How Doja Cat Got Viral And Dealt With Cancel Culture

Doja Cat, Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, was shot into fame when her meme-filled music video for her song "Mooo!" went viral in 2018. Ironically, she is going to get challenged by the same power that brought her success. Her outspoken personality will clash against the forces of Cancel Culture. This is an online practice when fans decide to withdraw support for a celebrity after they found out that an artist said or did something offensive in the past.

Viral Hit

Doja Cat had many projects before the "Mooo!" song, but the success from those is mostly lukewarm. It did earn her some sizeable fans that regularly visit her Instagram live streams. There, the artist would attempt to write songs or just connect with her followers.

In one of her streams, she decided to wear a cow costume because she found it hilarious. She stated that she had more serious concepts on the back of her head. But during that moment, she decided to write about the cow costume.

It appears that it worked in her favor. After she uploaded the music video for the parody song, it went viral with over 3 million views within the first week. It now sits with over 78 million views, 1.8 million likes, and 181 thousand comments. She also expressed her interest in making more meme music.

F-Word, Dindu Nuffin, and Racist Chatrooms

However, the instant fame that Doja Cat got did not come for free. She came to realize that critics and fans love to know more about the artist, even their darkest sides.

Some of her critics found that the "Mooo!" artist had a homophobic Twitter post about rappers Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, the Creator. This lead to Doja Cat is getting a massive social media criticism regarding her inexcusable behavior.

On top of that, she made an apology that many consider as a backhanded apology. The SoundCloud rapper-singer did make a sincere apology afterward, but it was too late.

"Dindu Nuffin" is a term that is widely used by racists to mock Black victims who claim they are innocent when the police catch them. Doja Cat had a song with the term as the title, and many connected it with the police brutality (or suicide) of Sanda Bland. She denied it, saying that it was "one of the awful rumors that I've ever encountered."

Additionally, critics found out that Doja Cat was active in racist chatrooms. She responded that the chat rooms were not what the narrative of her haters was making it out to be. Rapper Nas took a jab at her on his song "Ultra Black" with lyrics "Unapologetically black, the opposite of Doja Cat." She was simply unfazed by the reference.

Hot Pink Redemption

Since Doja Cat was raised on the internet just like most people her age, she was better at handling the negativity. She did admit that some of the comments genuinely hurt her - such as body-shaming her curves or people telling her to put her wig back on.

Because of all of these, she lowered her interaction and appearance on social media. She focused on her second studio album, "Hot Pink." While "Mooo!" was what brought her success, she believes that the sophomore album contains tracks that are closer to her true self. Because of that, it was more successful than she anticipated.