Those at the older end of the Gen Z spectrum are well familiar with the faces of pop royalty that signpost their youth. You’ve got the Britney Spears’ of the early 2000s, fresh-faced, doe-eyed, cute little Southern girls with one hell of a voice; you’ve got the Taylor Swifts and Miley Cyrus’ of the late noughties, the wholesome, country-song-singing, big-smile-wielding all-American girls; then there’s the Zendaya’s and Selena Gomez’s, successful products of the 2010s child-actor-come-teen-performer kid’s show formula – and the list goes on.
Although this array of young talent is all individual in their skill, unique in their ability, their journeys from young, unknown, pre-pubescent kids to the worldwide, household name performers we know today are startlingly similar. All products of the Disney and major record label machines, this group of artists have been packaged, branded, marketed and sold on much more than their singing capabilities over the course of their careers. As young girls and women working in an industry that values aesthetics as much as talent, the focus on these performers’ bodies and looks made sure every part of their image was refined, polished and perfected for their millions of fans around the globe.
But when we compare these iconic child stars in their hey-days to the stars that permeate the pop scene today, the exploitation of young performers seemingly flails in comparison to the images of empowerment we’re bombarded with from the young superstars who seem to exert more control over their own image. With the popularisation of personalised branding through social media, it appears control is being wielded by the users of these platforms – predominantly Instagram and TikTok – rather than having to rely on major record labels and multi-billion-dollar corporations to oversee marketing. Whereas child stars of the early 2000s had to rely on radio stations and record companies to ensure their music was heard, young performers of nowadays are seemingly able to cut out the distributing middleman and upload their art directly to their fans. But do the pop stars of today actually have more control and agency over their image, or does it just seem like they do?
Much like the music of their influences, current pop royalty revolves around those born in the new millennium. Although their rises to success may come only a decade or so after their contemporaries, these performers have stepped onto the scene in a totally new landscape. From Olivia Rodrigo’s phenomenal explosion into the industry with her debut single ‘Driver’s License’ finding an army-like audience on TikTok, to Billie Eilish’s discovery and subsequent eruption to fame on music-sharing platform SoundCloud, a key element to these pop superstars’ early careers is that the opening chapters to their stories are seemingly self-made.
Platforms like Instagram, TikTok and SoundCloud are revolutionary players in the game of talent-discovery, allowing potential stars of the internet to not only be the creators of content, but the distributors. Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez had next to no access to tools that would’ve allowed them to distribute their own music without the help of record label companies and managers; content-sharing platforms were still in their infancy when these mega stars were at their teen pop star peak, if they even existed at all. But as much as we think the young women of the modern pop scene have control over what they post on these platforms, are they really as in control of their image as much as we’d like to believe? Is the personal agency we’re witnessed to through control over how they present themselves online actually just the same old tricks of exploitation, masked as self-determined empowerment?
These questions are all of a sudden being asked a little louder than usual, with a recent onslaught of outspoken disdain for record companies by some of pop’s biggest names. Speaking out through the means of the platforms they’re being held hostage within, a number of pop stars – many of them female or non-binary – have shed a light to the demands their labels are making: social media virality in exchange for being allowed to release new music.
One of the biggest pop stars in the world, Halsey, recently published a TikTok to communicate their exhaustion and disdain for making ingenuine content so that their record label will let them release music. “Basically I have a song that I love that I wanna release ASAP, but my record label won’t let me,” the singer wrote over a video clip of them looking defeated. “My record company is saying that I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.”
A platform once used as a portal for creators – regardless of where they are at in their careers – to share content and be discovered, is now being weaponised as just another tool for major record companies to wield power over their talent. “Everything is marketing,” Halsey says in their video. “I just wanna release music man. I’m tired.” And Halsey isn’t the only one. Other major names of the likes of Charli XCX, Florence Welch (of Florence and the Machine) and FKA Twigs have all made similar claims of being held hostage to the demands of virality in order to release music.
It may look different these days, but the power these record labels and companies reign over their talent hasn’t changed in strength since the days of Britney Spears and Taylor Swift, it’s only changed form. Social media has the intoxicating effect of building parasocial relationships with people on a screen; fans of megastars not only follow their favourite musicians’ music, but they follow their lives. As much as it may seem that the girl-next-door Olivia Rodrigo types and the quirky, funny, down-to-earth Billie Eilish’s of the modern pop scene are exerting agency over the way they’re presented online – over their images, their careers and, ultimately, their lives – are they are all just smiling for the camera, hoping no one sees the gun to their heads hovering outside of frame?
Comments