Everybody wants a piece of her crown 👑
Xobrooklynne on how to successfully troll the internet
Welcome to this week’s newsletter, which is TikTok deep dive. The Internet’s most infamous troll Trisha Paytas may have just been upstaged by someone new. The crown has been passed, if you will. And it only took a month.
This bubble-gum pop song has probably popped up on your FYP recently. The song, called “My Crown”, is performed by 17-year-old TikTok creator Xobrooklynne. My introduction to Xobrooklynne was this video, where she used a Taylor Swift trending sound. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not, if she was confident in her singing abilities or if it was a trick, a scheme, a bamboozlement. And apparently neither could people in the comments.
Just a few weeks ago, she posted a TikTok teasing her debut single and accompanying music video. The comment section was filled with hateful comments, as well as people continuing to speculate if it was satire. Was this cringe content, or a serious endeavor into a singing career? Whatever it was, I was eating it up. I hit that follow button and listened to the song multiple times. Because guess what? The song, which is a message to her haters (as she put it) is catchy as hell. It’s both intentionally good and bad.
Brooklynne consistently posted singing videos and hosted TikTok lives where she would sing poorly, only fueling the fire more. When she then announced seemingly out of the blue that she was dropping an entire album, I was even more confused, and even more intrigued. WHO IS THIS GIRL?!
What happened next was a stroke of sheer, trolling brilliance - the entire album is the song “My Crown,” just sung in different styles and remixed. Scroll down to the “Trying New Things” version, and you’ll hear the Titanic recorder. “I Wanna Be On Broadway” is an ode to Hamilton, and “Jillian’s Version” is perhaps a nod to Taylor Swift and is sung by the song’s writer Jillian Rossi.
To say I guffawed throughout the entire album is an understatement. I was actually meditating one night to soothing spa music on Spotify, when SOMEHOW the recorder version began playing, interrupting my transcendent state.
Three days ago, she posted a YouTube video confirming the gimmick and going into detail of how it all came to be:
For actual musicians, this is probably one of the most infuriating and maddening PR stunts they’ll ever encounter. And to that, I say I’m sorry.
Some of my takeaways from the “My Crown” escapade:
It’s much easier to go viral for negativity rather than positivity. How many Internet personalities do you now know of because of a scandal?
It’s not too difficult to manipulate people online. It’s also not too difficult for them to “forgive” you if you are “canceled”.
For those thinking of replicating this for their own clout, it probably won’t work well for you (sorry)!
The music and social media industry moves faster and faster every day. And I don’t see a need to try to figure out a formula as to what works and what doesn’t work; what makes things go viral or not go viral.
If I were to ever be a PR professor, you better believe this will be on the syllabus.
Let me know what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!