Where did Fletcher and JoJo Siwa go wrong?

If you have been following The L Word-esque web of breakups, controversies and memes permeating the Sapphic side of the internet for some time now, then you’ll recognize the names Fletcher and JoJo Siwa. While both are undeniably regular celebrities in their own right—Siwa from her stint on Lifetime’s Dance Moms and uber-success as a Nickelodeon child star afterward, and Fletcher from her time on The X Factor U.S. and ensuing chart success—their reputations precede them as pillars of lesbian TikTok and the Sapphic pop music scene. The unbreakable connection between these two artists and the lesbian subsection of popular culture was not established accidentally. Both Fletcher and Siwa created a firm link between their art and their sexuality loudly and commercially. But now that both artists have found themselves “coming out” as dating men in recent months, the clumsy transition away from their Sapphic branding and into something more true to themselves calls into question the value of tying an artist’s product to their sexuality, and what it means to be queer representation as a real person. 

For those living under a rock (or simply aren’t keyed into the Sapphic side of TikTok), you might be blissfully unaware of the absolute shitstorm of drama that has loomed like a dark cloud over this Pride Month within the lesbian community. JoJo Siwa—self-proclaimed founder of “gay pop”—went on Celebrity Big Brother UK and messily unpacked her attraction to co-star Chris Hughes before going on to date him once the show wrapped. Fletcher—a Sapphic pop trendsetter and controversy magnet—disappeared into the woods for six months and returned with a boyfriend and a shame-filled song titled “Boy,” which dares her audience to judge her for it. While discovering your sexuality is never a bad thing, the messaging surrounding both Siwa’s and Fletcher’s shifts in identity has been troubling. 

Let’s start with Fletcher. She is allowed to date whomever she wants, write whatever kind of music she wants, sell whatever kind of merch she wants and promote her album in any way she damn well pleases. However, her status as both a brand and a product—whether she wants to be or not—is where the wholesome, bubbly feelings expressed in her recent Rolling Stone interview or the hand-wringing fear laced throughout the dour “Boy” become problematic. When an artist primarily known for her unapologetic and loud Sapphic lyricism wipes her Instagram and replaces it with imagery of her running through a field, debuting a softer, less leather-clad aesthetic in the middle of the most conservative Pride Month we’ve seen in ages, the messaging begins to feel like an intentional swing away from the community she’s cultivated for the past five years and two album cycles. 

This aesthetic shift calls to mind similar pop-girl swings. Miley Cyrus grew out her hair, lay in the grass and returned to the country-tilted pop she started with on 2017’s “Malibu,” distancing herself from the party-girl persona she established during the Bangerz era. It’s a tactic that has been used by everyone from Lady Gaga (gone were the daring surprises of Artpop on her more demure Joanne) to Billie Eilish (Happier Than Ever, with its clean cover and white sweater, was a striking departure from When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?). 

While Fletcher did jump on TikTok to express that starting fresh on Instagram is something she does every era and that she has not been “changed” by the man she is currently dating, the words do little to assuage the messaging behind the product being sold. The T-shirts marketed to her primarily lesbian audience simply saying “Boy” are the least of her worries—it’s the familiar aesthetic shift that signals a point of healing and a distance from her persona of the past, just as her peers have used before her. Her forthcoming album, Would You Still Love Me If You Really Knew Me?, asks her audience its titular question, of course, but it also loudly establishes its own slew of connotations that cannot be undone by a TikTok apology or any anxious explanations. She kissed a boy, and now she’s healed; she kissed a boy, and now she’s clean; she kissed a boy, and now she’s so far removed from the woman stripping off her tank top on the cover of 2022’s Girl of My Dreams. 

It certainly doesn’t help that “Boy” finds Fletcher leaning in to her worst instincts as a songwriter, employing her cheeky and endearing Gen Z slang in a way that’s clumsy instead of cute, distracting instead of enhancing. She posits that this turn of events “wasn’t on [her audience’s] bingo card this year,” struggling to find any deeper meaning beyond tired tropes (“Maybe I’ve changed/ Or maybe it’s just him,” she croons, echoing the sentiment that lesbians just need to “find the right man” in order to get over their Sapphic affliction). It’s a song defined by its uninspired hand-wringing about what others will think of her. While it’s a valid concern in a bubble—I mean, look at the wave of biphobic responses to the song that have already been circling—it becomes more worrying when placed against the backdrop of our current political climate, the lack of context within the song itself, and the poor timing of its release. Putting out a song at the start of Pride Month “coming out” as dating a man when your music was previously about women feels tone deaf at best and downright malicious at worst. 

Based on her past controversies, it’s easy to assume that this is simply Fletcher’s modus operandi. According to Rolling Stone, Knew Me?’s opener “Party” finds Fletcher removing herself from her drama-fuelled past (“I’d love to let you love me/ ’Cause I’m that kind of whore/ Who needed the attention/ I don’t need anymore”), but the timing of this release and the drama in which she is once again embroiled seem to suggest otherwise. With an entire career built on various scandals and viral controversies (from collaborating with her ex on a risqué EP and set of music videos to thoughtlessly dragging the same ex’s new girlfriend into the promotional cycle for her single “Becky’s So Hot”), Fletcher’s response to the community’s outrage feels more like feigned ignorance than genuine surprise. But isn’t the drama what kept us all coming back? The fearless lyrics that were both cheeky and shocking; the unfiltered attitude that screamed confidence and conviction? “Boy,” in its tangible fear and stilted honesty, becomes doubly disappointing as the product of an artist who once felt so assured, now cowering behind confused messaging and a genuine fear of the audience she once hungrily cultivated. 

In a similar vein, the controversy around Siwa’s journey has been boiling for the better part of her adult career—now bubbling over after her latest sudden rebrand. While embroiling herself in the discourse surrounding her “Can’t Be Tamed”-esque switch to a more risqué style of music-making to specifically distance herself from her ponytailed Dance Moms persona that has dominated kids’ media for the better half of the last decade, Siwa made the selling point of both “Karma” and the album that would follow (2024’s Guilty Pleasure) her sexuality. The self-proclaimed CEO of gay pop featured female love interests in her music videos and her live performances, and positioned herself at the very apex of the LGBTQ2S+ community at every promotional stop. It’s that overzealous and still-bemoaned era that makes her loud proclamation of “F—k the ‘L’!” on Celebrity Big Brother after discovering she’s more of a “Q” so baffling to the lesbian community. Siwa specifically used her sexuality to market her music, keeping lesbianism so close to her branding that she insisted on coining her own music genre, only to then entirely abandon that messaging, imaging and branding choice when she began dating her new partner. The intentional separation between the JoJo she once was and the JoJo she is now mirrors the same troubling imagery present in this new Fletcher era, signalling that each of these women is now removed from that “toxic” or “messy” phase of their lives and have finally found something real—something entirely removed from the throes of Sapphic-presenting relationships that escalated them to this point of fame and notoriety within the LGBTQ2S+ community. 

But that’s the problem, right? These aren’t characters in your favorite TV show or book, they’re human beings with autonomy, feelings and whims. While sexuality isn’t always fluid, it absolutely can be, and seeing Fletcher and Siwa embrace their newfound identities in real time is heartwarming. The stories of queer artists, especially queer artists in heteronormative-presenting relationships or exploring other aspects of their sexuality, are valid and welcome within the community. But that ability to grow and change slides further out of reach the more an artist aligns their product—the music, the merch, the tours—with their sexuality. Instead of a triumphant rallying cry flaunting the liberating feeling of self-discovery, these aesthetic changes and poor word choices become indicative of a changing product and have wider implications beyond the journey of an individual singer or songwriter. 

Artists like Reneé Rapp and Dove Cameron are the perfect example of the possibility for a smooth transition between muses and discoveries in sexuality. Rapp, who had previously identified as bisexual for much of her professional career before using her Saturday Night Live appearance as a platform to hard-launch her lesbianism, has continued to write and perform songs about her relationships without feeling the need to pen apology tracks to all of her fans who had expected more songs about dating both women and men. Cameron, who exploded to TikTok viral fame with her track “Boyfriend” in 2022, never framed her bisexuality as a middle finger to her child stardom and Disney ties, ensuring her various songs about women were simply that—songs about women, just the same as her songs about men. Cameron’s recent comeback singles “Too Much” and “French Girls” both feature a male muse, but neither attempt to rehab her image in any way. And it’s the casual nature of both Rapp’s and Cameron’s fluidity and shifting inspirations that makes their transitions feel seamless in comparison to what we’ve seen from Siwa and Fletcher; that makes their change in audience, intention and presentation feel natural and celebratory rather than inflammatory and ashamed. 

In a world where real people are forced to become beacons of sexuality and representatives of the community lest they face the wrath of inquisition and disownment (like Kit Connor’s and Becky Albertalli’s forced coming outs pushed by skeptical audiences questioning their places in queer media), it’s increasingly difficult to present as both an authentic individual and a mass-marketable product. The popularity of TikTok-forward music promotion asks artists to become an instantly recognizable figure in a 15-second window before someone scrolls away. Their music—their product—gets shaved down to the bare-bones highlights, akin to its BookTok brethren trapped in trope hell. In that way, it’s not truly Fletcher’s or Siwa’s fault that their audiences were sold a specific, static premise; rather, it’s the fault of a pattern that plagues a music industry continually asking its artists to commodify every aspect of their lives and personality to boost streams. However, that also does not absolve them of scrutiny for how those changes are presented.  

For Fletcher, Siwa and any other artist looking to make a significant branding shift in relation to sexuality or identity, there is still an expectation of care and consciousness from the LGBTQ2S+ community. Because in the middle of the drama and the controversies and the mixed messaging, there are real-world consequences associated with these swings. Some are claiming that both Siwa and Fletcher are now “cured,” referring to them each by their real names (Joelle and Cari, respectively) and insisting that embracing their “feminine energy” and dating a man has radically shifted who they are as people. And it’s that problematic way of thinking and speaking which is continually catapulting us back into a more conservative era. “Let women date men!” they cry, as if heteronormativity is something that has ever gone away. Siwa, in particular, continues to add fuel to the fire, noting in an interview that she felt “pressured” to come out as a lesbian by those within the community rather than continue to identify as pansexual following her string of exclusively female-presenting partners. And while Siwa’s lived experience is, once again, completely valid and worth sharing, the continued finger-pointing toward the community feels like a pointed separation from her queer peers, carelessly inviting more homophobic rhetoric to be added to this unending discourse. 

More than anything, Siwa’s and Fletcher’s confused and controversial swings speak to the cultural shift of the past five years, where sexuality can be endlessly commodified for easily marketable art and a moment of self-discovery can be used by bad-faith actors as a weapon against marginalized communities. With so much responsibility looming over the heads of our queer icons, we can only ask them for thought and respect in dealing with these changing tides, and we as queer audiences should be ready to give thought and respect right back.