If you’ve been near a screen of any kind in the last few years, you know who Doja Cat is. She is a musician bred from internet culture. Recently she’s been exhibiting some problematic, and frankly gross, behavior while experiencing her peak of popularity. 

An artist with multiple alleged connections to the alt-right is not someone I am interested in endorsing or supporting. Yet, as Doja Cat releases more music, each controversy almost serves as a marketing stunt as the public continues to praise her anyway. 

Her first viral song was created while she was goofing off on Instagram Live.  This led to the five-minute music video for “Moo!” in 2018, which put Doja Cat’s name on the map.

A year later, she took this momentum from her meme to produce her sophomore album, “Hot Pink” — her first album “Amala” didn’t perform as well as the rest of her discography — which was her first Billboard Top 10 entry, peaking at number nine. Songs like “Say So” and “Streets” caught the eye of TikTok users and resulted in an app-wide Doja Cat takeover in early 2020.  

In 2021, Doja Cat released her third album “Planet Her” which had multiple songs on the Billboard Hot 100. A trend from the album also went viral on TikTok.  

The key to her success was a blend of her songs going viral and Doja Cat’s persona being synonymous with internet culture. She was able to intertwine her songs with the aesthetics and moods those who used TikTok could identify with. Thus Doja Cat began gathering a huge and loyal following. She was in tune with general trends, so much so that she produced her own that served as free advertisements for her music. 

The internet did what the internet does, and rediscovered controversial moments from her past. In May 2020, footage of Doja Cat engaging with alleged white supremacists and incels on a video chat room leaked and went viral. Doja Cat denied this was happening. 

Along with the chat room controversy, a song released in 2015 resurfaced with a derogatory phrase as its title which only worsened the situation.

It’s important to note that this leaked when her career was starting to take off. Fans were biased towards Doja Cat and believed her apology, which got #dojacatisNOToverparty trending right after #dojacatisoverparty started to trend.

Since she is so talented people will ignore the fact she not only dislikes her fans but has multiple controversies involving the alt-right. Supporting an artist regardless of how they act is hypocritical — especially if their actions go against your own — and dangerous because it gives way for harmful ideologies to be platformed and normalized among their fans. 

People excused her actions as mistakes from the past in order to convince themselves that while they listened to her music they didn’t support someone aligned with the alt-right. Due to her popularity online, she avoided these controversies at that time.

This worked until June when she began to date a problematic online figure named J. Cyrus, who many have claimed to have allegedly exhibited predatory behavior towards his female audience.  

After receiving backlash, she began to block her most supportive fans. Her biggest supporters — those who had dedicated fan pages — began to disavow her and retract support. Many victims came forward with their own stories involving Cyrus. 

This was until the release of her album “Scarlet” in September. Even though people viewed her as problematic, some must have not minded because the album secured the top spot on the Billboard 200.

With the release of this album, she was reaching new heights of success. Yet again, she got caught in a white supremacist-adjacent controversy. She posted a photo of herself in a t-shirt with a photo of a comedian who is alleged to associate with the alt-right, Sam Hyde. 

Doja Cat built her empire through interactions and relationships she had with the internet. Internet users didn’t turn their backs on her, she turned her back on them. She claimed her previous two albums were mere cash grabs and set a clear boundary between her and fan culture.

Nadia Hill can be reached at [email protected]