chicbitch

Olivia doing the exact same thing would still get side-eyed, yes.. but it wouldn't be the exact same dynamic. She's roughly the same generation as a lot of the artists building that scene, so I'd read it more as trend-hopping between peers. With Kim, you have an already-established 34-year-old artist reaching into a scene largely being built by people 10+ years younger than her, after years of having a completely different industry identity. That generational distance is part of why the pivot feels more calculated to me. And no, a brand-new 34-year-old artist who had actually been in that scene, making that music organically, wouldn't bother me at all. Because then there's no sudden "discovery" of a younger culture to repackage.

Like no shade, would y'all not side-eye a 34-year-old whose entire friend group suddenly became 18–21-year-olds?..

this is actually closer to what I mean, yes but not exactly. Part of what makes the whole thing feel strange to me is watching an established 34-year-old artist enter a younger underground culture, adopt its language/sound/aesthetic, then get praised for being "fresh" while a lot of the 18-21 demographic bulit the sound shes cosplaying lol

I said what I said.. if y'all actually wanna research the underground lineage, be my guest. These are some of the trans artists she's very obviously pulling from. LOL.

And yet here you are, reading every post and providing live commentary.. fan behavior.

the "maybe life looks different for her as a transgender woman" thing is sending me LOL. yes, obviously trans people can experience youth, freedom, dating, partying etc etc which i support trans people and love them. what I find odd is watching Kim suddenly emerge in 2026 wearing an aesthetic/sound/language that underground trans girls have been building for years, often completely DIY with no major-label machine behind them at a VERY young age, and then watching people act like she invented this world at 34.. it's very old-industry behavior.. smaller artists build the sound, bigger acts borrow it, polish it, and suddenly they're the ones getting called innovative.

The point is you're repeating context I already acknowledged as if it resolves the criticism..

and yet you've apparently read every post.. glad the content is retaining viewers henni xx

but Brutalist is literally why I notice the difference... when Kim writes from an experience that actually feels uniquely hers, she can be really compelling. Then five minutes later we're back to this studied underground vocabulary that sounds like she found the younger girls, copied the slang and tried to make it her own. Kim herself sought out Frost Children, Margo XS etc because she liked the worlds/culture they had already built, then Detour arrives wearing all these underground signifiers and people are supposed to treat it as some groundbreaking layer of adult complexity. Younger trans underground artists were already making this type of music all the way back in 2021–2023.

but I literally mentioned Luke and her lost 20s in the OP, so explaining them back to me is not the gag you think it is my issue isn't "why is a trans woman experiencing youth later." my issue is why her version of this delayed youth conveniently looks, sounds and talks like an underground scene largely built by artists much younger than her. Why is she skinwalking a pre-existing younger scene at 34, borrowing its language/aesthetics, then presenting the result as your most "authentic" self.

This is the same album where she's singing about being a "freaky little debutante," people with no jobs, thongs, fishnets, PlayStations, DTF in DTLA, random penthouse hookups, low-rise jeans, losing her "innocence," miniskirts, titties popping out, getting guys out of their Polo shirts, racing around LA and not knowing the names of the people she's sleeping with. but apparently the overarching theme is… mature disillusionment with fame...

Old enough to know "how old are you?" usually means the argument ran out

And mind you… the amount of whispers I've seen from underground circles about how many smaller trans artists supposedly feel like their sounds/aesthetics got mined before anyone bothered learning their names… whew. Some of y'all really think these "fresh new directions" materialize out of thin air.. LOL

Look at the actual underground right now: Cece Natalie is 21, fakemink is 21, Jane Remover is 22. These are young artists actually building the sound/aesthetic/culture everyone suddenly wants a piece of. So yes, I'm going to side-eye an established 34-year-old pop star arriving after the sound has already been done and getting praised for being "fresh."

Because the age is part of why it reads phony to me. At 34, with the career/history she has, the gap between Kim herself and the character feels way more obvious.

'miserable hag' because I'm not automatically gagging when an established pop star discovers an underground scene, picks up the producers/aesthetic/slang and gets praised for being "fresh" while the smaller artists who actually built that world stay invisible..

My issue is more that the whole underground pivot feels a little… researched. The producers, the references, the warehouse/scene imagery, the younger artists she namechecks ... it sometimes reads less like "this is naturally my world" and more like "I figured out where the cool kids are standing." I just don't automatically buy the 'authenticity' because she found the right sound.

Charli can't work as a comparison because her "party girl" image feels earned and continuous with the world she's actually occupied for years. Whereas, Kim keeps writing herself into a younger version of nightlife and then insisting that's the most authentic version of her.

You sound uneducated.

A good point but Kim herself is literally selling Detour as one of her most personal records and has called it an accurate representation of how she feels when she goes out.. Escapism would actually be a better defense if she wasn't simultaneously telling us ''no guys, this time you're finally meeting the REAL Kim.'' Like which is it?

With Charli, the club-kid image felt like an extension of the world she was already in. It didn't really require me to suspend disbelief about who she was. With Kim, Detour feels more like she's constructing a younger life around herself and then presenting that construction as this newly liberated "real me."

When someone is 34 and their entire artistic POV is still "boys! pills! clubs! reckless little party doll!" it reads juvenile to me, especially when it's framed like some authentic reflection of her life. "everybody lives a different life" yes exactly... and Kim's actual life has been documented enough that I don't buy this one she keeps selling in the music.

Katy was pushing 30 doing a literal teen-house-party movie in "Last Friday Night." Avril was an adult doing schoolgirl/skater-teen aesthetics for years.... the list goes on

And once again, nobody said she has to "live by society's version" of what 34 looks like. that is not the argument. Kim did not spend her early 20s being this carefree underground party princess she keeps writing herself as now. She spent those years sleeping on couches, chasing a career and working with Luke. So yes, when she's 34 still singing from the perspective of some permanently 21-year-old reckless person doing drugs with boys after the rave, I'm going to find it a little cosplay-ish.

Respectfully, none of that means her music or persona becomes exempt from criticism. "I find this 21-year-old party-girl character unconvincing" is not the same sentence as "I would rather she not be here." I can have sympathy for what she went through and still think the artistic result feels contrived. Those two thoughts are perfectly capable of existing at the same time.