Before Poppy (the meta-celebrity collaboration between vocalist Moriah Rose Pereira and producer/director Titanic Sinclair, previously known as That Poppy) set her sights on pop stardom, she was a YouTube hit for her creepy-kawaii videos that subversively - and coyly - commented on fame, fandom, celebrity worship, internet culture, superficiality, and authenticity. Despite gaining her first taste of fame on a video platform, however, Poppy once claimed (in an interview with PopCrush) that she did not think that “music videos are as important as they used to be”, and that ““Content” is “content” for most people and they are content with that”.
Her social media fan base may be “content” with her regular updates of stylized bite-sized satire, but transcending the boundaries of internet fame is going to require something more. It is unsurprising that her 2015 music video for “Lowlife”, the lead single from her debut EP Bubblebath, has far more views (34.2 million) than her most-viewed non-music video “I’m Poppy” (13 million). The music videos for the other singles from her debut album Poppy.Computer (Oct 2017) have unfortunately failed to live up to the production value of “Lowlife”, relying on the same minimalism (a blank backdrop, a few fashion-forward outfits, some choreography) and the modest production budgets for her regular videos.
Thanks to Titanic Sinclair’s music video crowdfunding endeavor via Kickstarter earlier this year, however, “Lowlife” now has a “visually-stunning” sequel in the form of a music video for "Bleach Blonde Baby” (the seventh single from the album). With $19,596 from 302 contributors, Sinclair and his production team can back up the song’s hyperbolic portrait of what we expect from a contemporary femme pop star ('I'm softer than a daisy, if you cut me I'll bleed pink/ I'm bleach blonde, baby, that's how God made me/ Not everyone was born this perfect/ But, it's just my burden to bear) on the visual front. Poppy now has eyelashes that are literally seven feet long, rabidly devoted fans, and an Illuminati-style throne in her own church. Like those expensive Times Square ads, this is the kind of visual real estate that was part-and-parcel of the career trajectory of every major female pop star since Madonna. Or, as Nielsen phrases it, the opportunity to use music videos to “boost brand perception and purchase intent for even greater impact” and to “drive exposure through additional channels for fans to consume”.
It is only apt that “Lowlife” satirized the drudgery and exploitation behind the pop machine, while “Beach Blonde Baby” takes on a star’s preternatural self-assurance of her capacity to invoke admiration, envy, adoration, and attention. As Lexi Pandell observed in her comprehensive Poppy profile on WIRED, the core contradiction of her fanbase is that “she can parody YouTubers and bubblegum pop stars and be venerated like the very celebrities she lampoons”. Here’s a vision befitting a self-aware, postmodern, and delectable manifestation of our “cotton candy dreams” - and an effectual bridging of the gap between performativity and reality.
