Editor's note: This article was written around 2 months ago despite us only now posting it after a sudden unexplained hiatus. I understand that there's another conversation happening online currently about Tate McRae's working relationship with Morgan Wallace or whatever his name is, but I am not here to talk about that. I don't think that debacle has an impact on the point of this article, so I'm not going to get into it <3

said Twitter user @notfolu in a quote reply to a video of Tate Mcrae’s recently released music video “Revolving Door”. The featured video showcases Tate in a white corridor, dressed in a white tank top and boyshorts, bending and contorting in wildly intricate choreography that is altered within the video production by digitally reversing the movements. Her performance is visually captivating enough to have gained over 24 million views on the original post of the video, which was captioned “Tate McRae just punched herself a ticket out of the khia asylum” (translation of this tweet to follow). However, the majority of the interactions are quote tweets and replies arguing about the validity of McRae’s talent, discussing with occasional malice if she is an artist worth investing in. Despite her saturated background as a performer, it seems like the trenches of conversations that take place within the Twitter fan community are pitted against her. While these musings are, to some degree, just mindless digital chatter, they do have impact to audiences who are outside of the scope of the original communities they were released into when tweets go as viral as these have (the tweet from @notfolu has 242K likes as of writing this, ratioing the original tweet). Though some have known of Tate McRae from her other music, or from her previous accolades as a dancer, the release of her new album has been accompanied with a wave of confusing conversation. She has all the makings of a young star; Why is the internet rejecting Tate McRae?

"She is serving but there is nothing on the plate, it is so fascinating"

PHOTO BY @BAETH

Tate is not exactly a newcomer, but her newest album So Close To What has been her heavy hitter of her album discography, debuting at Number #1 on the Billboard 200. Her music career launched back in 2019 after being signed to RCA Records, but her popularity really hit with her 2023 hit “Greedy”. The song took off on TikTok quickly and brought McRae into the limelight, with the single peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Greedy” is feisty and confident in a way that her previous music wasn’t, and this attitude, combined with her dance skills, set her apart from the other pop girls on the scene at the time. McRae had spent most of her adolescence professionally dancing; she was highly regarded in the competitive dance space as a pre-teen and later went on to be a backup dancer for Justin Bieber, Ellen Degeneres, and placed 3rd on So You Think You Can Dance at only 13. Her talent in dance is what sparked interest in many new listeners beyond the first successful single, along with some of the online gossip surrounding her and her hockey player ex-boyfriend. Her second single of 2023 “Exes” followed very quickly after “Greedy” amplified interest in her as an artist as well as her personal life, as the song alluded to the details of her rumored breakup. After solidifying herself on the pop charts as more than a one-hit wonder, she’s maintained presence in digital spaces from videos of her performances going viral and sparking controversy, not from anything she has done specifically, but from people expressing their opinions of her dance routines and singing style.

The conversation about Tate has centered around the concept of “reheating the nachos” of other artists, notably Britney Spears and Nicole Scherzinger, but several other stars like Addison Rae, Rihanna, or any other female pop star who can dance. “Reheating [someone’s] nachos” is a recently developed term used online to liken one person to another, typically in reference to artists and their art. The conversation about Tate has centered on the idea that what she has put out within the past few years is “unoriginal” or “has been done before”, despite there being no justified evidence to back the claim.

Truthfully, we haven’t had anything like Tate for quite some time. Tate is part of the wave of talented modern artists who emphasize dance in their performances in a way that isn’t just additional to their vocal performance. The early 2000s had incredible performers who set this stage, like Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera, but artists rising in the past few years like Victoria Monet, Tinashe, Tyla, and Tate have revived this style of artistry that hasn’t been seen in the wider pop music space in decades. Artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, Dua Lipa, and Chappel Roan are all very talented dancers who have engaging choreography in their performances, but the routines are designed to complement the vocal performance, and reasonably so. With Victoria, Tinashe, Tyla, and McRae, the choreography is an equal part of the performance overall. They often take breaks from singing to focus on dance breaks to frequently emphasize movement over vocal performance. They are dancers just as much as they are singers, which is noticeably different from most of the current female pop stars in the West.

The Khia Asylum refers to a term that originated from the trenches of online fan culture. Khia is an American rapper best known for her only charting single “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)”. Khia has widely been labeled as an irrelevant nobody by Nicki Minaji’s fan community, originating from a tweet of a woman crying while meeting Khia at a record store in 2014. The tweet, “This gotta be photoshopped. Ain't nobody crying when they meet Khia in 2014” sparked the use of the term “Khia” as being synonymous with "loser" or "irrelevant " due to Khia’s inability to breakthrough to commercial success after her first popular song. In May of 2024, this term was used in a tweet by Twitter user @impxrfectforyou in an image that showed several artists in a hierarchy of the user’s opinion of their commercial success. The top of the list showed Beyonce, Rihanna, and Ariana Grande as being some of the most successful artists, transitioned to middle artist Katy Perry noted as “Flop but with unbroken biggest billboard pop record”, and lowered into the Khia rankings, with Sabrina Carpenter labeled “Just got out of the Khia asylum”, Camila Cabello and Demi Lovato in the category “Buying her ticket to the Khia asylum”, and the lowest tier titled “Khia asylum” featuring Zara Larsson, Bebe Rexha, and out of all people, Charli XCX. This image coined the term “Khia Asylum”, which is used as the metaphorical location of the lost, forgotten, or culturally irrelevant artists. Notably, the image implies that there is a method of escaping the Khia Asylum, referencing a supposed hypothetical ticketing system. Sabrina Carpenter was seen escaping the Khia Asylum this past summer with her hit “Espresso” after consistently releasing music since 2014 that nobody cared about, and now she has a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Record from the success of this year alone. Miracles happen every day; seemingly everyone has the chance to work their way out of the metaphorical Khia Asylum.

Tate McRae was labeled by some online communities, notably Twitter user @mazzypopstar, as being in the Khia Asylum, which I would consider valid criticism up until very recently. There just isn’t enough evidence to support the idea that she is (or even was) still in the asylum after the singles she released last year. “Greedy” has been used in over 1.7 million TikTok videos since its release, her latest promotional single “Sports Car” in over 800 thousand, and a deep cut album track “I know love” has had over 70 thousand uses in the week since its release on February 21st. She has had several high-charting singles, spanning across two albums over 2 years, and maintained a digital presence consistently, both for her music and just generally being hot and talented. Her music videos make rounds online on various platforms, and the conversation of Tate McRae has been happening for well over a year. At this point, she is relevant. She might not be at the top of the food chain, but she is definitely somebody. The data doesn’t back up the accusation of her being a flop, and while she might not be competing for Grammys yet, she is on the charts.

"Tate McRae just punched herself a ticket out of the khia asylum"

PHOTO BY @BAETH

The online discussion of Tate’s performances feels intentionally short-sighted. Tate is an exceptional dancer; the accolades of her dance history speak for themselves. Her performance choreography is generally compared to Britney Spears, but the similarities are most directly drawn from the fact that they are two white women who sing and excel in dance. Britney is the most obvious comparison because she is the only white woman who Tate slightly resembles who uses the same formula for her shows; equal parts dance to vocal performance. Her music sounds nothing like Britney’s aside from suggestive lyrical content, and the choreography is vastly different. Notably, the commentary on Tate’s singing voice feels reminiscent of comments made about Britney’s nasally vocal tone as she rose to fame.

Tate’s critics have opinions about her vocal performance that range from underwhelmed to irritated. “I want to like Tate McRae cuz she’s gorgeous and her body is everything and she can dance her ass off but something abt the way she sings I find rly annoying. Like why does she have to sing in cursive” said Twitter user @sill3n_g1rl, in reply to the tweet about Tate serving with nothing on the plate. This sentiment about Tate’s “cursive singing” seems to be a common complaint from critics of Tate, which originates from a long-standing critique of indie artist’s vocal styles from the past decade. Ace Linguistics defines cursive singing in a blog post as “a breathy voice, vocal fry, distinct vowel choices, and a thin, delicate style of singing”. Halsey has been around for well over a decade (see Mallsey 2014), but the term was most likely brought into the public lexicon from Vine user Chrish’s video loosely titled “indie girl singer” from 2015. An article from Canadian publication Exclaim suggests that Tate’s adoption of the vocal style is, from a recent cultural standpoint, inherently Canadian. “This unconscious bias might have something to do with Canadian roots. Sure, cursive singing's long, diverse history covers numerous parts of the world — my colleague is convinced Icelandic Björk was the impetus; others theorize Amy Winehouse as the British source code, while Australian pop star Tones and I is a top late-2010s offender — but the part about introverted originality and signalling group membership certainly harkens to a play many Canadian artists looking to cross over into the larger US market have to make”. Exclaim references artists like Alessia Cara, Jessie Reyez, and, recently, Tate McRae as playing into this trope to appeal to American pop audiences. This seems to prove true because, as much as many people passionately claim to hate the style, Halsey is proof that American pop charts are kind of into that shit. It does feel like this style she sings in may have originated from exposure and desire to appeal to American indie and pop artists, but I’m not sure if that accusation alone is enough to deem her boring or unoriginal in style overall. We have all heard (and had enough of) cursive singing, but we haven’t seen a performer like Tate on the front lines of pop since The Pussycat Dolls.

The future seems unclear yet optimistic for our pop-protagonist as she metaphorically punches her ticket out of the metaphorical Khia Asylum (though the proof of her residency at the location is yet to be determined). She certainly has eyes on her after the chart-topping release of her latest album So Close to What, and the continuation of her rise to fame certainly seems possible if she can conquer the hardest part of the challenge: maintaining the audience’s attention. We are entering a new dawn of pop music, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2010. The most powerful leaders in this space have already begun to take shape in the forefront of the public eye, but Queen is a title given to a star who has solidified herself. Many artists are fighting for that crown right now, and say what you want about Tate and her nachos, but she is clearly, irrefutably, putting up a good fight.