Student Life
Authenticity and the pop genre: Slayyyter’s ‘WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA’
Originality could be dead in pop music. The genre is so self-referential that it feels like an endless borrowing game, buying into nostalgia for bygone times outside of our own. Artists’ branding in the 2020s has featured copious archival fashion pulls and pop culture iconography, while dominant music trends have included the excessive sampling of throwback hits and iconic melodies. This is an unavoidable aspect of pop, and not necessarily a measure of creative lack. However, it can either give long-forgotten tracks a necessary boost of life, or appear as a cheap way to chase the ever-elusive ‘hit’.
Yet, as the decade is proving, generic boundaries are once again breaking down, with dance and electronic sounds becoming the pop standard, and people longing for artists at their most genuine. Of course, this was demonstrated most prominently by Charli XCX’s shift between the ultra-conventional Crash and the more personal and re-focused Brat. However, she isn’t the only person creating from a place of greater authenticity, over the pursuit of musical trends.
Catherine Garner, known as Slayyyter, has been chasing fame for almost ten years now. She started out making ‘lo-fi pop’ from her bedroom closet, before bursting onto the music scene in 2019 with a string of electro-pop tracks such as ‘Mine’, ‘Daddy AF’, and ‘BFF’. Though her songs all proved TikTok-popular, they never seemed to translate fully out of a chronically online space into the cultural mainstream.
Slayyyter’s previous works were great projects that felt authentic within their self-aware pastiche, but all tied themselves to various personas; the music did not necessarily represent the creative voice behind it. Their inability to produce the success she’d hoped for, even when striving for commercial viability, drove her to make a decision – her next album would be the last, one final go at being a star before she called it quits. After an edgier sonic shift in a single she dropped in 2024 titled ‘No Comma’, Slayyyter began working on her third studio album, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA. The first single, ‘BEAT UP CHANEL$’, was noticed by Columbia Records, allowing her career trajectory to finally change.
The album is an advent of originality, reconnecting Slayyyter to her Missouri roots and the rawer and previously unseen parts of her life, while refusing to chase trends. She focused instead on her own interests and ended up producing her most unique work, unplagued by formula. She describes it as “iPod music”, a “sweet spot of 2010s indie electronic”, encompassing songs she would’ve curated in her teenage years, when individual songs were bought and not readily available as in the streaming era.
WOR$T GIRL is intrinsically tied to its DIY approach to visuals. Each song has a self-directed music video, while costumes are hand-made or utilise pieces from her own wardrobe. Nothing feels too put together; instead, it is a patchwork of influences, from her Midwestern upbringing, to Tumblr mood-boarding and her music and film literacy (note the frequency of Lynchian rabbit imagery). She is still provocative and ‘trashy’, but forgoes hyper-feminine glam and seeks imperfection, her lyricism newly exposing. This is not just an additional layer to the album, but helps to form its thesis.
The album’s cohesive through-line does not prevent it from textural layering throughout its 14 tracks. Distortion is a sonic mainstay, with songs entrenched in grime and aspiration. The album’s opening track, ‘DANCE…’, cuts in at almost five minutes, its long intro crescendoing into a thumping bassline which transports its listeners to an unrestrained club atmosphere. ‘CRANK’, ‘OLD TECHNOLOGY’, and ‘YES GODDDD’ are aggressive, the sound dialled up to 100 with maximalist production, heavy bass, and gritty and intense synthwork. Slayyyter is keen to prove her own musical capabilities, the album paring back with dreamy indie electronic as in ‘GAS STATION’, and the wistful, nostalgic ‘UNKNOWN LOVERZ’, while ‘CANNIBALISM!’ is more rock-focused but vocally driven, oscillating between screams and hypnotic crooning. WOR$T GIRL seeks out the personal and sometimes ugliest parts of success, lyrically wavering between self-assertion and profound insecurity on ‘WHAT IS IT LIKED, TO BE LIKED?’ and the satirical, spoken-word hallucinatory journey of ‘I’M ACTUALLY KINDA FAMOUS’.
There is also something personal enclosed here, best represented by the final track, ‘BRITTANY MURPHY’. Slayyyter has remarked that it encapsulates the album’s overall feeling and reflects the message she tried to get across. Its summery atmosphere and almost-robotic vocals conceal an inner depth, with the artist at her most vulnerable, as she ponders on feelings of inadequacy and suicidal ideation. The patchwork of WOR$T GIRL finally converges here, allowing the artist herself to shine through.
Maybe pop is a borrowing game, but when influences are being used like in Slayyyter’s music, it is difficult to say there isn’t still something unique to be found. Perhaps the problem is not creative pastiche itself, but the constraints of formula imposing themselves in the streaming era, making the genre so homogenous. It seems as though audiences respond far better to work that doesn’t try to mould itself, but goes against the grain through the expression of artistic freedom. In Slayyyter’s case, authenticity is the motivator, and her refusal to conform seems to be paying off.
Gossiping is an innately human pastime, existing long before our generation, and a beloved form of social interaction that teeters on the boundary between harmless fun and cruelty. Yes, we all understand how damaging gossip can be when taken too far, but a sprinkling of rumour-exchanging is nothing but a guilty pleasure. In fact, as young people trying to build a community, gossip can be a tool of social necessity, building bonds with one another over the latest overheard dramas. However, in the age of social media, a new and improved variety of circulation has had a surge in popularity: the highly celebrated university gossip pages. What began as a handful of University-wide Instagram accounts recounting stories of minor scandal and light-hearted humour has quickly snowballed into countless pages that thrive upon shock-horror value and often vicious invasions of privacy. This phenomenon must be brought to an end.
The concept of circulating gossip from an anonymous source has perhaps been sensationalised by the media. Shows like Gossip Girl and Bridgerton paint a glorified image of a world in which the intricacies of people’s personal lives ought to be brought to light, often in the name of truth-telling or bringing about justice. Storylines like this appeal to us, as we cheer on the Lady Whistledowns of the world while sitting under a blanket with a cup of tea, comfortably outside of the realms of a world where secrets are freely exposed. But suddenly this world isn’t so separate from our own as the popularised university gossip pages have taken on the responsibility of uncovering what many would rather stay hidden – without an “XOXO, Gossip Girl” sign-off in sight.
The key ingredient in social media gossip accounts is anonymity. The anonymous creators deliver their news from behind a screen, controlling an account that cannot be linked to them in any way. Mysteries such as this inspire excitement, allowing the mind to wonder as to who could possibly be behind the mask – all of a sudden, anyone around you could be leading a double life. But the power of anonymity turns sour all too soon as the concealment of a screen separates people from the impact of their words. This can clearly be seen with gossip accounts, where any morsel of scandal – no matter how viciously articulated – is made public with the simple click of a button. The anonymous writer gets the rush of causing a stir and simultaneously the freedom from being tied to any real-world consequences, without even a second to check the truthfulness of any submissions. I doubt @oxscenes existed in the Spiderman universe, but it is true that “with great power comes great responsibility”… a responsibility dodged by the cloak of social media.
Another element that fuels readers of these gossip pages is a growing hunger for increasingly shocking tales. It is a human trait to seek out greater shock value, but as we become attuned to scandal, we crave even more absurdity in the tales that are being fed to us. And with demand comes supply, leading to the owners of these accounts spitting out submissions day after day, with a constantly lowering bar for what is permissible. This is certainly evident in some of the crude, hateful and divisive language that has been normalised by gossip pages. The subversive tone to these rumours incites a sense of danger that can be addictive. But when we take a step back, it is clear that this danger is all too real.
Many may look away from this issue, seeing gossip pages as nothing more than light-hearted fun between students and a source of entertainment in our often gruelling academic lives. Such supporters often fall back on anonymity, not of the writers, but of the victims. Secrets shared or rumours overheard are never explicitly linked to individuals, so no harm can follow. However, not only is this naïve, but it is also inaccurate. Even unnamed revelations have damaging consequences, as we see a culture of shame and ostracisation beginning to form. Also, with the development of more and more gossip pages that relate to specific cross-sections of Oxford University, such as college or subject groups, the blanket of anonymity for victims thins until the identities of those being exposed are barely veiled. Indulging in these rumours is always fun up to the point where you become the brunt of the joke – when that time comes, can your secrets really stay safe with you?
In this environment in which we feed on improprieties and intimate revelations, the strongest effect is perhaps that had on personal relationships. Secrets have become our currency, and as a result, holding your cards close to your chest is a necessary survival tactic to avoid being the newest laughing stock of the Oxford community. Where students once felt comfortable confiding in their friends, a twinge of apprehension creeps in as we are led to wonder who we can truly trust. Clearly, there are those who are willing to brandish what other people want to keep hidden for the sake of cheap entertainment. No one wants to believe it could be their friends – but it is someone’s. Gossiping is an innately human pastime, but a line must be drawn between casual conversations amongst friends and widespread platforms inciting cruelty and fear. With social media’s normalisation of this kind of discourse, our private lives have been ripped from us and placed under constant examination. We are not ruthless criminals being brought to justice, nor are we corrupt politicians being exposed for our true selves; we are just young adults trying to get by and inevitably making mistakes. So let’s stop playing the righteous truth-tellers and recognise that some things deserve to stay a secret.
It has been 93 years since the first performance of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan at Schauspielhaus in Zurich. Many critics cite Brecht as the pioneer of the genre of ‘epic theatre’ – that is, a theatre which tells, instead of shows. The protagonist Shen Te frequently changes costumes in front of the audience to become her alter ego, Shui Ta; characters address the audience, changing the set mid-scene. Anthony Lau’s 2023 production featured giant frogs and saw characters entering the stage via a slide. Brecht’s theatre seeks to constantly remind the audience of where they are: in a theatre, watching a play, and not immersed in a mock-realistic depiction of the world. It rewrote the rules of what theatre had been up until that point (in the western world, at least). In 2026, both nothing and everything has changed: theatre continues to constantly re-write and re-perform itself, and thus evades any kind of all-encompassing definition.
A few years ago, donned in a light rain jacket and battered walking boots, I stood amongst a captivated crowd at Green Man Festival, watching Kae Tempest perform from his album The Line is a Curve. Their powerful, spoken-word performance both shook me to the core and rooted me to the spot. It bothered me. It was like nothing I’d ever encountered before – which perhaps reveals my somewhat sheltered view of the musical scene – but it got me thinking about the lines we draw around performance, the role of the audience, the simple idea of telling something to someone, and when this becomes theatre.
As a serial user of etymology websites, I did what I do best and looked up the origins of the word, discovering that it comes from the Greek theatron, which literally translates as ‘a place for looking’. This piqued my curiosity. To all intents and purposes, a discussion of Kae Tempest’s The Line is a Curve should be in the Music section of Culture – right? Tempest has been nominated twice for the Mercury Music Prize, as well as receiving a nomination at the 2018 Brit Awards for Best Female Solo Performer. Then again, he was also named a Next Generation Poet by the Poetry Book Society… so perhaps Books?
This impulse to categorise Tempest’s work was, inevitably, what was holding me back from fully enjoying the experience. Since that year at Green Man Festival, I’ve (somewhat) expanded the horizons of my theatrical experience and, each time, I’ve been confronted again and again with the same question of categorisation – by stand-up comedians, by drag artists, by the chorus in the Greek play I saw in my first year at Oxford. They are all connected by one fact – there was an audience, and there was a performer.
If theatre is, at its most basic level, ‘a place for looking’, then every iteration of it that I’ve mentioned ticks that box. But not all looking is the same, and this is what Brecht grappled with.
Among other things, he wanted to reject the kind of looking which is passive, which gives way to complete immersion, and, as such, does not incite the audience to action. His refusal of a ‘passive’ theatre can be seen everywhere. In a form like stand-up, the audience takes an active role, with their reaction shaping the performance in real time. Even something as simple as asking a member of the audience where they’re from, or what they do, can completely derail the show – as I discovered at a recent Mike Rice gig in Oxford, where a particularly buffed guy in the front row (think somewhere between a gym regular and Jacob Elordi’s hulking, reticent Heathcliff) became the butt of a plethora of jokes – and it’s up to the comedian to decide whether they want to detach or reroute, integrating the new material into their set. Or, the audience can be directly involved in a production itself, with aspects like karaoke and PowerPoint being employed to extract a storyline from those who are, in traditional terms, supposed to be just ‘looking’.
Oxford itself is a place full of performances which blur the boundaries of simply looking. Think of the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays at St Edmund Hall, where last April, for the fourth year running, multiple locations around the college hosted a series of biblical plays in various medieval languages. The setting was often intimate, with audience members seated on the grass, or simply wandering in and stopping to look, even joining in at points. The idea of a fixed theatre is unsettled, and it becomes less a location than a series of encounters. Improv shows like Austentatious (which returns to the New Theatre this May) are driven by the audience, who submit a novel title which the cast then begin to perform. Student theatre often uses seemingly unconventional spaces, like college bars, gardens, and chapels, to perform experimental pieces.
If theatre seems to resist definition, then it is not because it lacks one, but because its definition is deceptively simple. The ‘place for looking’ embedded in the word itself is never neutral – it can be passive, it can be an environment where empathy is built; detached or participatory, fixed or constantly shifting, it always demands that an audience bears witness to a moment in time, it demands that they do not look away. From Brecht’s insistence on a self-aware audience in his innovation of epic theatre, to Kae Tempest’s genre-defying performances, to the improvised and experimental work which fills Oxford’s stages and spaces, theatre emerges where people gather. Perhaps the question to ask is not what ‘counts’ as theatre, but where and how we choose to look.
The post It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s theatre: Defining the ill-defined appeared first on Cherwell.
“I love struggling, actually,” says Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu, “it makes me feel alive”.
The 20-year-old has become something of a global phenomenon, not only because of her success in Milan, but also as a result of this attitude of unprecedented self-confidence. The American had previously quit the sport at age 16 to spend more time with family and friends, but made a triumphant return in 2024 on her own terms, saying the sport gave her “something to be strong for”. You don’t need to understand the mechanics of a triple Axel to be able to see the pure, unfiltered joy on Liu’s face during her victorious Olympic free skate.
I am fascinated by mindsets like Liu’s, ones that differ so starkly from my own. As a chronic depressive, the thought of waking up with such apparent unwavering self-belief is so alien that I’m half-convinced I’d be capable of some kind of acrobatic ice jump if I were able to similarly trust myself through the hard days.
And it strikes me that I’m not the only one in Oxford who could learn a thing or two from Liu.
At an earlier and more cynical time in my life, I saw Oxford as a city divided between us outsiders, crippled by imposter syndrome and self-hatred, and the wannabe leaders of society, brimming with confidence instilled in them since birth for the low price of £20,000 a term. Now, though, I can see that almost no one at Oxford goes about their day without overthinking, or an inner monologue telling them they’re not doing enough.
A recent work by Oxford graduate Simon Van Teutem examines a “Bermuda Triangle of talent” wherein an unprecedented number of graduates are choosing careers in corporate law, management consulting, and investment banking. Is it possible that this phenomenon is a symptom of a crisis of self-esteem at Oxford? Two minutes on LinkedIn is enough to convince you that everyone you know has a millionaire-making graduate scheme lined up, and that you’d better quickly follow suit. I’m delighted to announce that you need to hurry up with your life. You’re falling behind. Why haven’t you been networking? Why didn’t you start casing for McKinsey the day you received your UCAS acceptance?
So it is against this backdrop, as rejection emails numbering in the triple-digits burn a hole in my inbox, that I consider Alysa Liu. Bored of harbouring a heavy fatigue from ceaselessly comparing myself to others, I am optimistic, or maybe delusional enough to hope that self-love really is learnable. What a relief it would be not to rely on a bottle of wine, or 50mg of sertraline to drown out the fear of being judged and found lacking.
In fact, self-belief is a more fundamental component of emotional balance than you might expect. In her 2018 memoir I want to die but I want to eat Tteokbokki, the late Korean author Baek Sehee locates low self-esteem at the crux of her dissatisfaction with her life and personal relationships. To constantly second-guess what impression you’re making on others is to begin to resent those around you for the most likely unfounded suspicions you attribute to them. It almost guarantees that you will never have a moment of peace. And Oxford can’t afford to be negligent about moments of peace.
Here then, is as good a reason as any to investigate the possibility of reinvention with a self-fashioned self-confidence. I had noticed that certain creators online referred to Liu in relation to the term “radical self-love”, so I took this as my starting point. I scrolled through video after video featuring Pinterest pictures of women doing yoga and dancing in the rain, and found an entire genre of girlboss self-help books. But I quickly developed doubts about the internet’s current favourite psychological buzzwords. After all, Marcus Aurelius didn’t have to navigate this modern rabbit-hole of ‘aesthetic’ philosophy and profiteering self-help programs when he set out to know himself.
For example, I found out that the term “radical self-love” itself is attributed to the writer and public speaker Gala Darling, whose 2016 work of the same name promises to offer “the ultimate guide to living the life you’ve only dreamed about”, and to help you “manifest a life bursting with magic, miracles, bliss, and adventure” for the price of £10.29. Did you roll your eyes with me?
Although it feels cynical to side against self-love, I simply worry that this feels a little too close to the commercial exploitation of insecurity. If we purchase Darling’s book in order to love ourselves, who’s to say we shouldn’t purchase a rhinoplasty, or that new designer jumper that everyone seems to have but you? That’s not to say that I am against the movement as a whole, but at this point, I’m proceeding with caution.
In a similar vein to the question of commercialised self-love, I turn to another no less pressing issue: is self-love a mindset that you can simply decide to inhabit one day? Can you try on optimism like a new jacket and leave your old insecurities on the fitting room floor with other temporary delusions like belief in the tooth fairy? Thinking that such a radically good feeling will last forever is what I recognise as a manic episode. I’m pessimistic about the possibility of turning your life around simply because you decide it’s fashionable to love yourself.
On the other hand, I consider that Albert Camus’ freedom has, as its point of entry, an abrupt recognition of the absurd conditions of life. “We must imagine Sisyphus happy” because, having discerned that there was no power to prevent it, Sisyphus is free to conclude that “all is well”. In this way, might it not be possible to navigate Oxford with an awareness of the absurdity of the university and the social exigencies of its student populace?
Radical self-love feels artificially radical to me. I don’t want to have to pay £10.29 to find out that I’m not as messed up as I think I am. I don’t want to put my faith in a TikTok edit to inspire a shift in my outlook.
But maybe there’s something profound at its core. Maybe it is still possible to start loving yourself and your life just by choosing to start swimming up to the surface. To trace the shape of the firm bedrock of insecurity and push up from it simply because you see that it is absurd. To trust that there’s no concrete obstacle between us and a self-belief that doesn’t flinch at the possibility of failure. The kind that helped Alysa Liu come back better than ever.
“Winning isn’t all that and neither is losing,” says Liu: “It’s just something that happens, it’s the outcome. But what matters is the input and the journey.” The key word is input; a concerted effort, not a video you like and forget about. For many of us, self-belief doesn’t come naturally and isn’t going to manifest in us by osmosis. You have to practise. Not a triple Axel, but choosing self-belief. Because despite the girlboss idealism of radical self-love, Oxford needs a little more Alysa Liu.
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