From Dance Moms to Modern Day Icon… All before 18!
Jess Barfield
What happens when a celebrity shares personal information with not only her fans but, well, the world?!
We now have the opportunity to find out! Just recently JoJo Siwa decided to come out to her 54 million fans using the platforms TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram- How 2021! In her TikTok media use of her coming out, she lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, which led to over SIX MILLION “likes” and over 330k comments. Following JoJo’s latest TikTok activity, she’s posted three times and gained more than 80 MILLION views (as of the time of this blog post). This number is overwhelming considering her previous three posts have a combined view total of only 43 million views (still incredibly impressive!).
(Photo Source: JoJo’s Instagram post Feb 1, 2021)
It turns out that no pop star of her caliber, at her young age, and whose audience is made up of mostly young students, has come out so publicly. To the LGBTQ+ community, they are hoping JoJo’s announcement will foster a sense of support for the community. It also is the case that young people who identify as LGBTQ+ now have a role model to look up to.
But back to JoJo, she’s not only a pop star with influence, but a published author too. Her name is used to sell unicorn clothing, pink pint-sized furniture, face masks and bows. She’s made millions from her merchandise, tours and popular social channels so her decision to come out at this time is interesting. Because JoJo’s persona has been monetized (and because most of her audience is young children), in the past she has tried to keep fans at a distance.
Using the tools from UTK’s Adam Brown Social Media Command Center and Salesforce’s Social Studio, we see that there was quite a bit of chatter surrounding JoJo’s coming out announcement as well as her latest news that it was her girlfriend who “inspired” JoJo to come out in the first place. We can also see a sharp increase in chatter following JoJo’s appearance on The Tonight Show with host Jimmy Fallon. Overall, there is great support for JoJo with a 65% positive sentiment trend among chatter since her January 20th TikTok with the majority of tweets and other social engagement from younger audiences in the 21-34 age range.
We applaud this bright young star and wish her nothing but the best as she continues her journey and new musical!