JoJo Siwa Doesn’t Know She’s the Butt of the Joke

It’s always a little sad when someone doesn’t understand that everyone’s laughing at them, not with them. You kind of want to tell them about the behind-the-scenes giggles, but then if you do tell them, you have to see the sad look reach across their eyes. The final option is to simply go along with the crowd, performing the scandalous act of giggling in secrecy, all at someone else’s expense. That’s what I—along with most of the world—have chosen to do with JoJo Siwa as she enters this forced goth-bad-girl era of her singing career.

Siwa, who has recently reinvented her rainbow persona to be darker, grittier, and “gay pop,” seems to have no idea that the world has made her the butt of the joke. Siwa’s “Karma” music video, released April 4, is perhaps the most unsettling video released in 2024. It also features Siwa animatedly humping her dance partner as vigorously as a dog thrusts his hips against a stranger’s shin. But at least when the dog does it, it’s not wearing a webbed jumpsuit with fishnets and leather, something Spider-Man might purchase if he landed on a sex shop somewhere in Queens.

Since the video’s release, folks all over the internet have been recreating the dance in particular, as well as making other Siwa moments go viral. The dance trend includes bigger names, too; Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts Tour dancers have recreated Siwa’s zombie-like dance moves, while just last Saturday, Billie Eilish reenacted Siwa’s dance moves at a Coachella afterparty.

“WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE,” Siwa said in a stitch to the TikTok of Eilish dancing. In the video, the queer former Nickelodeon superstar is horned-up, while sporting a bedazzled mohawk, a black jean jacket with sequins that spell out KARMA, and huge glasses ripped straight out of an LMFAO video—yes, this is the type of celebrity Eilish is a fan of. Nearly the entirety of Siwa’sTikTok profile is full of videos of her “celebrating” with other “fans” of “Karma”...does Siwa understand these posters aren’t true fans? That they’re posting making fun of her? Probably not.

One Twitter user wrote in response to Siwa’s take on the Eilish clip, “a new level of delusional has been unlocked.” Truly, I couldn’t have put it better myself: Even if Siwa understands that all these pop stars —along with the entire internet—are making fun of her, what good has this newfound, hokey popularity actually done for her? Seems like not a whole lot, but we may have to wait a few months to see how Siwa’s full edgelord transformation plays out.

Siwa’s version of the song isn’t even the most popular one out right now. Brit Smith originally recorded the song in 2012—Miley Cyrus also did an unreleased take—and now, her version has been given a more high-profile release. Smith’s “Karma’s a B*tch” has been charting higher than Siwa’s since it was released to streaming services, prompted by the popularity of its “unreleased” music video suddenly making it to YouTube. So even with all this extra attention on Siwa for her gonzo new image, her take on “Karma” isn’t even getting all that many streams in comparison to…the same exact song, just sung by someone else.

Now we arrive at the part of this article where you ask me, “Hey, isn’t it kind of mean to be punching down at a 20-year-old woman who, just a few years ago, was being celebrated for coming out as queer, therefore becoming an LGBTQ+ icon to the children who watched her on TV?” In return, I’ll show you this Rolling Stone article that alleges she and her mother, Jessalynn, emotionally and physically mistreated young girls on the show Siwas Dance Pop Revolution. Reportedly, the Siwas forced girls cry on camera, made one girl bleed through her belly button, as well as forcing her to return to the show too early following a surgery. Some of Siwa’s exes have also said she put them “through hell,” while Siwa continues to joke about wanting to host them on her podcast.

To quote a woman (usually the phrase is “to quote a wise woman,” but I hesitate to use the word “wise”), “Karma’s a bitch, I should’ve known better!” Siwa should’ve known better than to “eff around,” if you will. The singer may not deserve to be relentlessly mocked online, but this light teasing is totally deserved. Plus, again: It really does seem like she can’t even tell that the world is laughing at her.

So let them laugh, because we could all use a good guffaw. This video, for example, has sent me into fits of giggles over the past few weeks: A TikTok user suggests that some of Siwa’s lyrics—“Thou shall not lie/ Thou shall not cheat/ Thou shall not get caught/ Or you’ll end up just like me”—sound like a series of names instead of real words. They reinvented the song accordingly: Dashiell Nalai, Dashiell Nachee—hilarious.

Plenty of other celebrities have received this kind of public reaction before. Just a few years ago, Addison Rae was the laughing stock of the world when she released her song “Obsessed”—which is now considered a banger—around the same time she dropped the Netflix rom-com flop He’s All That. Now, in 2024, Rae has earned total superstar icon status. Earlier this year, she worked with Charli XCX on a “Von Dutch” remix; last year, she starred in the acclaimed horror Thanksgiving. She turned her image around. Can Siwa?

There’s a chance Siwa goes in the opposite direction from Rae, trying so hard to reinvent her edgy image that it comes off as ingenuine and cheugy. That’s what Camila Cabello, who recently attempted to rebrand her overall look (with blonde hair and an overall “edgy” vibe somewhat similar to Siwa’s), did with her new single “I LUV IT.” Cabello has earned some new fans—but the general consensus is that it’s not really working. Maybe it will one day.

But unlike Rae and Cabello, who are putting in the work to serve up tasteful new fashions, Siwa appears to be more intent in causing a stir than she is in developing an online fanbase. Siwa says it herself in “Karma”: “I was a bad girl, I did some bad things/ I swear I did it all for fun and it meant nothing.” Change your social usernames to badgirljojo, then, Siwa. I’ll continue to be fascinated by Siwa’s rebrand and the world’s reaction—but perhaps the most jarring facet of this whole situation is Siwa’s reactions to the reactions.