Exactly, and it shows how cultish the pop music industry has become. Every few years a new fresh-faced starlet, usually a product of the Disney megacapital machine, undergoes the transformation from pre-pubescent idol to fodder for cynical tabloid culture, with furious self-righteous adults primed to outlet their rage in a ritual of slut-shaming. It has ancient, cultic origins. Like a sacrificial harvest rite. South Park parodied this a few years ago in an episode where Britney Spears was photographed to death, then it accurately predicted that Miley Cyrus would be the next sacrificial virgin to get the treatment. I could reel off a list of examples but we already know them. It has become so predictable and disgusting.
That’s one of the reasons Billie Eilish could change things, and why I think the video I posted earlier with that “music critic’s” conspiracy theory about Billie being an “industry plant” is so laughable. Even the elements of her style that are “sexy” - the spiky collars and slave chains around her neck, the perverse innuendo in her lyrics, etc. - isn’t some marketing gimmick, it’s art. Instead of seducing you, it threatens and confuses (check out the Youtube video “Adults React to Billie Eilish” for proof). But despite being (and please forgive me for pointing this out, she’s 17 which is legal where I live), a perfect 10, she wears baggy clothes, curses like a sailor, is funny as hell and down to earth. In other words, the exact opposite of the ethereal, submissive pop whore the industry wants her to be. And it’s not about feminist empowerment for Billie imo, it’s about genius and art. Beating the industry (while it breathes its last, granted) at its game and waiting for it to catch up. Topped Billboard last week moving over 300k units. Not bad for a kid recording music she writes and produces herself in her family bedroom.