview with JoJo Siwa. In one clip, Siwa says that, when she first signed with Columbia Records, she expressed a desire to invent a new genre of music "like K-pop" called "gay pop." She goes on to explain the "jazz-funk" style of dance, saying gay pop is "that world of music," naming the songs "Applause" by Lady Gaga, "On My Own" and "Can't Be Tamed" by Miley Cyrus and her own song, "Karma," as examples of what might fit into the gay pop genre, continuing, "It's not exactly pop […] it's giving you Lady Gaga 'Judas.'" The clip gained over 3,000 views on YouTube and 800,000 on TikTok in four days.

Online Reactions

The claim inspired significant discourse online, much of which was negative towards Siwa and her claims to have invented or coined the genre "gay pop."

For example, on April 6th, 2024, TikToker^[3] @lemongayde posted a video explaining how she was hopeful when Siwa first came out, expressing optimism that her coming out could do great things for the gay community, then criticized Siwa for not "learning her history" and calling the claim that she invented gay pop "outlandish" and "disrespectful," urging Siwa to read a book (shown below). The video gained over 2 million views in three days.

On April 7th, TikToker^[4] @killingmorgan posted a video set to a Hayley Kiyoko song with a caption mocking Siwa's claim, garnering over 1.6 million views in two days (shown below, left). On the same day, the gay musical pop duo Tegan and Sara posted a response to the Siwa video to TikTok^[5] in which they stared in bewilderment as a reaction, garnering over 4.1 million views in two days (shown below, right). On April 8th, HuffPost^[6] reported on their reaction.

Also on April 8th, 2024, X^[7] user @soulcontrolled posted a clip of George Michael's music video for "Too Funky," writing, "all this talk about 'gay pop' and no one’s mentioning him," garnering over 1,400 likes in a day (shown below). That same day, Anthony Fantano reposted a clip of the interview to X,^[8] writing, "new genre just dropped," garnering over 2,600 likes in a day. Daily Mail^[9] also reported on the discourse that day.

all this talk about “gay pop” and no one’s mentioning him… pic.twitter.com/Dr515pxhKs

— anthony 𐚁🤍 (@soulcontrolled) April 8, 2024

Further Reaction Examples

Search Interest

External References