the Pop Culture Artefact series #3: they say Addison Rae is all marketing —but didn’t they say that about Lana Del Rey too?
the hipsters once called Lana Del Rey an industry plant. now people are calling Addison Rae inauthentic. history’s repeating itself — does this mean Addison Rae on her way to pop stardom?
Happy Cancer season aka Lana Del Rey season!
Did you win the Addison Rae ticket war?
gigsandtour.com has a lot to answer for, as do the governments that allow these tickets to be resold for a profit.
Perhaps you’re going to the Lana London shows featuring Addison Rae?
Anyways…
Darlings, welcome to my biweekly the Pop Culture Artefact series where I dig up relics from the pop cultural sphere, from digital media to music to real-life objects.
I'll unearth something forgotten, underappreciated, or recently rediscovered and examine it through a contemporary lens.
In a non-stop scroll world, where art is now labelled content, I explore what’s shaped (or shaping) our culture.
Think of it as cultural archaeology with a healthy dose of critical nostalgia.
In this dispatch, we’re weaving the past and present, dipping our toes back and forth, because - does anything really ever change?
👀
welcome to Addison Rae, authenticity, and the Lana Del Rey blueprint
As someone who's been aware of Addison Rae for a little while now, I've been quietly watching the discourse around her. I couldn't help but feel like I’ve seen this before.
On the one side, we have fans fighting to get tickets like their life depended on it (might be guilty of this) and on the other side, we have criticisms that she’s just marketing - it’s not real.
When was the last time I had heard this?
I admittedly had to think back but then it clicked.
Mother herself, Lana Del Rey.
The only discourse I see about her early days is mostly around her SNL performance which I’ve seen Gen Z call iconic and misunderstood, but at the time was heavily criticised by all.
But before all of that, during her release of the music video for Video Games, there were a lot of heated debates about her authenticity and her industry plant status.
Addison Rae and Lana Del Rey’s journeys seem to mirror each other, and both are reflective of their time and culture.
Is Addison Rae on the same path as Lana Del Rey?
Let's go down the rabbit hole.
the early 2010’s was the trenches for authenticity
Let’s set the scene. The world looked very different.
And I’m not going to drone on about smartphones or no TikTok blah blah blah. Yes, social media was in its infancy BUT the most important thing you must understand is that the first part of this decade was ruled by hipsters.
It’s easy to look back and laugh at their obsession with moustaches and analyse their outfits - but that would be severely underestimating things.
I survived it - and at an arts uni nonetheless. Think Girls, meets Skins. I was in the hipster trenches if you will.
Guys wore skinnier jeans than the girls - paired with shoes and no socks obviously. American Apparel for the brand of choice for the girls, gays and theys. Grandad cardigans were worn by everyone.
I heard one story of a guy that was in my class going to someone’s house party, seeing a poster on the wall of an album of The Smiths and saying something along the lines of, “Of course, this poster is on the wall, it’s their most mainstream album”. And knowing the guy, I can 100% believe that - if the shoe fits.
That anecdote summed up hipster culture.
They were also obsessed with the concept of authenticity, particularly around art, music and film. Consequently, this was reflected heavily in their aesthetics which went beyond their clothes - they collected vinyls, and old-timey decor from the 80s or before (like typewriters) and took photos on Polaroids. Lots of 80’s influences, and and an obsession with nostalgia - perhaps in response to the economic recession.
(Hmmmm, an obsession with older technology, nostalgia, authenticity, aesthetics and troubled economic times - this could describe Gen Z. Does anything ever really change?)
What was ironic about this was that a lot of these hipsters were anything but authentic. A lot of them were cosplaying as working-class people and funded by their parents. Once their phase was over, they went on to work 9-5 roles and many of them have an aesthetic now that one could describe as 'mainstream'.
If you watch one thing today I implore you to watch the video below. It came out at the time and I can tell you with 100% accuracy - this was the reality. At least in London.
Lana Del Rey and the hipster hate
The 2000’s was very OTT, very glam and excessive.
So by the time 2012 rolled around, Lana Del Rey’s Video Games video was a breath of fresh air.
The video was filmed in a home movie style, with her wearing very 60’s/70’s inspired outfits, toned down ‘classy’ glam, and singing earnestly. It was dispersed with clips of pop culture moments and Hollywood references and with seemingly normal everyday activities. It was all very paired back, and nostalgic, it was the antithesis of the 2000’s - and we embraced it.
But shortly after it took off, so did the allegations of inauthenticity.
According to an article hysterically titled ‘Why Hipsters Hate On Lana Del Rey’ by Jennifer C. Lena from 2012, the doubt was spread by a blog called The Hipster Runoff. Accusations included:
Lana was being funded and pushed by her wealthy father who was “marketing-savvy” (but I remember reading somewhere at the time that he worked in marketing so there were a few rumors I think)
Lana was working with professional-level managers and songwriters.
Lana was made to look that way - surgery. (It’s really worth noting that at this time, very few people had any cosmetic things done compared to today).
Another article entitled ‘Screen Shot’ written by Sasha Frere-Jones from the New Yorker lists more doubts that were being widely circulated:
Her top lip - why didn’t it look like that before when she was Lizzy Grant (Lana Del Rey’s real name)?
How did she pay for the footage in the Video Games video?
This was this discourse which shaped the backlash of her now infamous SNL performance.
But in the long run?
Did any of it matter? No.
Was any of it true? No one cares.
Is she an icon? Absolutely.
Addison Rae’s rise to fame
For those that don’t know, Addison Rae (originally from Louisiana a la Britney Spears) started on TikTok in 2019 doing dances to TikToks. Since then she’s pivoted to podcasts, acting and singing.
Her first song dropped in 2021 and met with predictable criticisms:
The inevitable has happened: Addison Rae, TikTok’s highest earner, has released her first single. Equally inevitable: it’s really, really bad.
In 2022 her songs were leaked and Addison Rae thought this would mean the end of her musical endeavours. However, they unexpectedly got a good reception.
In March 2024 she featured in the remix of the Charli xcx song Von Dutch on the remix of the brat album.
Later that year she released a song called Diet Pepsi to good reviews and since then has been going from strength to strength performing with Charli xcx, doing two intimate album release gigs in New York and London, releasing her album, announcing a tour (which had thousands try to get tickets for very small venues).
And most recently, she'll open for Lana Del Rey in London’s Wembley Arena.
Addison Rae has been labelled inauthentic
Since the rise of the popularity of her music, many people have been questioning her authenticity.
And even in terms of supporting Lana in Wembley, some people are questioning her authenticity of being a true Lana fan,
That’s not to say it’s the majority of the discourse or is stopping her from selling out venues. But there is enough to warrant discussion in all corners of the internet.
social media as a tool for working class artists:
In a recent episode of PopCast Addison Rae addressed the accusations of inauthenticity:
Choice and taste is kind of a luxury
She talks about how she had to post as many times as she could a day to gain traction, followers and a way out. She wasn’t rich so she had to play the game - she didn’t have the privilege that others might have to choose or to show people who she really was.
We used to see this with actors who worked in questionable things before they ‘made it’. I’m not sure if we are seeing this less because there are more nepo-babies or middle/upper-class people who are in that world, or that there’s less getting made, or something else. Maybe all of the above?
Jenifer Aniston (who had industry connections) said a few years ago (for which she rightly received backlash):
I feel so lucky that we got a little taste of the industry before it became what it is today… More streaming services — you’re famous from TikTok, you’re famous from YouTube, you’re famous from Instagram…It’s almost, like, it’s diluting the actor’s job.
While yes it’s a problem that actors now to get cast or for singers to be helped by their record labels need followers (artists like Kurt Cobain would be overlooked which is wild considering how much influence he had and continues to have on culture) however the world has changed.
Social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok might be the only way for working-class artists to make it because now money and connections are everything.
Addison Rae said in a recent interview:
It’s like, ‘What am I going to do? Not chase my dreams because I feel like I haven’t done enough school to get here? Or I haven’t had enough experience?’ It’s like, ‘No, the door opened for me, and I’m going to go through and explore it?'
She’s unapologetically going after what she wants - despite her lack of official experience.
Does all of this make her inauthentic? Pragmatic? Smart?
does authenticty even matter
A quote about authenticity and pop music (inspired by the hipster criticisms of Lana Del Rey) written by Frere-Jones in 2012:
Why is pop music the only art form that still inspires such arrantly stupid discussion? The debates that surround authenticity have no relationship to popular music as it’s been practiced for more than a century. Artists write material, alone or with assistance, revise it, and then present a final work created with the help of professionals who are trained for specific and relevant production tasks. This makes popular music similar to film, television, visual art, books, dance, and related areas like food and fashion. And yet no movie review begins, “Meryl Streep, despite not being a Prime Minister, is reasonably convincing in ‘The Iron Lady.’
Yet, even in 2025, we’re still here.
During the rise of Lana Del Rey in the early 2010s we didn’t have as much knowledge about marketing and PR as we do now.
But now we do.
In fact, we’ve internalised marketing so much in our everyday life embracing the fact we have to ‘niche’ to be successful in anything instead of revealing the full 360 of our personalities and using language such as ‘that’s so on brand of me’ to describe another purchase. Plus, the amount of discourse there is about marketing in general (brat comes to mind but the amount of marketing stuff on socials is overflowing).
Many of the bigger artists who are fan favourites such as Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Miley all used marketing to gain their place in your hearts (and your wallets).
People seem to be accepting of some artists having marketing strategies (or are they now called eras?) but not others.
Is this the path that pop stars (specifically female ones) have to go down before they get big? I wonder if pop stars like Madonna and Kylie Minogue had their authenticity questioned. Or rock stars like Courtney Love?
Is it the genre that dictates this reaction, or the gender?
Or perhaps is the reaction to economic uncertainty and the less-than-diverse job market? People are worried that those who are inauthentic are somehow less deserving?
Are we all in one big moral panic?
From Industry Plant to Icon
Jennifer C. Lena writes:
So the question remains: Why do music fans obsess about authenticity? What’s at stake when a fan argues, with emotions riding high, that Taylor Swift is too pop to be country, or that Green Day isn’t authentic punk rock?
That was written in 2012.
Well, maybe people were right and that Taylor is too pop to be country which is why she’s a pop icon. But let me repeat the word icon. If there was ever any doubt, the Eras tour confirmed it.
Green Day is killing it and being as political as ever - no one is questioning them.
Lana Del Rey is referred to as ‘Mother’ by her fans and also has icon status. While she’s been called out for some of her behaviour, most notabley racism (worth noting, so has Addison Rae) - no one questions her authenticity anymore.
When she married the alligator tour guide, Jeremy Dufrene, many of her fans commented things like, ‘Lana coded’
Lana Del Rey’s authenticity is cemented in the culture.
I wonder if Addison Rae went down the Sabrina Carpenter (faux risque pop princess as opposed to semi-underground and unpolished) route - would fewer people be questioning her authenticity?
Addison Rae is also 24 years old. Of course, she’s reinventing herself. That’s what you do at 24 - and all throughout your twenties for that matter. Who she was on TikTok isn’t who she is now - are you who you were 19 or 20?
It could be argued that this debate about her authenticity only further cements her path to stardom even more.
And the fact she’s opening for Lana Del Rey after this shared history - it just makes her trajectory even more iconic.
I’d love to know your take on all this, and also if you remember the Lana pushback when she first started!
Thank you for reading!
For the next edition we’re not going to do much digging - it will be more of a reflective. A clue? 305, you’ll have the time of your life - dale.
Hit subscribe so you don’t miss an edition!
Georgia Jade x
P.S This is a user funded publication so please spread the word, subscribe for free or paid to help support if you’re able to! Everything is welcome and I’m grateful for your support.