Charli XCX has nearly as many opinions about the world as people have about her. It’s what makes her such a smart pop star. She’s always championed the idea that pop should be an artform worth analyzing, dissecting, and even fighting over. This was true in 2014, when she tweeted, “I love people who get angry about pop music,” and raved about loving Becky G’s undeniable pop classic, “Shower.” It remains so now, as she satirizes Brat in the part-mockumentary, part-concert film, part-psychological thriller The Moment. But the real proof might be her Substack.
“Another thing about being a pop star is that you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid,” Charli wrote in the sprawling essay, “The Realities of Being a Pop Star.” When she published the entry in November, there were already a few stars using the media platform in a similar way to publish long musings on popularity, pop stardom, pop culture, and, most notably, themselves. Rosalía joined in September, writing about the purpose of her art but also the sadness around her birthday. Tegan and Sara have been there since 2022, mostly choosing to share voice notes rather than blocks of text. But Charli’s arrival seemed to mark a shift.
Her writing engaged pretty directly with conversations pop stars aren’t normally invited to be part of — and people were paying attention. (She racked up more than 17,000 subscribers within 48 hours.) The current parameters of pop spectatorship and the content mill that drives it online — with blind items, hate trains, and misinformation — have made it so that no artist can really control the conversation around them. They’re just meant to provide material for other people to talk about. There are plenty of essays dissecting pop songs and the artists behind them, and there are less thorough interrogations on platforms like X and Reddit, not to mention more speculative content on TikTok. Now, a wave of musicians are hoping to rewrite and re-contextualize their narrative through longform written content.
In the first entry Doechii published on Substack, “If You Were Writing to Black People, You Wouldn’t Have to Edit So Much,” she wrote, “I’m tired of speaking to ‘everyone’ through my music … I want to talk only to the people who can understand me the first time.” The post underscored how persistently Black women are compelled to over-explain and accommodate for the purpose of accessibility. Doechii can control every facet of the music she releases, but she doesn’t have the same command over who listens to it or how they engage with it. She published her most recent Substack entry, “My Shower Head Is Racist,” in December. “I love the flow of my home, designed for community but not shouting for attention,” she wrote. “Nothing here performs. It’s made for dim nights, dancing, drunken guests stumbling into corners to make out, spills, and intimacy.”
It eased readers into a more complex conversation: In the essay, Doechii analyzed the showerhead in her home and the ones in her hotels, explaining how they’re all disturbing her peace. “Because immediately, instinctively, I know: no Black woman was taken into account when this technology was designed,” she shared. She used bolds and italics that shift tone in the same way her voice does in her music. “This is about racism in technology,” she wrote, punctuating the declaration with a definitive: “(IDC IDC IDC!!!)” She can hear the what-about-isms and “well, actuallys” before they land in her replies. It doesn’t always work against the inevitable comprehension deficit, but doesn’t require five extra paragraphs of overexplaining.
Naturally, there were still some comments from people who resist thinking critically, but feel entitled to engage, anyway. A few asked why she doesn’t just travel with a detachable shower head to replace the overhead ones as she encounters them. They entirely miss the point, which is that she shouldn’t have to. Another user wondered if the essay was written using AI. Meanwhile, on Charli XCX’s posts, some comments earnestly engaged with her writing, even when they didn’t agree. Others proved her point about people being determined to prove that pop stars are stupid.
In her most recent entry, “The Death of Cool,” Charli recounted a concert she attended a few years ago. “The audience watching didn’t feel like they belonged to a community that was unbelievably important to them,” she wrote. “Everyone felt unaffected. Everything felt vague. It was not cool.” This essay came with critical comments, too, and most of those ignored the fact that Charli has been trying to have more thoughtful conversations about pop music, consumption, and celebrity for years online.
“I’m currently very into singing songs I didn’t write,” Charli tweeted in 2021. “I just care if the art is good and makes me feel something,” she said. Two years later, she predicted on X that pop would be moving towards minimalism and earnestly debated with a fan about what that might sound like. There’s a certain push and pull that she seems to search for through her output, whether in music or in writing. Without that friction, the already uneven exchange of time and energy between performers and audiences across mediums seems pointless. These kinds of exchanges used to suffice.
Charli has 3.8 million followers on X, compared to the 73,400 she boasts on Substack. But the steady deterioration of what used to be Twitter has stunted the conversations on the app. The replies are mostly AI bots, or rage-baiting stan accounts. Most artists don’t bother with it anymore. Others only check in every now and then. Instagram is a fine outlet for visual content, but there’s no real sense of conversation there, either. Substack is filling this space, instead.
“Going to use this as a mind dump … not unlike how I used to use tw*tter,” Troye Sivan wrote when he launched his Substack in January. His first proper post was about his shower routine. After a shave, the wash order strictly goes: hair first, then face, then body. That he doesn’t have to argue with his showerhead at any point inadvertently emphasizes the confrontation Doechii wrote about.
Sivan’s second post was an essay originally titled “Fuck This Guy,” later renamed “Feeling a Bit Uggo (Ugly).” It was an unfiltered response to the cosmetic doctor and content creator Dr Zayn, who made a video comparing Sivan’s current appearance to when he was younger and pointing out his “problem” areas. The musician didn’t mention this until after he wrote at length about his complicated relationship with his body image, something he’s struggled with privately for years.
Sivan grew up as a popular YouTuber in the 2010s before going all-in on pop stardom. He’s no stranger to being perceived on the internet. “I am body positive to my core and believe that every body is beautiful,” he wrote, crediting his coming-of-age experience via Tumblr in 2012. But it’s only one lens through which he views his body “depending on the day (or hour) you catch me,” he said. The other is more clinical. He looked into getting fat transferred under his eyes and learned it would run him around $3,000 just for a consultation. He’s also, at 30, the prime age for “baby botox,” but is unsure how that would look on him.
“What good is money and modern medicine if not to fix all of these flaws that this random sicko fucko plastic surgeon told me I have in an instagram reel?” Sivan wrote. He changed the original title of the essay after the creator removed the video and reached out to apologize. He’s still thinking about how much he’s always hated his red carpet pictures, and oscillating between embracing his body and making a few tweaks to it. “I’m embarrassed to say, but I can’t make any promises,” he said. “Keep your eyes on my under eyes for updates.”
Sivan’s audience on Substack is small, only around 18,000 followers compared to 7.6 million on X and 16 million on Instagram. Doechii, who documented her coming-of-age experience and creative journey in unfiltered vlogs on YouTube before moving away from the platform, has 38,000 followers compared to 329,000 on X and 5.8 million on Instagram. The platform seems to offer a refuge and a sense of detachment for pop stars, though not complete escape (see: the comment sections). As Charli pushes back on perceptions of pop stardom; Doechii reframes her understanding of the audience she writes for; and Sivan rejects the content-ification of other people’s insecurities, they share a clear intention to dismantle the performance of disinterest and nonchalance expected of artists like them.
Can an outlet like Substack help ease some of the pressure artists feel, or at the very least encourage audiences to approach the conversation around pop through a sharper lens? It depends on everyone’s willingness to truly engage. “Sometimes I feel like people are trying so hard to sound like writers, with really big words,” Zara Larsson, an outspoken pop star in her own right, recently told I-D about the rising pop star presence on Substack. “Some people are amazing. I love Doechii’s. I really like Charli’s too. But some people I’m like… ‘It’s okay. Be yourself.’”
Larsson doesn’t call out any particular performative pop stars by name, but it tracks that some might have a hard time detaching from the act of performing even when they aren’t on a stage. Substack doesn’t double as a private diary. The writing can be rambling, unedited, and niche, or sharp, pristine, and relatable. Regardless, this longform content works best when it shares a thread of truth. Otherwise, it’s just creating more noise rather than cutting through it.
“I’ve always been open in interviews about my art,” Charli told A Rabbit’s Foot in December. “People just haven’t listened… or I’ve been taken out of context. Writing publicly lets me create the context.” It’s just as Doechii said in her very first Substack post: “I want to say shit once— and the shit be understood the first time I say it.”