Fear and Loathing With Jojo Siwa
I recently finished Hunter S Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” It’s a book about a guy that goes to Las Vegas with his friend to do every drug, all on somebody else’s dime- a pretty great premise that’s only supported by Thompson’s vivid descriptions of the side effects one may experience after ingesting acid, mescaline, ether, cocaine, or whatever else he had in that damn suitcase. The book hinges on the anxiety of “being high in public”- at one point Thompson and his accomplice Oscar Zeta Acosta stumble into a gathering of police officers from across the country while high out of their minds on whatever they had left- it’s hilarious.
Whether or not she knows it, Jojo Siwa’s been in her Raoul Duke bag over the last few months. After a few years of being the clean cut, child friendly superstar out of a Disney Executive’s fantasy, Siwa has taken her bad girl turn. This isn’t a particularly new thing. Plenty of former child stars who continue to have careers in entertainment lean into the “I’m a changed person” thing- I think of Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears right off the top of my head. Jojo isn’t the first and she won’t be the last, but she might be the worst at making this switch. One of Jojo’s favorite hobbies is recording herself drunk in public, something that comes across more as a desperate attempt to have her maturity taken seriously, and less as Siwa capturing a candid moment.
Jojo Siwa’s rebrand feels like when a child realizes there aren’t actual repercussions for cursing. There’s a moment in everybody’s life where they realize the sky won’t actually fall if they say the word “fuck” when adults aren’t around and it seemed like Jojo had this realization late. If her rebrand was a sentence it would be a very pissed off 13 year old talking to his friends at the lunch table about how the cafeteria is out of “the motherfucking damn barbecue chips.” You don’t need to do all that Jojo.
The crux of Jojo Siwa’s problem is this- effort is the enemy of cool, and we can all see you trying hard as hell to be cool. Cool isn’t something to be achieved, rather it’s a state of being- something you are or are not. It is also an ever-changing state. Plenty of celebrities have gone from cool to not cool and back- Drake has gone back and forth over the last decade like he’s changing his pants, only really settling into being a dork in the last few years. Sabrina Carpenter used to star on the lamest Disney Channel Show ever made, and now she’s a respected musician with the persona and attention Jojo Siwa wishes for. My point is, it’s not too late for Jojo Siwa, as long as she stops acting like that.
So what are Jojo’s next steps? Well first off, she needs to quit with the public drunkenness, or at least the posting of it. I invoked Hunter S Thompson at the beginning of this piece because “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” is one of the only things I’ve read where recording and transcribing your bouts of public intoxication come off as not totally lame. The lameness of telling people how fucked up you got is completely negated by the sheer dedication to being absolutely tanked for the duration of their time in Vegas. The only reason “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” is even slightly endearing is because of the palpable anxiety weaved into every paragraph. The book came out the same year that Nixon started the drug war and you can tell! Jojo Siwa walking around torched at Disney world isn’t at risk of anything besides a stern talking to from Goofy.
The truth is I don’t know where Jojo Siwa goes from here. I don’t know shit about being cool, if I did I would probably be doing something other than spending time writing about my opinions on Jojo Siwa’s swag levels. What I do know is public intoxication is something I do with my friends. Do you really want to be exactly as cool as the person writing this Jojo?
