jojo siwa thinks she invented gay pop

she just fell out of a coconut tree

Welcome to this week’s dispatch from the lesbian internet, a mid-week news roundup from Paging Dr. Lesbian, exclusively for paid subscribers. If you like this type of thing, subscribe.

Gay pop? More like go-back-to-school and respect-your-elders pop, am I right? The biggest headline in lesbian orbit this week comes from none other than JoJo Siwa, Dance Moms survivor and purveyor of Gen Z cringe. Last week, Siwa released her new single “Karma,” which is about being a bad girl and doing bad things like creating a toxic work environment. (Just kidding! It’s about cheating.) She says her new era is modeled after Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz era, but it feels more like Reputation, rhinestones and all. In the video, Siwa dances on a yacht – and later a deserted island – alongside her wronged paramours, dressed like she’s a member of KISS. It’s all very on the nose, but you have to admit the song is catchy.

During promo for the song, Siwa did an interview with Billboard Music where she claimed to be starting a new genre of music “called gay pop.” Siwa was immediately roasted for her ahistorical comment, which was so absurd that even Tegan and Sara felt they had to get involved. Ignoring the entire history of music for a second - including that very gay genre of disco – Siwa seems to also have forgotten about her lesbian contemporaries in pop music, which includes artists she’s met and hung out with (see below). There’s also plenty to be said about young queers like Siwa having an aversion to the word “lesbian,” but that’s a conversation for another day. This is exactly what Kamala Harris was talking about.