- This video doesn't have a sponsor, but was instead brought to
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me make videos like this one then you can join my Patreon using the link in the
description of this video. Hey, it's Rowan. And today we're gonna be
talking about Jojo Siwa. I'm not gonna lie to you. She was someone that I
genuinely never thought I would be making a video about. And yet here we are. Welcome to 2021 everyone. You know 2020 is over, but there's still a pandemic. I'm growing up fringe. It's just a very strong
energy that we're bringing to the studio this year. So the reason why I'm making
a video about Jojo Siwa is that she came out recently. And the more I started thinking about it, the more I continue thinking about it, to the point where now I have 4,000 words of thoughts about it. So that's what we're gonna
be talking about today. Part one, who is Jojo Siwa? So I suspect Jojo Siwa is
one of those celebrities where either you have no idea who she is and why she's famous, or you absolutely know who
she is and why she's famous. And you probably know at
least one child who is at least slightly obsessed with her. You'll most likely recognise her for her signature high
tight blonde side pony, complete with oversize bow and to high high levels
of excitable energy. She first found fame on
the lifetime reality series "Dance Moms" as unsurprisingly a dancer for a couple of seasons. This quickly led to her
skyrocketing to fame with music, accessories
and an online brand aimed at a young audience of kids. Her merchandises ended
up all over the place with exclusive lines in
JCPenney's and Claire's particularly her signature bows. In 2017, she signed with Nickelodeon and it's appeared in movies and TV shows, including "Blurt", "Lip
Sync Battle Shorties" and as the youngest contestant ever on America's version
of "The Masked Singer". There's been a lot of
conversations recently about the idea that there
is pretty much nothing that a teenage girl can
be genuinely interested in that she wouldn't be belittled for. And I think that Siwa is a
classic example of a victim of this kind of double-edged
sword of girlhood fame. She's been relentlessly
mocked and criticised online for extremely bubbly disposition and her look and style. Essentially by people
cashing in on the concept of cringe culture. But conversantly other girls who have similarly found
fame at a young age have equally been criticised
for growing up too soon and leaving their young
audience and style behind them. I'm actually gonna be
talking about this topic in a lot more detail in a
video later on this year in defence of fan girls. So look out for that if you're interested. But essentially in Siwa's case, she stuck to her guns and
her glittery girly outlook despite this. I know the temptation for a lot of people when they hear about celebrities that they've never encountered before or that they don't really know about is, well, I don't know who
they are, who cares? But I'm hoping this
video can shed some light on why Siwa's coming out is
so significant right now. Not at least because even if
you've never heard of her, she was included in time's annual list of a 100 most influential
people in the world in 2020. And her business and brand is worth multiple millions of dollars particularly and
significantly for this video in the youth market. Before we get into this video properly, I just wanna make clear up from. Siwa is 17. She's a kid. This video is not going
to be like about drama or criticising her for her decisions or saying what she should be
doing or anything like that. This is just a video talking about the significance of her
decision to come out especially to her young
audience who look up to her. To do this in the video, we're gonna talk a little bit about what her coming out was like. A little bit of historical context for LGBTQ plus kids media and education, and how coming out has been framed for child stars in the past. I honestly hope that she is
doing wonderfully after all this and having just a lovely
time with her girlfriend surrounded by people who love her, which is you know what
I hope for everyone, including all of you. Part two, the coming out timeline. First let's look at the background of stuff that was happening
before the most recent events. These are things that people
have kind of deemed gay in hindsight. I'm gonna put a quick disclaimer about this section of the video. So we know from things that she said that she was out to at least some people when all of this stuff was happening, but it doesn't mean that these things are like inherently gay that they made her gay, or that like anyone who
would do these things is automatically gay obviously. I think that a lot of queer people can relate to the idea of
like testing the waters or starting to show a little
bit of that side of yourself before kind of officially coming out. But Siwa has not talked
about these things. So it may be that they were
her starting to reveal elements of her queerness or it might just be a complete
coincidence, we don't know. These are just things that
people have pointed out that in hindsight, after her coming out are kind of interesting to note. When she was on the times
100 lists last year, her look was let's just
say very rainbow themed. With a rainbow sequin top and
signature bow in her hair. Her profile is written by Kim Kardashian, who she knows because
Kardashian's daughter is a big fan of Siwa. And part of the profile read, "Jojo is never ashamed to be herself, which can be really hard
to do in this industry especially when you're so young. At some point she'll evolve
and grow up a little bit. And that's okay. The people who love and support
her will always be there." Now at the time, this read like a woman who had been thrust into the
spotlight at a very young age giving some Sage advice to a young girl who's also in the spotlight. Like being true to yourself and sticking with the people who love you is like good advice for anyone regardless of their sexuality. Or when you look at this
profile in hindsight, it kind of takes on this
new subtextual meaning whether or not Kardashian knew. Last year Siwa also took part
in the wipe it down challenge on TikTok A challenge where you wipe
a cloth across a mirror and through an edited transition, you reveal another often hotter dressed up version of yourself. The bigger the difference
between the before and after, the more successful the
challenges seem to be. In Jojo's video, she goes from the made up
sparkly bow in the hair go she normally presents to a more casual androgynous look with a looser fitting black t-shirt, minimal makeup and her hair down from
its usual high pony. Again, at the time it looked like a play on the idea of going from
one extreme to another. In hindsight, there could
be something you could read into the idea that the
before version of herself is her very public girly sparkly persona, and then the after is her
much more laid back look. The TikTok Pride House video. So now we're coming to the
actual like coming out portion of this timeline that all
happened in very quick succession. So first we have a video that was filmed at the TikTok Pride House. If aren't familiar, TikTok houses are pretty much what they sound like, they're houses or sometimes
like ridiculously huge mansions where it TikTokers will live together, create, collaborate, support
each other all in one house. Siwa went to the Pride House a house specifically made
up of queer TikTokers and made a video dancing to
Paramore's "Ain't it fun" in front of a giant
rainbow stripe present. The lyrics playing in the background are, and apologies because
I'm not going to sing and also I don't have the
copyright to the song. So I'm just gonna say these lyrics. "Ain't it fun, ain't it fun baby now you're one of us." Which again in hindsight seems like a pretty blatant statement but because she hadn't said anything else I think people seeing
that video immediately just kind of thought
it was like meant to be a message of support for her
friends who lived in the house, especially because it wasn't a video that was posted to her account. It was posted to one of the accounts of the people who lived
in the house themselves. Then later that day she did post a video to her account. The born this way TikTok. In this video, she dances along to "Born
this way" by Lady Gaga pretty widely regarded
as an LGBTQ plus anthem with rainbow themed clothes on. Again, this alone isn't
a clear coming out video. After all straight people
are in fact allowed to dance to Lady Gaga. But it was enough to get people talking. And she actually started
trending on Twitter when people started to
read into the video. The comments were split
between people who thought that this was like clearly meant to be a sort of coded coming out video. And those who assumed that
it was just general support for Lady Gaga and potentially by
association President Biden, because it was a few hours after she'd appeared at the inauguration. But then this idea that this
was in fact coming out video, started to gain a lot more traction when online celebrities
like Colleen Ballenger and James Charles started
to reply to the video with their support. You know, surely these
comments from people who must be in the know, says something about the
intention behind the video. The Twitter confirmation. Siwa's coming out by social media process was essentially completed
by this photo on Twitter. It shows her wearing a shirt that reads "best gay cousin ever". It's hard to misinterpret that. Later she confirmed, "My cousin
had gotten me that shirt. I took that picture like
a week before I posted it. I put it on my close
friends Instagram story. All my friends know all my family knows. And then one day I was on
FaceTime with my girlfriend. We were talking about it and all the love that came in and we were both like, 'Technically I still
haven't confirmed it.' I was like, 'I kinda just
wanna post this picture on my real story.' And she was super encouraging. She was like, 'Do it.' And I was like, 'All right.' And I did it." So this was apparently quite
a spur of the moment decision. In fact, apparently it happened before she'd actually told her publicists that she wasn't straight. After her initial TikToks went up, her publicist apparently
messaged her being like, "Hey, is this true?" And yeah, within 10 minutes, she posted that on Twitter. The Swatting. So this is where it
gets kind of depressing. See you all was swatted like right after she came out online. Swatting as a form of harassment where somebody makes a
false criminal report to an emergency service, typically the police, in order to send them to
another person's address. The name swatting coming from
the appearance of a SWAT team which is often the ultimate goal of these kinds of dangerous pranks. It's a seriously messed up and criminal thing to do to someone. But right now we don't know who did it or what their motive was. But Siwa herself has some theories. "I think because I recently
came out to the internet, the media is obviously
very excited, which I love and I love the support. However, you could have
just hung outside my house and I would have eventually
come outside my house." She clearly thinks it was
someone within the media. And this kind of is
backed up by the fact that she was made to evacuate
from her house by the police. And not a couple of minutes later, paparazzi turned up around the corner to take photographs of
her outside the house, which might be a coincidence, but also you know, might not be. I kinda almost don't
know what I find worse. Like the idea of this
parasitic paparazzi doing this for money or homophobes is
doing this as a kind of prank but either option shows how big a story her coming out is. The Instagram Live. After this confirmation on social media, she then did an Instagram Live that was around 50 minutes long, where she talked about her identity and her decision to come out. This live stream was very in keeping with her, very happy bubbly
persona saying things like, 'Now that the world gets to
see this side of my life, it makes me really, really happy." Someone in the livestream
chat asked her like how specifically she identified? And she responded that she
wasn't actually sure yet. "I've thought about this. And the reason why I'm not
ready to say this answer is because I don't really know. I think humans are awesome. I think humans are
really incredible people and I want to share
everything with the world but also I want to keep
things in my life private until they're ready to be public." She was also asked how
long she'd been a member of the LGBTQ plus community. And she answered in a similarly open way. "I don't know. I think my whole life because my whole life, I liked people but had never fallen in love before. But I always believed that my person was just going to be my person. And if that person happened
to be a boy, great. And if that person happened
to be a girl, great." Although she did specify that her mother has known
for at least two years. She also used the live to
reiterate a message of hope to anyone in our audience who might be LGBTQ plus themselves. "Right now what matters
is that you guys know that no matter who you love that's okay. And that it's awesome. And that the world is there for you." The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. And finally in this sort
of timeline of coming out, we have her interview on the
tonight show with Jimmy Fallon where she expanded it a little bit on her decision to come out and on the steps that came just before it. She said, "I was doing TikTok with the people in the Pride House. And I'm like, 'I think this
TikTok's gonna out me.'" And I think that's a
pretty familiar experience for a lot of queer people. This feeling of, oh if I say this thing or do this thing or act this way, then it's not me explicitly
saying the words I am gay but it still has the potential to out me. She went on to clarify
the difference between being ashamed of herself and just not wanting everyone to know. "It's not something I'm ashamed of. I just haven't shown the internet yet." And revealed that one of the
key impetuses in coming out was the support of her girlfriend. "I really don't mind. It is true. I do have the most amazing, wonderful perfect most beautiful
girlfriend in the whole world." And she ended with the sentiment that, "I don't want it to be such a big thing. Like, what am I going to do? Have a coming out party? No, it's just who I am." Part three, representation. Is it really a big deal? So from a personal point of view, looking at her as just a 17 year old girl I totally understand the
sentiment of her words. "It's just who I am." The truth is in a wider context, it's still a big deal for
someone like Siwa to come out. She described the process
of coming out in 2021 as not scary anymore which obviously isn't a universal truth. I think that this instinct from Siwa to be kind of reassuring and positive, probably comes from two different places. One is her like personality
that she has naturally, this kind of very upbeat bubbly person that she kind of shows to the world. That is the kind of person that is absolutely going to
want to reassure people and say, it's okay, it's totally fine. You're gonna have support. We love you, you know all of these kinds of
very positive things. But I also think like
she's a 17 year old girl and it's totally natural
for a young person especially a teenager to
see the own experiences and want to generalise
that into a universality. Like I'm very much not trying
to sound condescending here. I think that it's actually an attribute of young people that I really
admire in a lot of cases, the idea of like you're
experiencing new things quite often it's like the first time
you've experienced something and you want to share that with the world. You want to kind of tell people
like, oh, this is how it is. This is something I've found out or discovered or figured out. And so if you come out and you feel like you've
discovered the idea of like, "Oh actually this thing that
I thought was really scary isn't necessarily as scary as I thought. I have had like a tonne of
support from people in my life." Then you might wanna be
spreading that message to other people kind of
shedding light for them saying, "Hey, you might be feeling how I felt that this was gonna be super scary but actually I've just gone
through it and it's not." Like that kind of impulse
to be very reassuring and to share that kind of experience. It's totally natural,
especially for someone her age. But because her experience
isn't universal, it potentially leans into
this kind of whitewashing that's often known as toxic positivity. "The excessive and
ineffective overgeneralization of a happy optimistic state
across all situations. The process of toxic positivity results in the denial minimization
and invalidation of the authentic human
emotional experience." It is both true that for some queer kids, the stress and worry of coming out will be met with total acceptance from those closest to them. But it is also true that
there will be queer kids who come out right now whose
fears are entirely justified. We have, for example, a horrendous rate of queer and trans youth
homelessness for this very reason. Now I don't think that
it was Siwa's intention to minimise that at all, but potentially her reaction shows how she maybe doesn't fully realise how much her coming out
might mean to young people who were still struggling. Her conservative audience. Many people have pointed out how Siwa has kind of become a safe role model for conservative families
and their children. The website Christiantoday.com
literally covered her JCPenney line in an article, a clothing line that has no
link to Christianity, mind you, because of that implied link
between their audiences. Her brand is very wholesome and positive with anti-bullying messages. Just about political as she gets. Her channel and movie has been reviewed by Common Sense Media and they found absolutely references to anything like swearing,
alcohol, violence, sex, all things that you would
expect a typical 17 year old to at least talk about. In a rare display of worry and negativity, although still injected
with her trademark optimism, Siwa's wants talks about the idea that she had acknowledged her girlfriend that coming out was risky for her. Acknowledging that there was a chance that it could end her career. "If I lost everything that I've created because of being myself and because of loving who I want to love, I don't want it." The importance of representation. See why has an audience of over 12 million people on YouTube most of them young kids. And her coming out has the potential to have an incredible impact on them. If you're already familiar with my channel then you know how vital
I think representation is for queer people. We have such alarmingly
high rates of mental illness particularly depression and
anxiety amongst queer youth. And I think that's for a number of reasons but they include things
like the enduring taboo around different sexualities. This internalised idea that who
they are is inherently wrong and also worry and stress around how people will react when they tell them. And good representation
has a number of benefits in this regard. I think, especially for someone who has a more conservative existing audience. So firstly it allows queer
people to see themselves, reflected and respected
in an authentic portrayal. It gives queer youth an
idea of what life can be. It guides them through experiences that they might themselves go through. It gives them potential role
models and a whole lot more. But I think it's also really important for non-queer youth as well to see people who might
be different to themselves to be able to perceive them as whole and full rounded human beings. I think the representation
can help break down this ingrained homophobia that
persists over generations. When young people parrot the opinions of their parents or teachers, without being allowed to
make up their own minds. In many cases, good representation
can sway public opinion and cultural shifts more
than legal changes can. Stories have long been a way for humans to make sense of the world around us. And one of the most powerful ways in which they can impact us is by connecting us to each other. I think it's vitally important
for this queer representation to be available to everyone. Even if someone has grown up
in a really accepting household maybe they have queer parents themselves, it's still amazing for them
to be able to see themselves in that family represented on screen. I don't think the phrase, you know, preaching to the choir
really applies here, but I think it can be so so impactful to have this kind of representation available to kids who come
from backgrounds or families that may be aren't as accepting. And the fact that he
was audience is so huge that it spans so many different households who all have different views
of sexuality is so important. In the past few years,
we've had a real increase in the amount of LGBTQ plus
characters within kids media. Mainly because we went from none to some, but still an increase. This characters are often in cartoons like She-Ra and Steven Universe and can be amazing for introducing kids to the idea of people different
to them and their families. And also, as I said, for kids with queer parents and families, to feel represented and respected. And of course it can also show kids who might be starting to recognise their own feelings of queerness
that they aren't alone. Part of me wants to say that it's for these last
sub-section of kids, that this is the most important, but I think it's probably the
most immediately important. After all it's great for people to be able to understand themselves and see themselves represented. But if the rest of society
still remains as it is, those people are still
gonna continue to suffer as they grow up. Whereas if we have this
representation and have an impact on a much wider scale than
we can improve the idea of an education around
sexuality for everyone. If we can change a whole
cultural landscape, I think ultimately that's gonna make a much bigger difference on a wider scale. Something that is particularly powerful about Siwa's coming out, in relation to these other characters that we've seen on screen is that, she isn't a character. She is a person. And that's how young viewers know her, not as an actress pretending
to be different characters or as a cartoon person, but as herself or at least the kid
friendly version of herself that she shows online. It's a kind of representation
that can feel a lot more real and tangible than a scripted character meant to like teach kids something. And it's particularly exciting
for these young people to be able to see someone
that they view as a peer, rather than a grown-up coming out. There's one thing about her coming out that to me, feels
particularly revolutionary, and she's openly talked
about the idea that she doesn't know her identity yet. We so often think about coming out as being a process of
like internal turmoil where we have to figure
out exactly who we are before we're like allowed to tell people in this one coming out
moment, which just isn't true. And to be honest, isn't
entirely healthy either. While people will continue to speculate about how exactly Siwa
might label herself, I think that it's very positive that she didn't feel
pressure to in the moment. Her coming out was essentially like, I know I'm not straight,
I have a girlfriend, the rest not entirely sure about because you don't have to
be certain to come out. And I think there's a
really amazing potential through how accessible she
is online to young people for them to be able to see
the process and the journey and not just this end result. But why are we relying on a 17 year old deciding to come out for young people to get the
representation they deserve? The sexualization of queer people. In the UK specifically, LGBTQ
plus history and education was deliberately hidden from
young people for many years due to something called Section 28. This was a clause and
a local government act enacted by Thatcher's
government in the 1980s that prohibited the
promotion of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. Essentially meaning that
teachers and librarians couldn't talk to young people or discuss, or display books around sexuality, for fear of losing that job. This made sexuality is
something that was hidden, taboo and essentially enforce the idea that it was something to be ashamed of or something that was dangerous
to have around children. As those children grow up,
that cycle is perpetuated. And any teachers who were
trained during that era got no training on sexuality. And so the legacy of Section
28, the effects of it, essentially continued onwards even after it had been repealed. In fact, just last week, I
made a TikTok on my own account asking young people to
talk about that experiences within the education system and how much LGBT stuff was talked about. And ultimately I found
that their experiences like hundreds of people who
commented and messaged me, very little had changed
since I was at school like over 10 years ago now. And in the UK, as recently as 2019 we're still seeing like huge
protests around the idea that young people might be
taught about LGBTQ plus issues even at an entirely age appropriate level. And to be honest, realistically, I think it's only the fact that we're in the middle of a pandemic that has stopped people
still protesting this today. And it's not just the
UK, America, for example has had its own reckoning with LGBTQ plus inclusive education. From the 1970s onward, Evangelical Christian
spokesperson Anita Bryant and the Save Our Children Campaign, preach that gay people were
praying and converting children wanting to prevent gay people
from becoming teachers. There had been legislation
that banned discrimination on a number of fronts, but including within employment because of sexual orientation and the Save Our Children Campaign was essentially wanting to
overturn that legislation. Bryant claiming, "The
ordinance condones immorality and discriminates against
my children's rights to grow up in a healthy,
decent community." She also said that gay people were "trying to recruit our
children into homosexuality. Some of the stories I could
tell you of child recruitment and child abuse by homosexuals
would turn your stomach." And then within campaign
leaflets and literature it said things like, "There was a real danger
that homosexual teachers, social workers or counsellors, simply by public acknowledgement
of their lifestyles can encourage sexual
deviation in children." And similar actions
spread across the country in the subsequent years, including the infamous Prop 8 that would have seen school teachers who even voted against the proposition and supportive LGBT colleagues fired. Even if they weren't gay themselves. We can see that the
lack of representation, especially for queer
youth, is not an accident. And it's also not based on
any kind of tangible reality. The idea that like, oh,
children can't understand this kind of stuff is complete nonsense. If they can understand the relationship between a man and a woman in
like every single Disney movie that's ever been made, if they can understand that their parents are
in love and together and that isn't somehow
going to corrupt them by knowing that sometimes people are in relationships with each other, then there's no reason
why they can't understand why two men and two women might
be interested in each other in the same way as their own parents are. Because we see this attitude
a lot amongst homophobes the idea that queer people
are inherently perverse and sexual and deviant. And this is a long history
linked to a number of factors. One thing, it is a lot
easier to reduce queer people and their relationships, to something lesser, something lacking. If you emphasise the idea that it is entirely based
on sex and sex alone and that love and affection
does not come into it. It makes it a lot easier for people to justify denying us rights, if they see that there is
something inherently different about the way that we love. The religious reasoning
against queer people having equality, can
also be seen to be rooted in the idea of sinfulness and evil and the sexualization and
fetishization of lesbians especially the consumption of straight men is still something that
plays our community today. And then things like the
AIDS crisis in the 80s, then fueled this existing
prejudice by linking sexuality with a kind of cosmic justice. And see what was coming out could not be more antithetical
to this falsehood. Her entire public image
is very specifically child-friendly and innocent. And despite what homophobes might think, this coming out doesn't change that. The history of closeted child stars. The fact that this is all happening while Siwa is both a child herself and also still embedded
within her child's demographic with her work, is extremely unusual. We've seen child stars
come out later in life especially after a marked maturing of the childhood personas or roles. Miley Cyrus's "Can't Be
Tamed" and "Bangerz Era" proceeded her coming out. Demi Lovato and Raven Simone both came out long after they'd left the
Disney Channel vibes behind. The fact that it didn't require any kind of fall from grace
or major change of image for Siwa to feel comfortable coming out at the height of fame,
feels pretty unique. But I think it's also really encouraging that we have had some recent
high profile comings out that feel close in nature. Lil Nas X is an obvious one. He too had fame within a
potentially conservative audience of, in his case, country and rap fans. However, I think there's
still slight differences between his coming out,
compared to Siwa's. He was in his 20s when he came out and his audience while
crossing many age ranges with "Old Town Road" being
such a billboard smash hit, was not specifically young children but those differences are
equally exciting to me as someone who cares about representation. He paved his own path and broke down barriers in his own way. And I really hope that
in the coming years, we have more of these firsts of young people in the spotlight feeling like they can openly
talk about their identity in a positive and affirming way. Well, I guess this is the end bit of this very unexpected video about someone that I never thought I would talk about on this channel. I will be back at the end of the month with another one of my
typical video essays that is actually gonna be about
the movie "Jennifer's Body" and I have a very exciting special guest help me out on the video. So if you aren't already subscribed and you wanna be alerted
to that in your sandbox, go ahead and subscribe if you fancy. And as always if you'd
like to help support me, make these videos, I will leave a link to my
Patreon in the description along with all my social media links, you can find me all over the internet. And until I see you next time, bye.
