If you’ve been on the internet at all in the last 2 years, you’ve surely witnessed the discourse surrounding Ariana Grande’s appearance and alleged disordered eating. On her Instagram story, Ivy Wolk decided to put in her 2 cents by dropping this bomb.Â
“Yall mad that she’s anorexic now meanwhile her favorite eater died, she had a BPD rebound with a second-rate wi*ger who would be wig-mogged in any universe by the aforementioned dead fav eater (mind you the BPD rebound is a father now!), she had a two year long lesboerotic eating disorder musical theatre friendship as a grown woman because she never got the chance to do such a thing in high school, and she was The Other Woman to a chud. Think about what made YOU anorexic. probably a lot less.”Â
There’s so much to unpack here, and to be frank, you’ll need a minimum of seven hours of weekly screen time to decode that paragraph. For me, one of the things that has had me the most enamored by Ivy is her unusual and extensive vocabulary. Ever since I saw this clip of her explaining the Khia Asylum to Chloe Troast, I’ve been saying “heifer” constantly. And I think that goes to show how contagious her unorthodox ways can be. She’s quick, deadpan, and has a certain precision and theatrical way of phrasing. All these together give her a unique ability to make a thought sound deliberately constructed.
I believe that this gives her credibility to the audience. Her linguistic precision and confidence say that she knows what she’s saying. She understands the cultural implications, and the offensiveness itself is part of the performance. All of these qualities set her apart from other shock jocks because she demonstrates that saying something offensive is not necessarily the same as being perceived as an offensive person.Â
She sets herself apart from a celebrity who occasionally says something problematic like (Kanye West or JK Rowling) by being a celebrity whose problematic-ness is already part of the brand. Ivy has essentially pre-established unpredictability, irreverence, taboo, and intellectualism as who she is; therefore, controversy reinforces her persona instead of contradicting it. I think this works for her because cancellation relies on violating audience expectations, and she has so blatantly constructed an atmosphere where violation is expected.Â
While trying to research the definition of cancellation, I came across a great video by @cultivatingboldspaces who explains cancel culture with a dollhouse metaphor. The audience imagines itself as children playing with dolls, morally autonomous spectators, who are capable of deciding which “dolls” deserve punishment. However, the audience is still participating in the spectacle. My spin on the metaphor is that Ivy isn’t one of the dolls. She’s closer to the parent watching the children play. She understands the game and its rules and therefore understands what kind of reaction her persona generates.
The audience imagines itself as children playing with dolls, morally autonomous spectators, who are capable of deciding which “dolls” deserve punishment. However, the audience is still participating in the spectacle. My spin on the metaphor is that Ivy isn’t one of the dolls. She’s closer to the parent watching the children play. She understands the game and its rules and therefore understands what kind of reaction her persona generates.Â
All of that said, I’m not going to sit here and glaze her as if she’s a modern Socrates. After all Socrates never said “Wi*ger…” This is something I can’t defend or justify, but I do think this shows that her audience interprets language differently when Ivy says it. She enters every conversation knowing that she is a niche figure who only has to make sense to her OWN audience. Her viewers perceive her as having a leftist political alignment, a level of intelligence, cultural literacy, and irony.Â
What’s interesting is that her audience has a huge overlap with other niche women influencers like Brittany Broski, but that same audience would never tolerate Brittany saying “wi*ger” obviously. I think this is because Brittany’s persona is built around a level of relatability and emotional transparency that we, as the audience, feel is sincere. We expect her to tell us what she believes directly, as the rest of her content is so explicit. The downfall in this community is that any hint of ambiguity or silence can become suspicious, hence people dogpiling her for not commenting on the genocide in Gaza.Â
In contrast, Ivy’s viewers are expected to figure out what she means. She doesn’t need to repeatedly announce “I am liberal. I am a leftist. I believe XYZ.” because her beliefs can be communicated through cultural signaling.Â
Ultimately, to me, this reflects a larger issue beyond Ivy, which is media literacy. Social media encourages extremely explicit communication, which means that audiences increasingly expect political and moral declarations. However, I feel Ivy’s corner of the internet differs in that they may possess enough cultural, political, and internet literacy to interpret her using their contextual knowledge. In this, Ivy creates an interesting audience hierarchy by separating the “people who get the joke” from the “people who don’t”.Â
At the end of the day, I don’t think she is literally immune from consequences. Her audience still has boundaries and is torn about her commentary on Grande. I think she has been pushing her luck for a while and is now starting to feel out where the borders and red lines are for her commentary. Her persona still depends on her perceived intelligence and her audience’s goodwill, which is quite a straw house to be in. If she crossed a boundary her audience couldn’t reinterpret, the protection could disappear. My final thought is that maybe the internet dollhouse rewards dolls for being morally righteous, but Ivy has found a loophole in neither being a doll, nor being categorizable.