Lana Del Rey's People Get All Lana Del Rey About Lana Del Rey Critics
Following Lana Del Rey's performance on SNL, the Internet rained down upon the singer its very own plagues. First, there was ridicule. Then, there were emails. And more emails making subtle demands. And finally, came the silencing rage of her publicists.
Thought Catalog, the Montessori School of blogs as far as feelings are concerned, responded to the Lana Del Rey incident just as everyone else on the Internet had done: With brutal mockery and disdain. Dave Schilling, a frequent contributor to the site, responded in turn by writing a piece entitled, "Lana Del Ray Responds to Her Critics" (Hipster Runoff re-posted the piece in its entirety). The post was satirical; the title is self-explanatory. But somehow it was this tiny piece, floating alone in a massive sea of inflammatory anti-Lana rants, that spurred her silent team into action.
They sent the requisite emails, they made the appropriate threats. And Thought Catalog responded by removing the post.
The thing is, Lana Del Rey is a creature fashioned purely for the readers of Thought Catalog. The ideal Lana Del Rey fan is a college student/recent graduate and a lover of sepia-tinted photographs. Her fans are Urban Outfitters shoppers and obsessive tumblr users. They are readers of Thought Catalog. With one terrible performance she was expelled by her own kind. And with that, her team demanded the post's removal. This post, and not the hundreds of other terrible things written about her that day. And they did it, not because because the writer was claiming to take on Lana's voice and identity, but because she was Mean Girl'd by the hipster blog.
Or maybe not. We may never know, and that is probably OK. Let's all collectively put this one to bed and agree to never speak about it again. Unless something else happens tomorrow.
