Zooey Deschanel is Katy Perry
Guest submission by Tim Myers
We live in an age in which corporations have the power to make and break the careers of whatever clean cut celebrity automaton that they see fit. These icons are packaged, marketed and, with the aid of relentless air time on local top 40 stations, sold to a public clamoring to latch on to the next big thing. In response to current trends, pop stars are branded with an often times ill-fitting image allowing, for example, Lady Gaga to refer to herself as "shock pop" even though the only thing shocking about her music is the possibility that "Just Dance" may be about date rape. While this practice has been commonplace in popular music for ages, it also seems to have infiltrated independent-minded subcultures that have risen in defiance of the mainstream. This phenomenon has particularly been evidenced by the parallel rises to fame of Katy Perry and Zooey Deschanel.
Katy Perry is the perfect example of a well branded popstar. As has been demonstrated by the arrival of Pink and Avril Lavigne in the public consciousness, Top 40 music seems to move in cycles as pop music becomes exhausted with itself and an "alternative" icon or two suddenly become famous. Ironically, these alternative icons never really change the mold of future popstars and are doomed to be sandwiched between the type of cookie cutter divas that alternative icons generally rail against in KISS FM playlists and the CD collections of pre-teen girls.
With mainstream divas like Jessica Simpson having a panic attack and getting fat and Beyonce being replaced by the pseudo-feminist, vomit-inducing alter ego "Sasha Fierce", Katy Perry was suddenly in the perfect situation to grace magazine covers with taglines like "Katy Perry grabs Hollywood By the Balls" or "Katy Perry: The Girl You Don't Bring Home To Meet Your Mother Unless You Want Her To Have An Aneurysm". Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" resonated perfectly with girls determined to get in touch with their bad girl side in order to attract the attention of fraternity meatheads and/or get back at their parents and it also resonated with guys who were all too excited to see girls make out with each other. Ultimately, everyone was happy except for the parents themselves and people with souls who saw Katy Perry's music as setting back both women and the LGBT community at least 20 years.
Zooey Deschanel also has proven to be perfectly marketable, winning the adoration of a sizable target market of hipsters who watch Annie Hall obsessively and harbor the misguided notion that girls do, in fact, pour over their painstakingly crafted mixtapes. 500 Days of Summer, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt's ceaseless need to be in a committed relationship with Zooey's "I'm so cute and quirky as I shout penis in a public park" character not only cemented Zooey's status as hipster sex symbol, but also signaled a perfectly timed paradigm shift within the indie community. The innocent romantic is now cool again. Going steady is the new drunken hookup. Websites like "Hipster Wife Hunting" show a formerly oversexed and sometimes bicurious subculture ready to become monogamous.
Really, Zooey Deschanel is just a response to former hipster sex symbol Scarlet Johansson, who has fallen out of favor due to her role in movies like The Nanny Diaries, He's Just Not That Into You, and most notably The Island in which Johansson commits the hipster cardinal sin of starring in a Michael Bay movie. In spite of a valiant effort to win back her once adoring fans with a Tom Waits cover album, Johansson was outplayed by Deschanel, whose She & Him record showed she not only has a more commanding voice, but also featured indie-cred builder M. Ward, resulting in the perfect soundtrack for flanneled folk to touch themselves at night. Ultimately, Deschanel's cutesy schmaltz provides the perfect foil to Johnasson's sex pot promiscuity.
Underneath the simultaneous rise of these two celebrities lies something suspicious. The two look like carbon copies of each other. Same pale skin, same heavy bangs, same big doe eyes. Lyrically speaking, Zooey Deschanel sounds an awful lot like Katy Perry imitating Kermit the Frog. Could Katy Perry be to Zooey Deschanel as Garth Brooks is to Chris Gaines? If true, the result could be a modern day Oedipus Rex style tragedy as hipsters nationwide gouge out their eyes upon discovering that the object of their affection is the same sexual object igniting frat parties nationwide. My friends, we may be in the middle of the great hipster swindle.
-Tim Myers
Tim is a guest writer for PopSense, so be sure to check out more of his work at Milwaukee Cool Kids!
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Over analyze much? Also, I think using the word "hipster" 12 times in three paragraphs must be some kind of record.
I didn't think so, I thought it was an interesting observation. though the word did get used a bunch of times (maybe yall can slim it down?) its hard to describe the scene he is talking about with another word.
those girls are two sides of the same coin
Oh, so Zooey and Katy look alike, do they? Gosh, I've never heard that one before! All this article does is take a tired observation and try to make it look like a substantive commentary. That's just... lazy.
There's more to it than looking alike. I thought the article was good. It showed the irony of how we "hipsters" are supposed to hate Katy Perry and love Zoe Dechanel, when in fact they are rather similar. Not only in looks but other things.Perhaps bringing how ridiculous the whole hipster thing is to light. I mean as a hipster there are certain bands you're supposed to like and dislike, you're almost as influenced by other people's musical taste as someone who buys whatever has been playing on the radio. But, you follow music blogs to look for new music instead of the radio because we're a disdainful lot. If it gets too popular, it's not as cool. Therefore Katy Perry is to be fiercely hated on principle whereas her equivalent "indie" sex-symbol is allowed to be loved dearly. Very strange the logic of it.
But they really aren't that similar. Their music doesn't sound anything alike, and they have different personalities. If it wasn't for their physical resemblance, I doubt a comparison would ever have been made. Anyway, Zooey is becoming mainstream enough that a hipster backlash is inevitable. Because if something has mass appeal, well then it MUST be bad!
Why are none of you reading what he wrote and just assessing his topic from a generalized standpoint because you're in denial of the truth behind the article?
I think most of you are in denial of being brainwashed by Zoey Deschanel's "cutesy" bullshit, which is just as bad as Katy Perry's wannabe "badassness". Face it, they are not only similar in the way the look, but in what they stand for and hipsters just like mainstream people fall for the whole doe eyed bullshit. They just have different images that convey the same message. Also, look how diverse you guys are...loving yet another Western-Centric ideal of beauty, which yet AGAIN comes from the mainstream culture that hipsters disdain so much. When has there ever been a hipster sex symbol who is not Anglo-Saxon looking? Hipster sex symbols are just as one dimensional as mainstream sex symbols, which this article has done an excellent job of conveying. However, they might be more disturbing in a way because they are trying to pretend they are above people like Britney Spears when in fact they are just as shallow. Take those expensive, bourgeousie Ray Bans off and read this article for what it's worth.
hey guys! AMERICAN APPAREL!!! TIGHT JEANS!!! IRONIC!!!!!! HIPSTER!!!
HIPSTER HIPSTER HIPSTER
Why is it that people must categorize everyone and everything into either "hipster" or "mainstream"? Though I personally tend to favor most things indie over most things popular, I do not believe the two should be mutually exclusive. A person should decide what he or she likes based on their OWN taste, not on what someone tells them they should or shouldn't enjoy. Disowning a favorite band just because they become too popular is simply outrageous. Is it so difficult to believe that once in a while the general public might elevate an underground band to popular status simply because the human species as a whole recognizes their talent? Sure, the majority of Top 40's music is total crap whose airplay is bought and not earned, but how could any true audiophile abandon a favorite just because they make it on the Billboard charts? You'd be hard-pressed to find a hipster who would degrade the Beatles (one of the most POPULAR bands of all time!) yet many of Death Cab for Cutie's original fans refuse to listen to their newer albums simply because they "sold out". Learn to think for yourselves, people.
Why the hell do people always say A: Older 'star' (musician) or actor/actress looks like B: the newer star. Zooey was born 1980, Katy Perry is four years younger and a talentless hack. Therefore if you will, would say Katy looks like Zooey. Ignorant mainstream society..... Its almost as bad as people crediting Paramore (yes there apparently a rock band, go figure) for a Foo Fighters song they covered. The original came out when they were about 8 years old.
Hipsters are just as "mainstream" as anything else, or normal people wouldn't know what it was. Not to get racial, but white and/or suburban people love to be a part of the "subculture" or "counterculture" without realizing how silly they look, because by TRYING to be different, they all end up falling in line and being just the same. Hipsters are like Hot Topic. It might not be the coolest thing for you people to do, but there is still a "majority" that will buy into it, because it is "different". Hipster is the very DEFINITION of mainstream, because all suburbans and yuppies are is hipsters. You guys always try to divide yourselves up so much by what music you like, without realizing that it is all "rock n roll" to the rest of us. People are just too igorant, silly, and concerned with being "different" to realize that they are all the same. If you really want to be counterculture, how about trying something that would be considered uhhh... counterculture. Katy Perry and Zooey Dashalasjfoa both look like the same person, and they are both mainstream little girls using up their fifteen minutes of fame. Any more questions?
Katy has fuller lips, that's how I tell them apart.
they both rock so does lady gaga , gwen stefani, avril lavinge, pink, leighton meester, cher, christina aguala, the beatles, taylor momsen, and taylor swift and ect..... they r not divas justin beiber i think is and so is michal jackson in my opinion
Zooey Deschanel is way different than Katy Perry.
They do look alike but their music is dark and light.
I personally like Zooey and dislike Katy perry. I dont take Katy Perry's music seriously. It's nonsense radio music. Zooey is more classy.
yaddayadda labels.