Monday, September 28, 2020

"People are drawn to her, but they don’t know why"

In the latest edition of Ryan Broderick's excellent newsletter, he discusses a new Tiktok star:
I had not heard of Poarch until earlier this month, which I didn’t find particularly unusual. I’m 30 years old. I have become comfortable with my increasing cultural irrelevance, doomed to spend the remainder of my years walking this rotten Earth as a living corpse, completely oblivious to what is cool and interesting. Although, in this particular instance, it might not be my fault that I’ve never heard of Bella Poarch. It looks as though she was basically invented wholesale by a digital marketing firm earlier this year.

Poarch’s big break on TikTok happened in August when she lip synched to the “M to the B” audio, which comes from the 2016 grime song “Millie B (Sophie Aspin Send)” by Millie B. The video actually rips tbh. Mille B and Sophie Aspin were two aspiring teenage grime rappers from the UK who spent a few months making diss tracks at each other — or sends — while being signed to the same dodgy marketing/talent agency. The Channel 4 documentary about the whole thing is extremely grim.

It’s an interesting song choice for Poarch to blow up with because it seems as if she’s part of her own bizarre viral marketing scheme.