Negative Experiences With Clairo / Clairo Is An Industry Plant

About

Negative Experiences With Clairo / Clairo Is An Industry Plant refers to a trend primarily on TikTok in which users tell fictional stories about meeting pop musician Clairo wherein she berates them or otherwise abuses them. Others post jokes accusing her of being an industry plant, meaning someone who was forced into the music industry via connections. The trend became popular in November of 2020 after TikToker meganmulroy uploaded a genuine video telling a story about a negative encounter with Clairo that made her cry. Videos are collected largely under the hashtags #industryplant and #cancelclairo on TikTok.

Origin

On November 15th, 2020, TikToker meganmulroy uploaded a two-part video series to TikTok^[1][2] in which she tells a story about meeting Clairo and asking for a photograph only to have her and a group of her friends laugh in her face multiple times (shown below, left and right). The first video in the series gained over 1.5 million views, while the second gained over 3.4 million views in 4 days.

On the same day, Clairo responded to meganmulroy's video in a series of comments on the video, apologizing for coming across as rude (screenshot shown below courtesy of Twitter^[3] user oliverbushh).

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Reactions on Twitter

Clairo began trending on Twitter on November 15th, 2020, as meganmulroy's TikTok gained more traction. Twitter users were largely critical of the video, claiming it pointless to try and cancel Clairo because she was mean to someone once. On that day, Twitter user ladyinthealps tweeted,^[4] "people exposing celebrities for being 'mean' is literally the funniest thing ever like i promise we really don't care that clairo rolled her eye at you in 2015' along with a video of two women laughing. The post garnered over 3,900 likes and 460 retweets in 4 days. Twitter user detectiverue tweeted^[5] on the same day, "clairo when you ask her for a picture" along with a gif of some women physically fighting, garnering over 40,000 views and 300 likes in the same span of time (shown below).

clairo when you ask for a picture pic.twitter.com/JY7bTa21LI

— jayda (@detectiverue) November 15, 2020

On November 16th HITC^[6] published an article that describes why Clairo was being called an industry plant, and detailing how she went viral on Twitter.

Reactions on TikTok

Following meganmulroy's video series, TikTokers began to record parodies of the video in which they tell stories about meeting Clairo only to have her abuse them in some way. On November 17th, kevinatwater uploaded a video^[7] in which he tells a fictional story about Clairo spitting on him and plucking all his eyelashes out, garnering over 9,400 views in 2 days (shown below, left). On the same day, welcometobangkok uploaded a video^[8] where she fakes crying under the on-screen caption, "guys i met clairo and she called me a beaner" garnering over 324,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On November 19th, Max Boonch posted a skit to TikTok^[9] in which he meets Clairo and she shoots him, garnering over 449,000 views in 20 hours (shown below).

Industry Plant Reactions

Clairo's sudden rise to stardom has been questioned by fans as far back as 2018. For example, on January 3rd, 2018, /u/monetize_nostalgia made a post^[10] titled 'How did Clairo get so big? oh wait…" to /r/clairo^[10] in which they accuse Clairo of being an industry plant and provide evidence, such as her father being a top marketing agent for companies like Coca-Cola and having connections to music magazine Fader.

The discourse surrounding Clairo's negative encounter with Megan re-ignited the debate about her (as well as musician Iann Dior) being an industry plant, and whether or not industry plants are a good or bad thing in general. The majority of people defended the artists accused of being industry plants in videos on TikTok and posts on Twitter, choosing to make jokes about those who call artists out for being industry plants. One common joke sees users purposefully misunderstanding the term "industry plant" to refer to an actual plant, such as a November 15th tweet^[11] from babybenzradio that reads, "'Clairo is an industry plant!!' ok and? i will water her. moving on" which received over 42,000 likes and 3,000 retweets in 5 days (shown below).

Some TikTok^[12][13] users made videos defending Clairo and denouncing the idea of industry plants in general, or joking about how they simply don't care, under the hashtag #industryplant (examples shown below, left and right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References