Addison Rae blew up on TikTok in early 2019. Her early videos featured mostly fun, light-hearted dance routines, viral lip-synching videos, and videos with her family. Fans immediately took a liking to her bubbly persona and charm. Later that year she dropped out of college, moved to Los Angeles and became a co-founder of the Hype House, a house resided by fellow mainstream influencers. In 2021, she began to transition her career from influencer to celebrity status by releasing her debut single “Obsessed,” making an appearance on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and starring in her first film He’s All That.
Over the course of these advancements in her career, the public accused her of being undeserving of these opportunities, raising questions of internet stars’ place in the realms of the music and film industry. Then in August of 2024, Rae released the single “Diet Pepsi.” If you were an active observer of this time, you can probably attest to the fact that this was a pivotal moment in her career, as her music seemed to finally start to resonate with large audiences and it felt like she had finally found her sound. However, critics felt the new release was inauthentic and that she was portraying an aesthetic that wasn’t hers.
Speaking as someone who was a part of the audience Rae had gained by the release of “Diet Pepsi,” I couldn’t understand what it was about her newfound rebrand that seemed to rile people up. Every iconic pop star we know today has gone through different eras and phases of developing their unique self-concept and sound. I think it would be strange if as humans we weren’t in the constant cycle of evolution, especially as young people. With social media so prevalent in all of our lives, I think it has become increasingly easy to obsess over the images of people we feel we have a deep, personal connection to, even when it’s purely through the domain of our cellular devices. This has given us an iniquitous entitlement over the personas of complete strangers and the unearned arrogance to call something that no longer resonates with us “inauthentic.”
Through the midst of all of this, I can’t help but wonder how this translates into the real lives of Gen Z. As a generation, I think it is the general consensus that we are losing the concept of individuality and personal style that is very apparent in the generations before us. For many, straying from what’s “trending” or inside of the box society has deemed you congruous with is a serious transgression against the strict laws and boundaries of what they have decided is acceptable for your brand. In the world outside of the internet, that translates to a fear of originality and being considered “un-trendy.” There are many issues that lie within this way of thought, besides the fact that it has utterly devalued what it means to express personal identity through fashion and creativity. The whole idea is awfully consumer-driven with the way microtrends and fads are currently dominating the market. Not only is this deplorably unethical in environmental terms—because yes, your barrel jeans are ending up in a wasteland in six months— even worse, fashion is no longer about expression! When we lose expression, we lose the ability to appreciate genuine authenticity and uniqueness.
Seeing an individual like Addison Rae, who is so undeniably herself and unburdened by the hivemind pressures of the social media world makes an absurd amount of people so uncomfortable. It is so important as a generation to decipher what it is that makes us so irrationally uncomfortable with individuality and why we are so quick to judge when someone fails to perfectly align with the schema we have built for them. If we neglect confronting these truths, we inherently subject ourselves to the same limiting beliefs we place on others.
