Recommendations of the Editorial team
Olivia Rodrigo wasn’t wrong – it is actually It’s pretty brutal out there, especially when “out there” means this neglected place called the Internet, which is currently going on about a pop star’s penchant for babydoll dresses. The internet collectively went crazy this week because Rodrigo dared to have his own fashion style. (Honestly, this place is really good only plus stalking swarms.)
As Rodrigo prepares to release her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So In Love, she twirls somewhere between preppy and edgy in the loose, fluttery silhouette, a hallmark of her style. For the album cover, she wore a candy pink dress with a floral collar; in the music video for “Drop Dead,” a blue one with frills; and most recently she rocked Barcelona’s Teatro Greco at Spotify Billions Club Live in a floral babydoll dress with matching bloomer shorts underneath.
That was apparently too much for users on “She wears pink dresses similar to toddlers’, with ruffled underwear underneath,” one X user wrote, referring to Rodrigo’s Barcelona outfit. “This looks like kids clothes and with all the sexy moves she’s trying it seems kinda weird,” wrote another. A post about the same outfit reached 21 million views and simply reads: “Maybe I’m too woke.”
Not a new style
This is nothing new for the singer – she has been combining feminine dresses with combat boots since the start of her music career in 2021. Rodrigo’s style has always been referential; it’s a trademark that has earned her fans across generations. In 2023, she told ROLLING STONE that her mother woke her up in the morning with Babes in Toyland’s “Fontanelle.” “Rock in this feminine way – to me that’s just the coolest thing in the world,” she said at the time.
So it’s no wonder that the singer also takes her fashion cues from Babes front singer Kat Bjelland. Bjelland was one of the icons of the 1990s riot grrrl scene and, like Courtney Love and Bratmobile’s Allison Wolfe, was known to wear hyper-feminine, playfully girlish clothes. This harmless, doll-like look was a deliberate contrast to the anger in her punk discographies and unbridled performances – a targeted attack on the image of women as docile objects in the patriarchy.
That many don’t recognize Rodrigo’s obvious references is not surprising. What’s baffling, however, is the insistence that she must be doing something disreputable with this look. It all seems constructed – and is suspiciously reminiscent of the manufactured outrage that online bots so masterfully stage. A coordinated bot attack? Possible.
Bot campaigns in sight
Last year, GUDEA, a behavioral analytics startup that tracks viral, reputation-damaging claims online, identified two separate bot smear campaigns targeting Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan. In such attacks, fake profiles create an artificial echo chamber by constantly posting on a topic – giving the impression that there is a viral consensus among Internet users. So far, no confirmed bot attack has been found to explain the Rodrigo outrage. But the more absurd the outcry, the greater the likelihood that it is completely baseless.
Maybe in the end it’s as simple as good old misogyny – something Rodrigo knows all too well. “Releasing music in the age of social media can be really intimidating,” Rodrigo told Alanis Morissette for ROLLING STONE’s Musicians on Musicians in 2021. “I think young women are being held to incredibly unrealistic standards.”
