Since spooky season is just around the corner, I’d like to shed some well-deserved light on the ghoulish kahuna who’s had the internet in shambles, and dare I say it, even a bit traumatised. Little miss Amala Dlamini a.k.a. Doja Cat has raised quite the uproar in the last couple of months with her rebranded persona which was not so surprisingly followed by an album release. On April 12, Doja deleted (??) *all* her posts on Instagram and teased her 4th album by uploading an image just captioned ‘4’. While fans had high expectations and looked forward to hearing more of her catchy tunes, the ‘say so’ singer had her own freakish plans.
Nowadays, it’s pretty common for music artists to redesign their personalities and attune their appearances to their music. Take David Bowie for example. From Ziggy Stardust to The Thin White Duke- that man had a signature identity planned for every single album of his (to the die-hard Bowie fans, this is, by no means, a comparison between Bowie and Doja. If it appears to be one, then I sincerely apologise for the irreparable damage I’ve done and please don’t hurt my family). So, fans predicted a character revamp for her upcoming album as usual.
But what they weren’t ready for was the slight satanic undertones to her instagram posts which gave way to her diabolic aesthetic. And then the screams were heard- the screams that clashed with the Great wall of China and echoed throughout the globe shouting ‘illuminati’.
By the time Doja released her album ‘Scarlet’ on September 22, 2023, she had already secured the illuminati label- courtesy of the religious community of twitter. The results weren’t really shocking, considering the exact same sequence of events observed back in 2021 when Lil Nas X released ‘Call me by your name’. Although Doja’s satanist appearance did raise concern among her fanbase, it didn’t really put much of a dent in her popularity. Even after a handful of controversies, bitter attitude was the final nail in the coffin for her fans.
In response to her fans who named themselves ‘kittenz’, Doja tweeted- ‘If you call yourself ‘kitten’ or ‘kittenz’, that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents’. When a fan asked what she would like the fandom name to be, she responded by saying- ‘just delete the entire account and rethink everything, it’s never too late.’ She proceeded to publicly shame her fans on twitter which resulted in several of her fans deactivating their fan accounts. But that didn’t impose a stoppage on the American rapper’s onslaught of aggression.
Fans voiced their concern over Doja’s dating J.Cyrus, who was accused of grooming and sexual misconduct. Fans were left upset by her choice, especially due to Doja’s history of involvement in racist and sexist chat rooms. The incident encouraged Doja to lash out even more harshly, which finally led to her loss of over half a million instagram followers.
All in all, it really doesn’t matter whether Doja worships the Holy Spirit or the king of hell. What does concern me, however, is the snappy attitude she has developed towards her fans. And for the record, I’m not an advocate of the ‘I pay the artist’s bill, so they owe me their life’ community. I just think that degrading your fans online and calling it a fandom cleanse, doesn’t make you the edge-lord you desire to be. But as a wise person once said, “All publicity is good publicity”– all the ruckus surrounding her definitely earned her the publicity she desired. Scarlet’s lead single, “Paint the Town Red”, became a massive commercial success, and marked Doja Cat’s first solo number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100, the UK Singles Chart, the Billboard Global 200, and several other national charts worldwide.
From a personal point of view, ‘Scarlet’ seemed to have a lot of wasted potential. It was obvious that this album was supposed to be a switchover from Doja’s heavily pop influenced discography to a more hiphop/R&B focused sound. While her vocal range and charisma keep her afloat, her restricted lyrical content and poor music production sank the boat for me. I’m all for artists shutting down all the nit-pickers and fault-finders. What I loathe, however, is this whole rap trend of ‘you said something that hurt my delicate feelings’ and building an entire album based on responding to some shallow twitter beef. For someone who keeps on whining about how they don’t care about what anyone has to say, Doja sure seems to love making songs about them.
Personal opinions aside, hats off to Doja for being able to stand her ground by staying true to herself. In response to the hate comments she received due to her drastic weight loss, she said- “It’s crazy because they don’t even know how creepy they sound when they talk like that as if I’m a kind of sex doll/fuck toy that needs to look a certain way for them. Hella creepy. You wish I was thicc ’cause you want to fuck me. It has nothing to do with my health or my happiness ’cause I don’t even look underweight.” And if she feels like cosplaying a sleep paralysis demon, then good for her. If she makes cash while doing it, then even better. But in all honesty, the whole ‘I hate my fans’ shtick isn’t really a good look on her.