By Amelia Pozniak ’26
Contributing Writer
JoJo Siwa, of “Dance Moms” and Nickelodeon fame, has attracted the spotlight again this spring with an announcement that she’s pioneering gay pop. The actress and dancer, who identifies as pansexual, has previously appeared in “The Fruitties Are Back” (2022), “Kung Fu Sock” (2022), “The Angry Birds Movie 2” (2019) and “Siwa’s Dance Pop Revolution” (2021). On April 5, 2024, she released her latest project, a pop single accompanied by a music video titled “Karma.”
Along with new music, JoJo, whose formal name is Joelle, has introduced the world to what she considers to be a more mature era for herself. When you think of the “Dance Moms” star, you probably call to mind images of hair bows, high ponytails and leggings adorned with inordinate amounts of rhinestones.
However, Siwa no longer wants to be associated with the peppy pop-princess persona that made her a household name to families with children under eight. Her single “Karma” marks her dramatic new transformation… into a shark.
With spiked hair and body decorations, black makeup around her eyes and a narrow mohawk, Siwa emerges from the water like a shark out of a scene from “Jaws.”
So why has JoJo taken such a drastic and aquatic turn, and why is her new single showing up when you try to look for a Chappelle Roan song? Fans of Doja Cat going to the 2023 Met Gala as a cat, or anyone who remembers when Sam Smith mistakenly claimed that he was the first gay person to win an Oscar in his 2016 acceptance speech, may be interested in this transformation.
In an interview with Billboard, Siwa remarked that she “wanted to start a new genre [of music]… called ‘gay pop.’” This is a bold statement, considering the multitude of gay voices in music before 2003, the year of Siwa’s birth. After receiving backlash from already established musicians and artists in the LGBTQ+ community, she later rephrased her claim to TMZ, saying, “I definitely am not the inventor of gay pop, for sure not,” and suggesting, instead, that she could be the CMO of the genre.
The LGBTQ+ community at Mount Holyoke College has had some words on this statement from Siwa. “Maybe you should start a career [as the CMO] of being a clown instead,” Abi Nguyen ’26 said when asked how she felt about Siwa’s statement.
It’s hard not to wonder if Siwa’s rebrand is deserved — the former child star has had a relatively clean history, save for stray accusations about the toxicity of the dance world she gathered fame from. With a Nickelodeon-clean brand and very little controversy, what call is there for Siwa to take on such a drastic persona? If her words claiming to be a “bad girl” in her new single don’t sound as if they're her own, that’s because they aren’t. Siwa is not the first to try her hand at “Karma.” Her new single was originally written by Rock Mafia for Miley Cyrus’s “Can’t Be Tamed” (2010) album. However, Cyrus declined the song, and Brit Smith picked it up and recorded the track in 2012 before Siwa later repurposed it. The original version by Brit Smith can be found on Spotify.
Between the auto-tune and the disconnect between Siwa’s persona and her new attitude, “Karma” falls short of a rebrand and comes off more as an aesthetic phase. The lyrics are choppy, and when JoJo sings, “Thou shall not lie, thou shall not cheat,” it’s hard not to cringe. Her references to being a “wild child” are even harder to believe, given the highly televised nature of Siwa’s adolescence.
“Karma” aches with auto-tone, and the poor costuming choices overshadow Siwa’s naturally blond hair and blue eyes for a stark and attention-grabbing look that overwhelms her complexion. Her dancing — the talent that got her fame in the first place — is aggressive and emotionally lacking. There is creative potential in JoJo’s rebrand, but “Karma” falls short of succeeding in her vision.
“I think they should cut her bangs like Reneé Rapp,” Diana Perez ’26, who loved the actress in “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” said. “If she’s going to really rebrand, she’s got to ditch that ponytail forever.”
So where does Siwa’s rebrand fail, and where does it succeed? There is no denying that the music video distances her from the child-friendly crowd she established her career with on shows like “The Thundermans,” and Siwa is no stranger to making bold statements, following her appearance as part of the first same-sex dance team on “Dancing with the Stars.” The boldness of her music video has caught a lot of attention, with “Karma” streamed nearly a million times on Spotify with a current hit of 5,551,515 listens on April 21.