Inside Addison Rae’s Strategic Rebrand: How Cringe Became Cool Again

If the old pipeline was to be randomly discovered, or better yet, nepotistically connected, then ascend the industry ranks in a neat linear climb before inevitably “selling out” or fading into irrelevance, Rae has inverted that trajectory entirely.

Addison Rae’s rise is, if you ask me, one of the most inspirational stories of the modern age. On her press tour to promote her new album, Rae was interviewed on The New York Times’ Popcast. Now taken seriously in her own right as a force to be reckoned with in the pop scene, it wasn't always this way.

She first made a name for herself as a lowly content creator posting viral dances on TikTok, where she has now accumulated just shy of 90 million followers and is the sixth most-followed creator on the platform. But all that online attention didn’t always convert into public goodwill and earnest fandom. Rae’s reputation was, at the end of the day, that of a low art form—if people considered it art at all. TikTok dancers like herself and Charli D’Amelio were routinely mocked and scorned.

Their low-effort short-form content was derided as a symptom of cultural decay—avatars of “lazy fame” and superficiality. They would post simple TikTok dances to trending songs and not much else. They were influencers of the lowest status; derivative, irritating, and creatively bankrupt. They acted as annoying mimetic viruses you couldn’t escape but which became omnipresent during the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s something about the dances themselves that people found annoying; they didn’t lean all the way into full-out dancing, becoming more of a TikTok offshoot, over-relying on hand movements, body tilts, and facial expressions. The focus was more on the creator filming than any dazzling movement or original choreography.

As it’s come to light, though, this perception has been incredibly off the mark. Not only is Addison Rae a more than capable performer, she’s savvy, has good taste, and the creative openness of a true visionary. Though she’s indisputably not doing it all on her own—rather acting more like a creative vessel through which various songwriters, producers, and other creatives are bringing an artistic vision to life through her, acting as the larger canvas on which another artist paints—this places her in no different a position than preceding legends like fellow Louisiana native Britney Spears or, more comparably, Poppy, the postmodern artist brought to life through the creative direction of Titanic Sinclair.

The magnetizing TikTok dances, of which there were many—including collabs and crossovers, eventually an entire content house—catapulted Rae to influencer fame and connected her to some notable figures in the entertainment industry. In 2021, she befriended Kourtney Kardashian, who’s more than twenty years her senior, and was featured on an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. The random friendship seemed like an odd pairing that left the other Kardashian sisters perplexed, grilling Rae over her intentions (yes, really) with their 40+ year-old sister. The two clarified that they were brought together by Kourtney Kardashian’s son, Mason Disick, who needed help developing his own TikTok content.

They instantly clicked, bonding over shared interests and similar personalities. After collaborating on a few projects, including the 2021 film He’s All That and social media posts like virtual workouts and other lifestyle content, they grew especially close during the summer of 2021. While the two spend less time together since Kardashian got married and had a child with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, Rae conveyed through previous interviews that Kardashian acted as a sort of mentor for her in handling newfound fame.

Whether it was that Rae was a determined hustler, connected to the right people at the right time, or able to leverage the TikTok dynasty she had built (even catapulting her parents to TikTok fame), she’s a case study in the most successful shift in public image in modern pop culture. Rae wasn’t just another TikToker—she was a meme. Everything she did was universally hated and made fun of. From awkward videos and memeable circumstances to bombing projects and a public image that oscillated between incoherence, opportunism, and chaotic mess, Rae was certainly in the arena trying things, but nothing was exactly landing the way she had hoped.

While she scored plenty of brand deals and product lines (including makeup, clothing, and fragrance) and reality and scripted TV shows, public perception was that she was a cringe tryhard. The internet was saturated with compilations of her most cringe-inducing moments: clips of awkward fan encounters where she’d pause mid-conversation to film a TikTok dance right in front of them, or montages highlighting her ditziest sound bites. When she did try to pivot into legitimacy by starring in a movie, launching product lines available in mainstream stores, or even, at first, releasing music, the response was near-universal ridicule. Until very recently, her career was widely seen as one long punchline. Just another empty-headed teenage TikTok dancer without depth, originality, or vision. Her name inspired laughter and eye rolls; comment sections picked apart everything she ever did.

Despite some early failures to launch, including her 2021 single “Obsessed,” which was critically panned (the YouTube comment section described it as the soundtrack to an Old Navy ad), Rae’s career eventually came full circle. She’s appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon three times. The first, to awkwardly teach Fallon TikTok dances; the second, to perform her first commercial flop, “Obsessed,” to an empty studio during COVID restrictions that prohibited live audiences; and most recently, as a full-fledged guest in her own right, interviewed by Fallon with inquisitiveness about her roots now that she’s a fully-fledged main pop girl, performing her hit single “Diet Pepsi,” this time to a live audience.

It wasn’t smooth sailing. For years, she wasn’t taken seriously and everything she did was panned. But a fortunate stars-aligned moment led Rae to exactly the sort of indie art scene she needed to gain respect: Charli XCX, who loved her song “2 Die 4” so much she asked to get a feature. Though she sang on the song, the entire EP ended up getting leaked—something that’s, judging from her statements on Popcast, still a sore subject for her. But that connection ended up being pivotal. Rae also did a verse on Charli XCX’s single “Von Dutch” off her hit album BRAT and even opened for her at Coachella. Now, she’s headlining her own solo Coachella set and recently opened for even bigger stars, like Lana Del Rey.

Her single “Diet Pepsi” debuted at #54 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and has garnered over 500 million streams. And she didn’t just get lucky. Every released single off her new album Addison has been banger after banger that sounds refreshing and new but simultaneously nostalgic and classic. And the visuals? They’re a mixture of everything. You have your quintessential main pop influences—Madonna, Britney, Lana, Gaga, Prince—but we also have more obscure influences, like Arca and Björk, along with classics like Marilyn Monroe and even auteurs like Quentin Tarantino (which, I can only assume, explains the feet of it all).

These influences are practically screaming in the background but guided by the meticulous hand of a master at work. Her music videos feel highbrow but sincere. Provocative but demure. The visual sensibilities and cinematic storytelling of an A24 film are doing a lot here, but it wouldn’t work without Rae’s commitment to serving the story and bringing the visuals to life. She has the talent (her artistry as a dancer really shines here in a way that her TikToks never showcased), but it’s her star quality that is the real showstopper—the magnetism of her presence, how you can literally feel her hunger to be the next “it” girl singing out of her eyes and hypnotizing you.

Paired with her intentionally curated social media feeds and revived Tumblr aesthetic, she started to earn some street cred as a more sophisticated producer and consumer of pop culture. Indie sleaze cool girls and musical elitists appreciate how referential yet new her art feels, and that she’s clearly done her homework (unlike some of her contemporaries). Constantly weaving deep-cut references and paying homage to artists that came before her without ever being too on-the-nose or unoriginal serves as raw inspiration to create something new that honors the old, but never pure pastiche.

Marketing specialist and content creator Zoeunlimited describes what Addison was suffering from here: the horn effect—a cognitive bias where one negative trait or impression of a person negatively influences your overall opinion of them. This causes you to judge all their other qualities and creative ventures as negative, too. She characterizes Addison’s early TikTok brand (Addison 1.0) as too generic and opportunistic, lacking a distinct brand that set her apart from the other TikTok dancing trend-hoppers. She needed to cultivate trust and respect from her audience; otherwise, they weren’t going to buy what she was selling.

Rae had an image problem: she was overexposed, generic, and annoying to audiences. So, she disappeared and entered her selective posting era, which cultivated mystique and curiosity. Where is Addison Rae? Then, when she came back onto the scene, she emerged with a high-art aesthetic and began gunning for the celebrity arc rather than the everygirl social media influencer. She already had an audience of young girls, and what do young girls love? Charli XCX and Lana Del Rey.

She leveraged her audience overlap with these two seminal artists and embraced the best of both worlds: Charli XCX’s party girl electronic music vibe and Lana Del Rey’s old Hollywood Americana mystique, blending them into a balanced new persona that people find irresistibly captivating. Rae didn’t just orbit these artists by hanging near them—she’s performing alongside and creating music with them, which allows her to tap into these more sophisticated indie artist audiences.

As a result, Zoe says, “The old cringe TikToker image begins to fade out and is replaced by this kind of mysterious new artist who seems good enough to be collaborating with the trending artist of the BRAT summer.” Zoeunlimited adds, “The way she dropped her hit single ‘Diet Pepsi,’ tying the song name, the lyrics, the visual brand, and even the somewhat soft, ethereal tones inspired by Lana Del Rey's style of music replaces the cringe cookie-cutter TikToker with this elusive woman—an artist.”

It started online, then with a notable aesthetic shift in paparazzi photos and public appearances. Then, when she popped out with a new artistic venture, the transformation had been completed. Her proximity to established stars gives her “borrowed credibility,” and all of her career choices feel much more strategic and on-brand, no longer random or generic.

My favorite understanding of her brand change is captured aptly by Zoeunlimited, who says Addison was "chasing after attention in circles before realizing that instead of chasing after it, she can just become worthy of it.” Before, she was a “somewhat famous but unmemorable influencer,” but now? “She decided to create her own trend—her own aesthetic; got the people talking, and kept refining her music until all of a sudden, the people who were laughing stopped.”

And that brings me to the culmination of this patient but steadfast rebrand: belief, perseverance, and intention. Addison Rae, who now wants to go by just “Addison,” is everywhere. She’s touring the world, opening for Coachella, and is anticipated to be a real contender in the upcoming Grammy Awards. She’s won over her haters. Social media is rife with Addison stans who treat her with the reverence of a seasoned pop star who’s been in the industry for years.

Solidifying how far she’s come is the positive press, critical and commercial success, and endless glazing she gets from pop culture aficionados like Swiftologist or The New York Times pop music gatekeepers. The Guardian reviewed Addison's self-titled album 4 out of 5 stars and called her "pop's newest A-lister," describing her as having the "stagecraft of a veteran." Paper Magazine calls her “the pop star at the end of time.” The New York Times says she’s “the most surprising rookie pop star of the year.”

Reflecting on her shift from TikTok to more serious endeavors and working her way up the ranks of the entertainment industry, Rae gave a poignant answer when asked about her TikTok days. “When I reflect back on all this time that has passed, I've recognized how much choice and taste is kind of a luxury in a lot of ways, because back then when I was starting this and I was on TikTok and I was posting these things, it was a lot about, you know, how am I just going to get out of here?” she said, adding, “It wasn't even about like, alright, let me show the intricacies of myself right now. I didn't feel like I needed to do that yet, which is why I think it comes up now, people being like, ‘Oh, this is inauthentic,’ or ‘Did you ever even like to make music? Did you ever sing? Were you ever anything more than just a TikTok dancer?’ It's because I was just like, I'm going to make it out of here first.”

This is fascinating because she’s redefining what it means to be a pop star and how audiences respond to it. She did the whole “selling out” thing in reverse: she sold out first (at least, that’s the perception), so she could earn the freedom to explore her creative vision later. This is actually incredibly reassuring for anyone who’s ever felt demoralized by the hustle or by the anxiety that your past or present will limit your future. It’s an anxiety Rae knows all too well but never let define her.

In 2019, after dropping out of college and moving to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams, she hit the ground running, understanding that as an already-established TikTok star, she had to start diversifying fast. "I think I knew subconsciously and consciously that people are being introduced to me like this, and this means that it's shaping the way that people will allow me to exist in other spaces. I think I already knew that early on," she said on Popcast.

But that was a challenge she was willing to take on. Within the first few months of moving to L.A., she met her current managers and gave them the full pitch—her dream of becoming a star, a true triple threat. Expecting a standard influencer meeting, they were caught off guard; they hadn’t realized how serious she was. Rae recalls feeling grateful just to be in those early rooms, saying she was lucky people were willing to take a chance on her. Soon she was in the studio: creating, strategizing, working. While everyone else was laughing and writing her off, she was quietly cooking.

These days, she’s collaborating with far more prestigious filmmakers than the team behind He’s All That. In 2023, she starred in Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving and now co-stars in the latest season of Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story. She’s also in the middle of a world tour—one I fully intend to attend, not out of irony, but as a genuine Addison Rae enjoyer. She’s cool, she’s the moment, and she’s proof that you should never underestimate someone’s potential based on what they did last year, last week—hell, even yesterday.

There’s nothing stopping you from shedding your layers and leveling up. To me, Addison, as she now prefers to be called, embodies the liberating idea that identity isn’t static; you can keep refining yourself until you find the version that fits, without being forever defined by the ones that came before. This mindset shift is kind of everything. We aren’t all born with connections or into generational wealth. We don’t all have momagers curating our public image from the moment we’re born or connecting us with managers, publicists, and stylists who make sure we never take a wrong turn. Rae challenges the preconception that to be a successful pop star, you have to have a stainless past free from mediocrity or, God forbid, cringe. Zoeunlimited says, “Maybe, from an artist standpoint, cringe has always been part of the process.”