Despite her recent rise to fame, Doja Cat has been producing music for over a decade; her first SoundCloud release dates back to 2012 with the release of “So High,” officially marking the beginning of her career. Since then, she’s produced many hit songs, like “Say So” on her 2019 album Hot Pink, and “Kiss Me More” on her 2021 album Planet Her. Though she has been hinting at a change in her music for a long time, two significant controversies in 2023 allowed her to speak up about her issues and release Scarlet, even if it led to the potential compromise of her career and the fall of her fanbase.
The first controversy was her reply to a fan on Threads — a recent social media app — asking her to state her love for her fans, to which she replied, “I don’t even know y’all.” When she found out her fans named themselves “kittenz,” she said, “If you call yourself a ‘kitten’ or ‘kittenz’ that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house.” She wants a separation between herself and her fans, as she never agreed that to make music, she had to love her fans.
Fans were outraged. “I’m tired of the new her, I want the old Doja back. I don’t know what she’s doing but it’s not her,” says Junior Alexis Ramirez.
In addition, she made her relationship with her boyfriend, J. Cyrus, public at the end of November last year. Cyrus is a Twitch streamer and Vine star known for emotionally manipulating younger fans. Doja Cat’s fans have started questioning this relationship, but it hasn’t affected her yet. She dodges any question or comment about him, often by jumping back to her new controversy, and says it’s just her “fake” fans complaining again. With the two of these issues happening simultaneously, Doja Cat has lost a large part of her fanbase, as much as half a million followers on Instagram.
While these controversies have happened, Doja Cat has also had allegations thrown against her by her more faithful Christian fans. The most prominent of them has been that she is selling her soul to the devil and that she’s joined the devil. Often, these devil rumors act as a rite of passage and a test of their endurance for a celebrity, since many don’t survive to see the end of them.
In preparation for Scarlet, she altered all her older album covers from original to red versions to humor these allegations. She’s been taking this very well, as it’s been a weight off her shoulders getting rid of fans who weren’t there to support her. She described it as if she “defeated a large beast that’s been holding [her] down for so long and it feels like [she] can reconnect with the people who matter.”
Doja Cat takes the approach of making music in response to Illuminati rumors, as many other celebrities have done. The most successful are Rihanna’s “Disturbia” and Lil Nas X’s “Call Me by Your Name.” However, instead of just one song, she’s releasing an entire album, titled Scarlet.
Because of the new controversies, her fanbase isn’t strong enough to combat an entire religious musical community. Not only that, but she’s driving away even more fans with her new music having relatively lower engagement since collaborating with producer D.A. Got That Dope. Her song, “Demons,” performed lowest in her releases this year, with her last two songs reaching #1 for weeks at a time, but “Demons” peaking at #5 on the charts which is uncommon for a Doja Cat single. This may mark the beginning of her end, and her slow decline out of the charts and out of fame.
