Artists resisted omnivore monoculture by embracing eccentricity and rejecting parasocial norms

Evidence

In 2024, the theatrical Chappell Roan also emerged as a daring new voice, pushing into places that Swift wouldn’t dare tread. Roan’s lyrics unabashedly embraced her queer identity, and in the media, she loudly rejected the extreme parasocial relationships that had become common in the fan-artist dynamic. Meanwhile, Billie Eilish and Playboi Carti maintained their relevance through raw eccentricity rather than pleading for mass appeal. There was even a brief moment of exciting futuristic aesthetics in the aggro-computer noise of hyperpop, pioneered by transgender artists Sophie and Laura Les of 100 Gecs. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 681

Categorization

• XREF: These are candidate ‘signatures’ for the reader’s counter-case that the era does have distinct cultural identity Marx may be misidentifying.