What Jojo Siwa’s new cover of Bette Davis Eyes says about us

JoJo Siwa is trending again. Not for a wild hairstyle or a red carpet stunt, but for something far more baffling: her upcoming cover of Bette Davis Eyes. Yes, the sultry, synth-soaked 1981 by Kim Carner — a song defined by smokey coolness — is getting the JoJo Siwa treatment. And if early clips are anything to go by… it’s a lot.

JoJo Siwa, rage-bait pop and the art of enjoying trash

To put it gently: JoJo’s version is raspy, loud and full of the kind of vocal choices that make you raise an eyebrow — or both. It’s hard to tell if she’s reimagining the track or steamrolling it in a bombshell blonde bob and red lipstick. But somehow, the more you hear it, the more you can’t stop thinking about it. And that might be exactly the point.

When bad music became the moment

We’re living in an era where the line between ‘bad’ and ‘brilliant’ is a moving target. Rebecca Black’s Friday went from punchline to nostalgia-bop. TikTok sped-up tracks sound like chipmunks in crisis and yet dominate charts.

This isn’t new, but it’s getting louder: music doesn’t need to be ‘good’ in the traditional sense. It needs to be noticeable. Shareable. Screamable. It needs to make you feel something — even if that feeling is confusion.

JoJo’s not trying to be Adele. She’s not quietly releasing a stripped-back ballad and hoping for critical acclaim. She’s doing what she does best — turning the volume all the way up, dressing it in sequins and dropping it into the middle of the internet like bait, more specifically, rage bait. And we, the willing audience, yap at it and give the expected response: we blow it up like fireworks on Diwali.

Whether it’s intentional or instinctive, JoJo’s musical choices feel designed to provoke a response (cue: Karma by JoJo Siwa) She’s not leaning into subtlety or finesse. She’s leaning into maximum JoJo. And while the result may be hard on the ears, it’s surprisingly in tune with the internet’s taste for spectacle.

Final thought (before you watch the teaser again)

Maybe we don’t just tolerate bad music — maybe we enjoy it because we hate it. There’s a certain thrill in tearing something apart together. A collective eyeroll. A bandwagon that runs on hate. A shared sense of superiority. We listen, we cringe, we quote-tweet with snark — and in doing so, we hand it more reach, more streams, more power.

This is the machine we’ve built: where attention, even negative, is the ultimate fuel. Where the virality trumps skill and mockery becomes marketing. We’re not just letting people who aren’t singers step into the spotlight. We’re building the stage, handling them the mic and clapping ironically while they perform.

As Meg — aka MayGha, aka @bootlegmegz — beautifully puts it:

“The global attention span, especially for music, is so small and the windows are so small within which to be successful. And JoJo Siwa and the like — there is a very specific strata of creators or artists… who can be so f*ing bad at the performing art they choose and still have to be met with positive reception…”

So sure, JoJo Siwa’s Bette Davis Eyes might not be music in the traditional sense…it’s content. It’s bait. And we took it. We watched, we snitched, we laughed and we raged.

But maybe the real joke isn’t on JoJo.

Maybe the joke is on us — the audience that keeps feeding the machine, one ironic play at a time. Because in 2025, bad music doesn’t need fans. It just needs friction.

And guess what? We’re the ones keeping the beat going.