DOJA CAT

Incorporating visuals and storytelling into eras is one of the absolute key elements to build an environment around an album. Elevating the strategy, an American rapper and singer Doja Cat (who had her breakthrough thanks to TikTok during the global pandemic) has managed to build a fictional world around her third studio album which almost felt like her debut (Spanos, 2021).

According to Garvey (2021), Planet Her was set to “mark her official transition from a viral internet weirdo to a full-on pop star”. However, with Doja Cat’s past that evolved around her chaotic social media presence and gaming, and later with her song “Say So” going viral on the popular platform TikTok in 2020, she managed to create a balance between showing her chaotic personality and becoming a pop star. Cat described the record as the first album that felt fully her own with the goal to embody her own kind of pop star: “I feel like people separate the pop star from the very humane, normal internet teen goofball kind of girl,” says Doja Cat. “I feel like they complement each other. There is no separation, in my opinion. I always looked at myself like, ‘I can do it.’ But I feel like people thought I was this goofy girl, and that’s all I could ever really be.” (Garvey, 2021).

Even before its release, Doja Cat has made sure to throw hints for the world she created for the upcoming album. “I haven’t been waiting for this my whole life, I was preparing. Welcome to Planet Her,” are the words that mark the beginning of the era which was first announced with the futuristic performance of “Say So” at the 63rd Grammy Awards in March 2021 (Trend Worled DX, 2021). A few months later, she sang a medley of three songs including the lead single “Kiss Me More” featuring SZA at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. The performance included rich storytelling where the singer walks in a cornfield and eventually gets abducted by aliens (dancers) who beam her up to their U.F.O., symbolizing the departure to Planet Her (Doja Cat, 2021; Sanchez, 2021).

The album came out in late June 2021 and presented a world unique to Doja Cat who described Planet Her as “the center of the fictional universe where all races and species live in harmony” (Zipper, 2021).

The planet was thought out to be a reflection of Doja Cat’s values, introducing her as a pop star, but originally combining all aspects the general public was previously associating her with: “I wanted to kind of go outside of what I knew as pop aesthetic or rap aesthetic. I wanted to quite literally travel outside of the planet [...]. I wanted it to feel different. I wanted it to feel otherworldly.” (MTV News, 2021). By also incorporating her chaotic artistry that stemmed from the public’s confusion about who she was, Cat created a world that shaped her as a pop star but at the same time stayed true to her personality.

The worldbuilding did not end there. Using rich storytelling and a consistent color palette, all music videos released during that era were each meant to represent a different part of the planet. Mentioning Lady Gaga and Beyoncé as inspiration, Cat explained: “I would say what makes a music video iconic is the willingness to go outside of the box. [...] You can’t burn a message into someone’s mind without being innovative and traveling outside of what people expect.” (MTV News, 2021).

The lead single’s music video “Kiss Me More” presents the first full look into the mystical, feminine world where an astronaut from Earth arrives at Planet Her to explore the planet, yet gets trapped in a video game played by Doja Cat and SZA who rule the world (Fig. 14) (Doja Cat, 2021). The music video is a great example of building up on Doja Cat’s chaotic personality from the past. Other videos explore aspects such as the planet’s astrology, royal settings or modern city nightlife on the planet (Doja Cat, 2021).

Regardless of the different sounds of the tracks, Doja Cat managed to create a balance between sound versatility and visual consistency. On top of that, she let her audience peek into a fictional world with values true to her personality which embodied a new version of herself as a pop star. The Planet Her album is a great example of embracing all aspects of an artist’s personality and bringing that onto the next level with visual worldbuilding. Apart from going viral on TikTok all over the world, all five singles charted within the top twenty of Billboard Hot 100 and the album peaked at number two on US Billboard 200 (Wikipedia, 2023).