Grimes has said she wishes there was “a less toxic vibe” to certain sections of her fanbase online.
The Canadian musician – real name Claire Boucher – has given an interview with Time in which she has opened up about her relationship with her fans, where she isolated Reddit users as the primary problematic element.
“Just the Reddit. Everyone else is fine,” she said. “Honestly, the angrier they get, the more my streaming goes up. So I suppose it’s fine, but I would definitely appreciate a less toxic vibe in the fan base.”
She continued that she feels it adds to the pressure to produce new music. “That’s where I have to rush music out: they always chill out when there’s music,” she said. “I just need to give them some art.”
Grimes was eager to clarify that most fans are “usually coming from the right place”, adding: “I do think social media really incentivises people worrying that other people are evil. And in general, I think everyone across the board is worrying too much that other people are evil, and probably only like 10% of people are evil.”
The comments follow on from Grimes asked people to stop sharing images of her four-year-old son online after his appearance at the White House with his father Elon Musk.
“I would really like people to stop posting images of my kid everywhere. I think fame is something you should consent to,” she said. “Obviously, things will just be what they are. But I would really, really appreciate that. I can only ask, so I’m just asking.”
Last month, she hit out at her former partner for parading Lil X around the Oval Office as Trump signed an executive order to bolster Musk’s powers in government. “This is X, and he is a great guy,” Trump said about the child in a viral video clip of the meeting. “High IQ. He is a high IQ individual.”
More footage and images of Lil X and his father with Trump then began circulating on social media, with Grimes writing: “He should not be in public like this. I did not see this, thank u for alerting me. But I’m glad he was polite. Sigh.”
Grimes is far from the first high-profile female musician to draw attention to fanbase toxicity over the last year. Chappell Roan wrote a lengthy post on Instagram in which she called out the “predatory behaviour” of so-called “superfans” in August, saying she has had to “draw lines and set boundaries” and explaining that she has been in “too many nonconsensual physical and social interactions”.
Roan’s comments drew support from a number of other artists, including Paramore‘s Hayley Williams, who described her sentiments as “brave” and “unfortunately necessary”.
Jewel was another who spoke out in support of Roan, sharing disturbing anecdotes of her own experiences of harassment that she has faced as a woman in the music industry, as did MUNA, who referred to “truly scary” behaviour that they “cannot be silent” about.
As for Grimes, she recently shared two previously unreleased demos, ‘I Don’t Give A Fuck, I’m Insane’ and ‘The Fool’, and appeared in the video for ADÉLA’s ‘Machine Girl’. Her last album was ‘Miss Anthropocene’ in 2020.
