benson boone is cringe
Eurt si em tuoba yas yeht gnihtyrevE
recently i watched a video by kayla says on benson boone that deeply troubled me. in it, she discusses the online backlash to rising pop star benson boone and the artists response to it. kayla is a considerate and thoughtful youtuber whose views tend to align with my own but this time i couldnt help but roll my eyes throughout the whole video.
i should preface this with the obvious fact that people should not be harassed or mocked even if theyre famous. i think its clear that i am anti bullying. bullying doesnt build character and its not normal or healthy behavior. however, thats not exactly the direction kayla took. she used her video as an opportunity to talk about how others in the commentary space tend to point out how bad things are, and to point out how negative people seem to be nowadays. its not that i disagree with that observation, but this is genuinely how people have always been.
seriously, if youre an amateur ancient history fan like i am, youll know that some of the best parts of history are the moments where we see recognizably human behavior. i recently watched this short by human1011 about chronosonder that finally put this feeling into words. in short, theres this idea that the people in the past were completely different from how we are today. human1011 shows graffiti from pompeii and how translations tend to downplay its vulgarity because we need to keep the people of the past as being more noble and refined than us heathens in the present. this is especially important when it comes to rome given its place in western ideology. only the kids these days spray paint 'do gay be crime' on bathroom stalls; the noble romans of the past never talked about giving up pussy for men!
kaylas video on benson boone is really silly to me because shes talking about 'hate' hes getting as if its a totally ahistorical, nonsensical phenomenon specific to this place and time in history. people have ALWAYS been haters. there have always been people who complained about shit because humans have an inherent negativity bias. its not that kids these days are too mean to mormon freddy mercury, or that the commentary community spreads negativity. in fact, id actually say the biggest faces in the niche, like jarvis johnson and kurtis conner, rarely if ever punch down. theyre more like the equivalent of observational humor comedians. its like saying airline food jokes are ushering in a new and dangerous wave of negativity among the youth--its just not happening.
on top of that, last year we saw kendrick lamar spiritually murder drake through the power of hate alone. the biggest punchline was this bar:
I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress
I hate the way that you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it's gon' be direct
We hate the bitches you fuck, 'cause they confuse themself with real women
And notice, I said "we," it's not just me, I'm what the culture feelin'
not only does kendrick hate every fucking thing about drake, down to how he wears his fucking clothes, he says EVERYONE in rap and hiphop hates drake. sure, he outlines his reasons why over the course of four songs, but i think if drake were more of a team player rather than a culture vulture, the culture would not actually have that much of an issue with his predatory nature....but thats another essay. the point is that some of the biggest songs of 2024 were about hating a single fucking guy with the intensity of a thousand suns, and we ate that shit up.
finally, benson boone IS cringe....at least to me, anyway. i think the average pop fan is like the typical wrestling fan. we dont like when you break kayfabe. the authenticity of the storyline matters even though we know the pop star is a projected image of a real person. benson boone, at this stage in his career, feels artificial in a way that previous male pop stars do not. because the pop star is a completely artificial identity, we need it to be an effortless fit. the artist must naturally perform this character at all times; or, the artist needs to break from it entirely like billie eillish and chappell roan, and let the dissonance speak for itself.
even in the highly controlled kpop industry, kpop idols have compelling 'storylines' built into their very image that resemble wrestling narratives. an idol may have dark hair in one season but then dramatically change the color to highlight an increased importance in their music, or an idol may wear moodier clothing to signify a shift in their music. the idols very body tells a story, alongside media appearances, music, and choreography.
with benson boone, what story is he telling? he dresses like a heterosexual freddy mercury and he does backflips like fergie doing cartwheels on the today show. he writes like late stage brendon urie. he seems to be trying to embody that feminine male pop star look that harry styles perfected so effortlessly without really committing to the bit. hes doing too many things at once and none of them are hitting with the audience. on top of that, hes doing all of this incredibly earnestly and sincerely. hes not ironic like charli xcx or, again, brutally honest like chappell roan, who seems to be the benchmark for authenticity in pop idols nowadays. he is 2010s katy perry without the self deprecating humor.
benson boones whole look and sound are derivative and add nothing to music, and i think his very worst sin is that boone has nothing to say....at all. nothing new, nothing old, just.....nothing. either hes trying to play it safe in this highly polarized political climate, or he genuinely has nothing to say, and either way that is a serious miscalculation.
and yet, he just performed at coachella with brian fucking may. by all accounts, his careers doing pretty well. he put out a tiktok complaining about how people should at least hate him for a good reason, and this rubbed me the wrong way. you can absolutely tell people youre hurting, but its a tricky game. it can come off as sympathy baiting over receiving relatively mild criticism, which seems to me like an absolutely ridiculous thing to do. not liking your music or performances are actually good reasons to not like you as an artist. and benson boone isnt wrong to feel hurt, but airing it out on tiktok where he seems to be getting the most backlash seems like a really bad idea.
this has gone on long enough but i also want to say that the backlash amounts to lighthearted ribbing and silly jokes about how he does backflips. i think thats pretty good considering how intense fans can get about artists. if the very worst thing going on in your career is that people dont like your backflips, youre doing amazing.
as for me? i wrote this whole thing because i just love to hate THAT much. as a natural hater and recovering poptimist, benson boone is basically heavensent for people who like to complain about pop music. like i said before, if the very worst people like me can come up with is accusations of being cringe, you are doing way better than most.