WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Social Mediators: Jojo Siwa Crash Course

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

This week we discuss the former Dance Moms star and current pop singer who cannot sing: Jojo Siwa. Tune in for an April-Fools-inspired episode structure, to hear the chronically offline Garrett Goolsby talk about bows and internet drama, and Jillian blow everyone's mind (against her will) with how much she knows about Jojo Siwa's lore.  

This is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 1.1.1.7 FM, where we examine the truth disparity between what's on social media and what's actually true. I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Gary Gulesby. And that intro wasn't necessarily actually relevant for this episode. We figured in the spirit of April Fool's Day, we would do some funky switching it up. And what better topic to switch it up with than Jojo Siwa herself. So the way that this is going to work out is that Garrett's actually going to start us off this episode. He's going to tell me what he's seen in the news about Jojo Siwa.

But I have years of being on TikTok and scrolling for many hours a week. I told you not talking with this. I know it's bad, but I just feel the need to assert my expertise here. There's a JoJo Siwa expert. Because I am, like, as much as anybody else would be on TikTok. I might be more. I don't know. I mean, I did do some, like, extra little scrolling for this.

Like, I did refresh my memory, but I did know all of this already. So, yeah, I am really excited to see what you found. And then I'm going to come in and fill in the gaps for you. So go ahead and take it away, Garrett. Okay. So the reason why we're doing this the way we're doing it in reverse is because is Jojo Siwa is a person whose life has been lived out on social media instead of in the real world. So we are essentially intuiting that the most accurate information about her and her life and who she is is actually not going to be on the regular internet and is going to be present on social media.

So I'm going to tell you what the regular internet told me. And it's going to seem like a lot of weird, choppy pieces of information that sort of all fit together in the story arc of another young pop star from several years ago in our generation, whom I will reference here in a moment. So her real name is, is it Joelle Joani? I'm definitely saying that. I don't know. I just know where it's Jojo Siwa. Yeah.

Joelle Joanne, but she shortened it to Jojo. Okay, so how'd she get famous? She was on dance moms and Abby's ultimate dance competition, neither of which I have watched. But I know them to be reality TV shows where very little people are put under a lot of pressure to dance very well. and perhaps under an enormous strain. But anyway, she did a really good job, apparently. Then she got huge on YouTube.

And by huge, I mean, really, like most people under the age of, I don't know, 20 have consumed some kind of content that she's produced on a fairly regular basis. She got famous also for wearing giant bows. I actually knew about this through one of my little sister's best friends who, in a time of kind of a JoJo Siwa craze, she showed up at our house one day wearing an enormous bow, like the size of her head. And I was like, why does somebody know a bow that big? And she was like, it's a Jojo Siwa bow. So anyway, the bows, they're a big deal, less of a big deal now than they were kind of when she was a little bit younger in her teenage years. Just for context, I looked up how much these bows cost $30 to $50, depending on the bow. which is a very expensive thing

for something that's basically just a tied up piece of ribbon for context. Most Walmart bows cost $5 to $10. Are you sure? Yes, $30 to $50. That's absurd. Yes, so we'll get back to the bows here in a minute because they've made her quite wealthy, that and other things, but she also wears really bright colors,

dyes her hair, all kinds of fun bubblegum color-y type colors. She has a huge contract with Nickelodeon, and like all great celebrities must at some point, she co-hosted a show with Nick Cannon. I think it's just part of what you have to do if you're a celebrity. It was a lip-sync battle for young people. But anyway, she got a big contract with Nickelodeon to do that. She was born May 19, 2003, which makes her about 20 years old at this point in Omaha, Nebraska.

Her dad is a chiropractor, and her mom is a dance instructor. And sounds like a pretty intense gal. Jess Sewa. She, uh... Jesselin? Jesselin, yeah. Yeah. It sounds like this whole make your daughter a famous pop star thing, in large part, is due to her influence and her being Jojo's manager for quite some time.

It sounds like she has kind of a real manager now, but that mom still does a lot of things and is involved. I couldn't find a whole lot about her specifically, just kind of tendentially. I found that her first big hit as a song was called Boomerang. and it was about cyber bullying. I'm not sure that I've ever heard a song about cyber bullying. It was about cyber bullying. Apparently people like... I can sing it for you if you want.

No, listen to it. No, should I have for research purposes? Maybe. It's not very good. It's not very good. I have a quote from her about her bows. Why she wears the big bows. This was back when she was, I believe, 15, maybe 16 when she said this.

She said they symbolize power, confidence, and get this. believingness. She said believingness. Anyways, I don't know what that's supposed to mean. But that is a direct quote. Like I said, the cheapest ones are like 20 plus dollars higher end. You're talking like

40, 50 bucks for a bow. But they've made her so much money. In fact, she's worth 20 to 30 million dollars. Oh yeah. And she's also launched books and lifestyle merch. And I'm a little bit curious about reading a book by somebody who used the word believingness in it, but that is an opinion. There's nothing factual in that. I'm just curious.

Anyway, she's kind of making the teen pop star rounds. She got a voiceover role in an animated movie, Angry Birds 2. I couldn't tell you which character she played. I didn't know that. Another thing that you need to do if you're a teen pop star, it just kind of starts happening, right? You start to voice over things. She was on the masked singer. She was a T-Rex.

And she did dance in 2021. She got cut in like the ninth round or something. She's not a good singer. Yeah. But anyways, I said that her story very much mirrors another young pop star who is near and dear to some and very far from being near and dear to many. Miley Cyrus. She actually expressed explicitly the desire to be the next Miley Cyrus when she was like eight or nine. And she pretty much is doing that.

she's very famous as a teenager, had a huge following among people, you know, between the ages of, I don't know, eight and 15, and then maybe a little bit more, depending on the person.

But now, being 20, she has started to transition to a more mature style of music. I saw some very interesting photos from the I Heart Radio Music Awards where she was sort of like sporting her new look, which involved something very reminiscent of a,

a kiss concert. I'm not going to lie. It was just like black and white. Came out and supported her. Wonderful. That was not just an intuitive. Okay, that's good to know. But yeah, it was very reminiscent of that.

She had like a Mohawk situation going on, black lipstick. And it was a little bit scary. Oh, yeah. But she says, this is the new me. Also, it is important to note that she came out as queer in 2020 or 2021. 2021. Yes.

So she's a big LGBTQ advocate. in a shining role model for all of our young people. And she's set to release some new songs. And I actually got to find some of the lyrics for these new songs. And they have some very naughty language in them, which... Do they actually? Yes. And I was like, okay.

I know you're talking about it. Being Pink pop star, you know, with the big Bose is now swearing like a sailor in her songs. So, you know, it's been done by many others and it'll be done by many more, I'm sure. But here we are. Now, the last kind of big piece of information that I found on Jojo was about this pop group that she sort of tried to start. It's called, I don't know, is this supposed to be one word? It's X-O-M-G pop. I think it's X-O-M-G pop.

I think that's what we say. I'm not supposed to say like Zom-Pop. Okay. I don't know. No. But anyway, she was going to start this pop group via a reality TV show where she got girls from the ages of 8 to 14. to basically be in just a hyper-competitive rehearsal setting where they competed for spots in what she ultimately promised

to be the new teen pop sensational group. So she was essentially going to make them famous by being on this show and working with them. Her mom is a huge part of the show. It almost sounded like from some of the reports that I read that this was almost like more a project for Jocelyn than for Jojo so that Jojo could, go make her new more mature material.

But anyway, read some very interesting quotes from people that were on the show, notably one girl who she was born with a spinal defect and just kind of got the once in a lifetime opportunity to go compete for the show. It's not people with her particular disorder are rarely able to do the things that she can do. So she took the opportunity and wound up leaving the group because it was an incredibly emotionally and verbally abusive environment where the producers of the show and Jojo and Jesselaine routinely

attempted to make contestants cry and emotionally break down for the entertainment value of it because it's all being filmed and put together into one big reality TV series and the weird thing though is that there's also a lot of people that competed on the show

that came out they were anonymously submitted quotes saying that that wasn't the case that they had a wonderful experience that it was very, you know, a nice environment and none of that was true and how could they ever say such mean things about this group or about Jojo. But it is important to know that all the people that submitted such quotes did indeed leave the group. And nobody from the group commented on this at all. They signed essentially agreements saying that they wouldn't say anything about the environment

inside the group. So that's what I have. Okay. Well, for those of you who are just tuning in. This is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Jillian Parks. And I'm Garrett Gulsby. And we are talking about Joe Coole. We are actually about to, you're about to hear from me because we did a little flip for this episode. A lot of stuff that you said was right. I just think that your characterization of her leaves out a lot of the most interesting stuff. Like you didn't, you are so excited, I hope, to hear the things that I'm about to tell you. First, I want to say that, like, Jojo, you're right, absolutely started on YouTube.

She had a YouTube channel and a little, like, show she did called Jojo's Juice, where she would drink juice and talk about herself. Any specific kind of juice? I think it was different juice every time. Oh. But how does one find so many different kinds of groups? It was a really long time ago. I mean, I'm sure it was like she repeated certain juices, but you understand what I mean. But she had this really tight ponytail.

And it kind of looked like she was balding a little bit because of that ponytail. And she's actually not a natural blonde. She is, in her words, on dance moms, a natural brown. I've never had that phrase before. They have to dye her hair, like pretty consistently because she naturally has brown hair. And people were all aware of Jojo Siwa before 2021. people knew who she was because she had it was more of a good for her kind of thing like people my age were a little too old to be interacting with her but she was making a ton of money and her face was

everywhere and she had like every kind of product like i'm not talking just bows she sells one of everything like truly um and she has made a ton of money from that one of the purchases she made with that money is a car that has been wrapped with pictures of her face. What? What kind of car is it? I don't know. It just looks like a regular SUV. And it's wrapped with her face.

And it does get driven around because people on social media see it. Oh, my. I'm looking at it now. Yeah, it's a real treat. But yeah, she was just famous for that for a while, for making a lot of money and for having a lot of products and for being. pretty prolific in terms of like kids entertainment and people knowing who she was. To Tesla Model X, those of you that are curious. Tesla Model X, I did not know it was a Tesla.

I also don't like care about the car as much. I just have seen that people say she actually drives it, which is insane. She became more relevant with an older crowd in 2021 when she came out as queer. That was like her transition from her like first beginning stages of a transit. from like kids entertainment to like being a part of the more mainstream conversation and part of what ushered that in was her being on dancing with the stars her and her partner jena made a lot of waves because they were the first ever same sex couple to be on dancing with the stars and they had a lot of like chemistry and they posted a lot of

tic-toks together jena is quite a bit older than her and jojo was dating someone at the time There is a lot of drama about Jojo's dating life, and we could do an entire separate episode on it. So I'm just going to lightly touch on some things, but I'm not going to go deeply into it because that's too much to talk about. But she did end up breaking up with her girlfriend while on the show, Dancing with the Stars, which people thought was pretty suss. And that was the beginning controversies for her. Some other controversies that started where she dated a Trump supporter for a little bit, and people were not happy about that. And then the paparazzi, in response to these rumors that she's a, that she's supporting a, or I guess dating a Trump supporter, did corner her and ask a really, like when there's this really funny video of a paparazzi cornering her and being like, Jojo, do you think that every Democrat should have to take home a migrant worker to show their support or something like that? And she looks really bewildered because that's a weird question for paparazzi to be asking. in 2021 this is all happening in 2021 she also created the omg pop group ex-o-m-g pop group i never followed them

because i don't really care um but that was a real thing the next mainstream drama she got into was again a dating thing she started dating a girl named avery cyrus who was very popular online um and she avie cyrus that had a long-term girlfriend of like three years or something And they broke up and she immediately started dating Jojo Siwa. So everybody was calling Jojo Siwa a homewrecker and stuff. And Avery, Cyrus, started wearing like bows and rainbows and Jojo merch. And it just became like a really strange, like she was becoming her. It was really weird to watch and people weren't very happy about it.

And then they broke up and Jojo Siwa released a video ranting about how she was used for views and how she feels like she got played. And that was a pretty popular video that went around for a while. Jojo then got in trouble because she defended Colleen Ballinger because she's really good friends with Colleen Ballinger, defended her after Colleen Ballinger had rumored, like was basically being accused of grooming young children and abusing them and putting them in unsafe situations. And then Jojo came out and was like, I support Colleen. And everyone was like, Jojo, why? And it's because they were friends and she didn't believe that the accurate. were true. Some recent drama that Jojo has gotten herself into before we go into the OMG XOMG pop thing is she talks about how she has a sleeve of tattoos, but they're not real

tattoos. They're tattoos from a website called inkbox, which comes off eventually. They're not permanent. I didn't even saw any tattoos and any pictures they saw. They're temporary, but she talks about them like they're real. And one of the things that she has tattooed on her arm are the names of her three children that she wants to have one day. Freddie, Eddie, and Teddy. That's hilarious, actually. Freddie is a girl, I think. But she talks about having boys, so I actually don't know if she knows which one.

But Freddie, Eddie, and Teddy, and she already has a sperm donor lined up. And she is in the next couple years hoping to have three children. What? This is a very off character. I don't know. Like, not that I know her, but. No, you, no, like this is, everybody else is confused by it too. So those are her three children that she's going to have.

No, everybody else is like, JoJo, what are you talking about? It makes no sense. She also had a scandal where she posted a Snapchat of her holding her stomach, like she was pregnant. And then, like, it fizzled out, but she wasn't pregnant and people were mad at her for lying about that. She's younger than we are, yes? Yeah, she's 20. So, yeah. She's also known.

for being a bad singer. Like she posts videos of her singing in her car that often get recreated and remade because they are so strained and bad. So now that she's begun her music career, that thread has not disappeared. There's still a pretty strong Jojo can't sing by going on. And her songs are heavily auto-tuned. And you can tell. So why is she famous again?

For being on dance moms. That was where it started. She created basically a cult of personality around. her with like her big bows and her rainbow and like just being herself and then that did fit in well with her brand of being a queer influencer and those things just kind of melded together and she became kind of more universal to everybody after that. Her song right now, karma, you're right, rather vulgar. I have like against my will heard the song many, many times on TikTok and it's just about I guess her being like doing the wrong thing.

and it catching up to her. People speculate it's about this ex-girlfriend Avery because that was the more recent relationship that we've seen her in, but we don't know. Who's to say? The last thing I'll really say is the ex-O-M-G pop group. The girl that came forward, her name's Leah,

all those things that you said were correct. And she specifically has talked about how, like, her mom had to clean toilets for Jesselin in order to, like, pay, the extra money for their performances because they weren't being paid enough to cover the cost of, I guess, like, costumes and travel and transportation and like that sort of thing. So they were being paid and all of them have said that they were being paid, at least on social media. It's just a matter of like it wasn't enough money to cover the cost of what they were actually supposed to be doing.

So it was like they were not being paid at all. I don't have any thoughts on that. I just know that that's what's going on. Jojo Siwa is now, like you're saying, taking on a more Miley Cyrus-esque approach to her music, where she is going to, she says she's been a bad girl, and now she's going to make that clear to us. Well, it seems like what we have here is a Miley Cyrus who can't sing well. Yes.

Miley can sing, contrary to what seems to be the teen pop star requirements, which doesn't actually require being able to sing apparently. So anyway, those are basically my only thoughts. I don't know. The world just gets weirder and weirder to me. I don't really know what to make of Jojo. Me neither, but she's here to stay. Oh my.

She's going to be creating waves for the rest of her time of relevance because she loves to find her way into some controversy. Do you have a grade for the news? I think I do. Me too. Ready? Three, two, one. D plus.

Oh, I guess we're... Deep plus. I feel like there was a lot of relational things that I missed out on. I don't know. Her whole, I feel like I kind of missed her, some parts of her vibe just generally. Yeah. I do think you missed out on her vibe, but I think her influence you understood, which is an important key piece of her is like how influential and like wealthy she is.

You got some of the, you got some of the scandals in there, which is awesome. But you did, you've missed out on like the true essence of Jojo Siwa. Yeah. And I feel bad for you for that. But now you and everyone who's listened to this episode has no excuse but to venture further into expert territory on JoJo Cia. So now no more. Yes, welcome. Welcome to this wonderful land that we live in together.

For everybody who got to tune in to this lovely Jojo CWA, fun, new structured episode, thank you so much for tuning into the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.1.1.7 FM. I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Garrett Gouldsby. and we'll talk to you next week.