Should I Delete That? - Why is Everyone Laughing at Jojo Siwa?

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

In this week's IIJM the girls break down Karma, Jojo Siwa's brand new single, and all of the backlash that she has faced because of it...Purchase tickets here for our first ever ✨LIVE TOUR!!✨Follow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to Should I Delete That? I'm Em Clarkson. I'm Alex Lai. Great. I don't know. Good start. Good start. So today we're talking, we need a catch up.

We haven't had like a current, I've been away for a couple of weeks. We haven't had like the current affairs catch up. And in the words of Emma, our social media manager, such a cheery message. up to this morning. The world is a dumpster fire at the moment. Excellent. That was the message. We started off strong. Great. Where do we start? I want to talk about Joe Joe Siwa so badly. Can you believe I didn't know who she was until? Very recently. I just didn't know. Yeah, because normally when something's like kicking off online, me and you talk about it in WhatsApp, which is why we started the re-format of the Thursday episodes because we need to do our jobs.

And yeah, you were like, who's Joe, do you see what do you mean who's Joe Cicassum? What do you mean who's Joe? Jo C. Have you ever seen a bow before? I actually, I recognised that once I started looking her up. Yeah. So, right, just in case you're like Alex and you're missing the situation and you haven't seen it, I just, I actually need to talk about like the state of the internet at the minute because,

so she is so viral right now. So viral. A child star, she got famous at nine. She went on a show called Dance Mums. And then she kind of became famous as this sort of like Disney child star performer, big bows in her hair and beads, glitter, rhinestones.

dancing, singing, like, cult favorite among kids. And now she's 20. She's gay. She's rebranding her life. She's gone for the goth thing. And she's kind of living it all out online and she's released a new song, which is actually catchy as hell, can I just say. Karma, yes, it was in my head for a long time last night.

It's still in mind. It's just going around the whole time. Karma is a bit. Anyway, she's so viral. The fucking comments and the commentary. around her, it's so deranged. And we talked about it at the time. We talked about the Liam Payne interview

and how everybody made, he just became the butt of the joke for two weeks where it was just this like, he is not human, he is just this punchline. And we are just going to go, go, go, go, go for him. And we're going to laugh at him and tear him apart. And that's just, like, we're completely dehumanised this guy and we're just going to whatever.

And then a few months later he appeared looking really unwell. And everyone goes, Oh no, what happened? What do you think? You fucking happened, you idiot. And now it's like we've got a 20-year-old girl and it's like the comments and yes, some of them are quite funny.

It's like, oh, she's dropped this song I wish she'd pick it back up again. Like, please un-release this. The comments in them of themselves and these aren't the worst jokes I've ever heard but like it's all I'm seeing. Everything. Everything is negative.

To the point where it's like we're trying to, it's like what we did before. It's like who can make the funniest joke. Who can get the likes with the most comments? at the expense of a 20-year-old girl, it's, like, I don't understand how we think people can survive this. Like, I don't understand how people think she's just going to survive this. Because, God forbid, she couldn't, fair fucks.

They'd make a documentary in five years' time and everyone would go, yeah, that looks rough. It's like, that looks, you're doing it right now. The piss-taking on this scale is terrifying to me. So you text me last night saying, I want to talk about Jojo, see what tomorrow. And I was like, who's that? Because, so I recognise her, obviously, but I went on to her page super viral.

So viral. So many followers. And I went on to the, you know, the latest video about her single karma. And she's, her dance moves in it. She's obviously really good at dancing, isn't she? Because dance was. Yeah, she's.

Which I used to love. I do remember her from that. And she's doing this, like, different. type of dance move in it where it's kind of like it's a bit nut yeah it's like I don't know jitter I don't know how to describe it it's impressive it looks like she's in fast motion yeah and the comments are wicked and I know that sounds like a really very specific and strange word but that's what incident will come to my mind I was like this is really wicked it's cruel yeah and it's evil and so many of the comments were like oh thank you jojo I have

epilepsy too thank you for bringing awareness I have seizures too joe thank you so much for bringing awareness to this, you know, taking the piss out of her dancing. And the amount of comments as well that were like, I need to thank you, Jojo. I've been paralysed since the car accident nine years ago, but I was able to stand up to turn off this song. And it's like... Yeah, and people saying, oh, I need to thank you for bringing my family back together.

When my grandma heard this song, she came back from the... She came out of her grave to tell me to turn my phone off. Yeah. It'll tell me to turn it off. It's like, oh my God. And people are pissing themselves at it. Yeah. And this has happened at a time where that TV shows come out about Nickelodeon, about child stars.

Yeah. We are very O'Fay with the reality of children's stars and the dangers of that. You know, like, Jeanette, what's her name, wrote the book? I'm glad my mom died. Yeah. McCurdy? Jeanette McCurdy? Yes.

Yeah. Such a good book about what it's like. Now, I can't, I don't know Joe Jesse, well, I listened to her call her daddy podcast this morning, which she came out today. Yeah. I don't know her I don't know her mom I can't speak to their relationship but that dynamic she has grown up

motherless in in one sense of the word and I don't mean like she doesn't I mean motherless in the mom maternity and she says in the interview I need my mummy mom that hurt me when I heard that because she doesn't have a mummy mum

she's got her manager mum and that doesn't mean she's not a great mum or a great person in her life but she's grown up in this situation that we've seen time and time again as a really dangerous one. And it strikes me as terrifying

that we can't have the empathy to connect the horror that we've seen play out time and time again with this person right now. We're having the two conversations in tangent. It's like, oh my God, all these child stars. It must be so hard to be a child star. We have to worry about the child stars,

but let's kick the fucking shit out of this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right now. And we have the power to literally not do that. We literally don't need to be doing. You don't need to tell these jokes. We don't need to... And they're gleeful.

It's gleeful, these jokes. And everyone's doing the... Like, it's... Yeah. It's like... It's what we did with Liam Payne. We can't help it. Everyone is so excited

that there's a new punching bag. There's like a new puppy to kick. It's so sad. All of it is so sad, but it's like this... And we have seen it time and time again with these child stars where they have to make the transition

from child star to adult star and make it very, very publicly. And it's like... Like, no matter which way they go, we've seen it with like Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears. It's like whichever way they go, you know, Miley kind of went more like wacky, a bit like Jojo. Well, Jojo keeps citing Miley as like her inspiration. And she's saying, you know, that transition is what I want to do. So all the comments are now being like, well, you're not as good as Miley and you're not as this.

And it's just like, well, obviously you can't just have two women doing similar things. You've got to put them in direct competition and use one to whack the other one with. But they did that. They did the wacky thing and then they laughed at and mocked and humiliated. Brittany did the sexy thing. Yeah.

And she was absolutely lambasted for that. Jojo didn't change. She stayed doing, it came up in the call her daddy interview. Jojo stayed doing the Disney thing and the Big Bo thing until she was 18. And then all the comments are like, you're too old for this.

Grow up. You need to do something else. Right. So now she's grown up. Yeah. And people are like, well, I like the way you grew up. Yeah.

You didn't grow up, right. Yeah. Yeah, you've grown up. wrong. But if she's a funny way of growing up, ha ha ha. But if she had done the, you know, become a typical like sexy pop star thing. That would be a big problem. That would also be a problem. Yeah, that would be a huge problem. So it's like what she's supposed to do. And she's also navigated coming out, which is a crazy thing to have to do at her level of publicity. And that's a massive part of who she is. And the comments, the jokes about that. And it's like,

like, it's just deranged. It's deranged. And you don't have to like her. You don't have to like her music. No, no, no. But you don't need to do this. No, no, no, no. And there's like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm hearing people on the other side, listening, on the side of this, listening to this, saying, well, you know, she's kind of asking for it. She puts out all this content. She's, she knows she's doing it to shock and blah, blah, but we also have to remember this this is like a 20 year old girl who's been in the public eye since she was nine years old she's always been famous she knows she's bought her parents house she's got all of her family on the payroll she is growing up in such a unique situation but even if she didn't even if she was a 30 year

old i keep saying this i keep having this conversation really interesting i just went away with people who aren't parents and it's my first time going away with with my family really with arlo and my sister's like child free doesn't really she's not really she's not really a kid person and the conversations i've had with her about like the instinctual judging that we do yeah that's really changed in me since becoming a parent because before if i saw a child tearing through a restaurant or whatever i'd be like oh god's sake where are the parents or whatever and now i just think you've probably been up or fucking like and you might be exhausted i hope they're okay where's the dad the mom's on her own is she on her going again i hope she's is someone looking after her

I wonder if she's had time to eat this morning. I have so much more empathy because I've been in that situation. And so it's just, it has changed me. And maybe I have more empathy for the internet thing because I've also been, how people be so horrible to me on the internet. But it really strikes me as like, we can only look at it in one context.

And it's with this full judgment. Like it's, we can't look and think, we can only look and think what she's asking for it. You chose to have kids. You chose to go on the internet. You chose to do this. Like, you chose to wear that. It's like, we can't hear ourselves.

But it's like, yes, she can choose to post these videos out. But she can't stop the beast that is the internet. It's the same as you can have a baby and you can't once it starts becoming a child. You can't, if you hate it, you can't undo it. Have compassion for that. If you become famous and then you hate it, everyone, well, if you don't like it, disappear. She's got her whole family on the payroll. How?

And also, the thing that we should be tackling is not like, oh, well, you're famous and you don't like a disappear is like the thing we should be tackling is why people why that is part and parts of being famous that people want to absolutely annihilate people. But it goes with what you just talked about. You did a video this week about Lana Del Rey and all the comments on her body and I commented on that real and it's just like the more I see this stuff it's like yeah there's body shaming there's an element to it there's there's there's I mean the branding there's sexuality there's you know the same shit different day isn't it like yeah there's all something and that's the thing that's really striking me it's like why is there always something

why can't we just fucking swipe past it's like we can't stop until we've obliterated people like we can't go until they have not a shred of confidence or security or life left in them we've just got to beat it out of them it's the worst absolutely no way the 20 year old girl I mean and yes we can look at her and think wow she looks so confident in her videos, like she looks like she just doesn't give a fuck. Absolutely not. There is no way that any 20-year-old girl is absorbing, is not absorbing all of this, like, this abundance of hate. And she said in the, call my daddy, call her daddy. Call her daddy. Call her daddy.

David. Al's asking you to call you. Call her daddy. She said in the podcast, you know, the host asked her, um, how do you feel about? about, you know, the trolling and the hate. And she was like, yeah, I call it new hate. Like, it kind of, I'm like, any new hate. It's like, ouch at first. I was like, fuck.

Like, I feel like she's trying to be brave about it. I don't know, maybe I'm reading between the lines. But of course it hurts. Of course it fucking hurts. And also, she was, she was, we're just like on a podcast referencing another podcast entirely, but she was, the host asked her, what does she regret? and the things she said that she regrets are like those viral moments where it's viral for a bad reason basically people taking the piss out of her and all those moments are things that have

been taken out of context and I was like they're not even yours to regret but I was like how how must it feel to know that the whole world is just like not even just waiting for you to trip up but like making you trip up yeah tripping you up yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's so true I didn't think about it like that desperately just waiting for a just just any kind of like egg of like this is it this is what going to take to make this another viral moment where it just you're absolutely mocked and humiliated it's just brutal it is and it's like and I know that again there'll still people going yeah but she still keeps going she still keeps going and it's like as she should I think this all the time like I posted a reel last night that

was like a bit baity and it was just laughing at some dude and the fucking anxiety that I felt as I posted it just because I'm I know I'm asking for it in a sense like in a little way I'm like If this goes on the wrong side of the internet, I'm fucked. Jojo is every side of the internet because she's so famous. And it's like, to say you can't do it or like she shouldn't be doing it, it's her whole, I don't know, it's this, it's the judgment of parents. It's the judgment of everyone. Like to say you can't do it or you shouldn't do it, it doesn't make sense.

Like it does, how does someone start unpicking their whole life? How do you start not doing the thing that it's all you know how to do? Exactly. It's a totally unreasonable request and it's not, it's not fair either. Since she was not, and she was saying that she moved to L.A. with her mom, her dad and her brother stayed back home in Atlanta. I can't remember all this one. They moved and they lived for six years, just her mom and her and her.

So she lived without her dad and her brother for six years while they were there. Like, as a teenager. And she, and she was saying that the bond with her mom is founded on work. Yeah. That's what she was saying. Like, like, that's how she bonds with her mom. That's how she, that's their whole relationship. Of course she's not going to give, I course she's not going to give it up.

Yeah, that's so true. She's not going to give her work up. Yeah, what, and completely ruin the bond. Her whole identity is probably, and take away the jobs of her whole family. Yeah. But then again, we shouldn't even have to justify. like why she shouldn't have to give it up. That's the thing.

But I don't know. It just makes it all feel even more particularly cruel. Maybe it's because we talked about the Liam Payne thing quite at length, you and I. And it's like, it's so frustrating. It's literally just like watching people put the same, it's just watching waves. It's just, and it's not ending. I can't see it ending. Like we had Selena Gomez two weeks ago where she was at the Grammys or the Oscars or whatever

and all the comments are about how much weight she's gained. And then it's Lana Del Rey. and how much weight she's gained and it's just and now it's Rihanna who's just had a baby but she's still too fat yeah and it's like guys stop it like and Will Smith is literally the last person I should be quoting on on punches quotes about punching but he did one years ago and he said like the internet and I'll paraphrase it slash butcher it but he said um the internet's got you all too comfortable like saying what you want without getting a slap in the face or something along those lines, which turned out to be a bit of prophecy.

But it's like, what's going on? Yeah. And it's just the joke element. That's the worst bit. It's like we're not, you know, I used to worry the most about gossip sites and I used to worry about the most about hate forums. And I used to think that's the worst and most dangerous bit of the internet. And that's what's going to kill people. And I stand by the fact that it probably will and will do, will do, we'll do that. And I would say to anyone listening, if you partake in it, you will have blood on your hands one day and that's that. I think the murkier area is the people who are making the jokes because I don't think you can so quickly say you'll have blood on your hands because that's a huge

accusation and a huge, you know, ladle of guilt for someone to deal with. But how can we look at ourselves when we're doing, because we wouldn't do this. We couldn't do this to a 20 year old in our real life. We simply couldn't. No way. No way. And I don't understand how we can justify it. I don't understand how we can because it's normal people and it's a lot of them and like even i'm like tempted to make a joke about the dance or make a joke about the i don't know yeah because the temptation is there because it's what we do it's it's just part of the conversation and then you have to really catch yourself and be like why am i doing this like can we exist without talking about other people like that?

I don't know. Can the internet thrive without it? I don't know. That's actually a really good question. But then I think that it's existed for a long time even prior to the internet. But it was just never as dangerous beforehand because it was kind of kept within circles

and it wasn't put on this public platform. Worry, like really worry for her mental health. And I think the internet dehumanised is like the distance but I guess that's always been the case with celebrities as like we dehumanize celebrities because they feel distance from us

and we feel like they're like a kind of a different breed of people but we are way but we are way too quick to dehumanize and to dehumanize to such an extent now that it's like evil when I don't think it's all evil people doing it no no no that's the thing

I don't think they're evil at a call Even people, doing the dance, doing the dance, right, is in this is where it gets complicated because it's very easy as black and white to say, if you're on a hate for them, you're a hateful person. It's easy for me to kind of make that in my head and make that make that make sense in my head. I don't know if I even mean a hateful person. I don't think that's true. But it's easier for me to equate guilt with something as tangibly unkind is probably what I mean. Yeah. What I can't work out in my own head is the jokes. And the responsibility of we have not to make jokes because I do always think punching down is the lowest form of wit.

And I do think like when I see comedians attacking minority groups or whatever, I just think, well, that was cheap and that was lazy. And as a result, it's not funny. But then it's like, I don't know, you've got like James Charles doing the Jojo dance. And then I saw a clip of Jojo being upset and being like, yeah, well, he did ask me before he did it. And it's like, well, that's complicated. But like, is it funny? Is it, are we allowed to laugh?

I don't know. Like, I can't work out. because we don't know her I know in my friendship with you what's okay to laugh about and that isn't but people we make that decision based on people

that we don't know and it's and I just I don't know it makes me really scared because it's like it like yeah it just makes me because if we work up to the

worst news next week that she couldn't handle this I wouldn't like that'd be like yeah well yeah well it's a really good point like are we like are we allowed to

laugh at it are we allowed to find it funny? That's actually a really good question. Because I don't know. And I think that's becoming like really a question that's being explored in the mainstream now, doesn't it? It feels like that with like Ricky Javis talking about it and his thing that's just come out. Like, you know, what can we find funny? What can we not find funny?

Like, I don't know. I feel like people are really. Because there's just the boomer thing. Well, no one can take a joke at this at this day of age. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, I'd go back to point you. It's a grey area.

It's definitely a grey area. Yeah. Because I don't know what defines comedy. But also I think comedians have a level of individualistic responsibility. And they have to work that out within themselves. Like if Ricky Jervais is going to make a joke and I don't really know his stuff to know who he's targeting or Frankie Boyle or whatever, you know, any of these like controversial people. Yeah. If they can lay their heads down at night and make peace with what they've done and what they've said, then, you know, maybe that's that.

But I think that's much more deliberate. They're writing it, they're scripting it. I think what frightens me is the way that we fire off the jokes. And it's not scripted. It's not thought about. It's so quick now. And then we've got to deal with, it's like Caroline Flack. Everybody jumped on that when it was in the news without the full fucking picture,

as is often the case. And then afterwards they have to deal with their own guilt and question their own part of it. Sorry, I'm still thinking about this question. It's so interesting because it's like, but I guess it's not in the forum of comedy what she's doing. And I guess we are laughing at her. We're laughing at her with her. If we're laughing at her with her self-expression. Yeah, we're not laughing at her jokes.

Which we tend to do it with women, right? We laugh at their self-expression. We don't really like it. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. But it was like we smelt the vulnerability on him. It's like people can't help it. It's like, it's literally like. It's packed.

Yeah, there's a weird thing. There's a wounded dog We're going to kick it to death Yeah Like and it's so fucked up And we can kind of justify it to ourselves It's like well it's a joke Do you think that's in our nature though

Because that scares me Is that like inherent? I do think it is part of existence Like if you get a poorly zebra The other zebras in the herd Will kick it to death Because it's slowing them down And I always remember

You know do you remember that first dog That my family adopted Will Yeah And we found We saw him on the street in a little village in Cyprus and school kids came out of school and were kicking him

Yeah, I rescued a dog that was being kicked by kids once And that I was like, oh my God, you are so Callous But you're so young Like, I don't know Is this like, is this indicative of your like I mean kids pull wings off lies

Like our nature Yeah But then I don't know I would never kick a dog There does seem to be a cruelty Yeah And an enjoyment that's derived from cruelty I see a lot of like the the fat shaming and I think that feels this is

what's interested this is like the kind of interesting divide it's like the the Lana Del Rey Selena Gomez those comments like the commentary about their body that's meant to her like and it does feel like men for the most part yeah yeah there's there are two different prongs there's like there are there are people who are genuinely just trying to hurt people and it's an easy low-hanging fruit just go for a plasticised woman because it's easy and it's a really cheap way of bringing a woman down but that that feels different and equally cruel and terrifying that we are in a place where it's just fucking relentless but the the joking is like that's just where I can't like okay so weirdly I

met this woman while I was away whose daughter went viral recently for a clip I'm not going to say it because it completely identifies her but for a clip that went mad viral and she was she wasn't she wasn't she's not a famous person she was doing um yeah she was she was she was not a famous person at all okay and she was taken one quote was taken and someone made it into a song and the her mom was saying the abuse that she got was like nothing that she never saw it coming it came out fucking nowhere one sound bite of her was taken from one thing that she did she is not famous she's not anybody in online you know it's not like we're ready to tear this one person down because people didn't even know her name it just went incredibly viral and yeah it's only 20 minutes in

the scheme of life you know like it's a week of her life but that is so defining oh my god that stuff sticks it will stick with her it will traumatise her forever it will make her scared of her phone it will make her scared of her appearance it will make her doubt herself it will make her doubt her voice and everything she says from now on her confidence will have been obliterated. Yeah, yeah. Like when you read those comments about yourself when you're 17. I never got over them. In the Daily Mail. I never got over there. Yeah, yeah. That stuff sticks. It sticks. Yeah. And that was small, that was small fish. If I had to deal with, and I know this having gone through it, and that was 12 years ago, I read comments and I could recite them all to you now. I could recite every single one

of them word for word, spelling mistakes and all because they are so ingrained and they are so much a part of my tapestry and who I am, if I had had it on a bigger scale publicly, if people, at least for me, it was this deep shame of one comment section and I just knew I couldn't look at it. I just knew that this, if it was everywhere I looked, I don't think, I don't, genuinely I don't know if I'd have survived it. I really don't. If I'd had it on the scale, because I've had it, I've had it in my life. And at that age, I don't think I, I don't think I'd have wanted to live anymore. Because it made me not want to be me. I read them and I said, I can't be me anymore.

I'm the worst. It will make me cry. Like, I hated, it made me hate myself. I can't, I can't even imagine. A 17 year old is such a vulnerable, like, formative age anyway. And that was small scale versus what's happening now. I don't know how people survive it. And I don't know how we, as humans, go, ha-ha.

It's just, it's the other night. Yeah. It's just what we do. We just laugh at people now. It's so fucking cruel. It really scares me. And if we're not making the jokes, we're liking the jokes. Yeah.

And the temptation. And we're scrolling to find more of the jokes. Yeah. And even like me, the biggest hypocrite in the whole world who's literally been through it, I'm still like, ha ha. There's still a massive part of me that wants to go and learn the Jojo choreography

because I think I'd be really good at it. And it's like, well, there's something wrong with me then. But I don't know. I can't work out where I land on it. Do you know what? I think it'd be good to have like a psychologist. Oh my God. We should speak to about this

and try and get into the psychology of... The pack mentality. Yeah. What the internet's doing to us? Because is it making us worse? 100%. Yeah. Fuck.

Fuck. Okay. Well, that leaves a lot of unanswer questions. We actually... Join us in our turmoil. Thrown up a lot of questions. Yeah, welcome to Thursday. We accept Thursday's new format.

Do you know what, though? It would be interesting to hear what people think about this, actually, where they land on this. So if you want to send us an email, we'd love to, because we could do another, is it just me, talking about your opinions on this. I think that'll be really cool. So if you want to send us... send us voice notes. You can send us voice notes on Instagram.

Actually delete that or you can email us. Should delete that pod at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you on this. That'd be really cool. Yeah. And I think, yeah, we need to try and find somebody because I do, yeah. And if you have suggestions for somebody

that we can speak to about this, that would be really cool as well. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, welcome to Thursdays and Exorcentials. I think we should rename them. I feel sad.

Yeah, I feel sad and bleak. Yeah. Brilliant. On that note, we love you. Sorry for making you sad and bleak too. See you on Monday. Love you loads. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening. Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator network.