Addison Rae Is Cringe But She Is Free

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This week, Addison Rae released her debut album ‘Addison’, a love song to pop stars of yesteryear like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. She also announced she’d like to be known mononymously. You know, like Rihanna or Madonna or Beyoncé. Given Rae’s fame started on TikTok six years ago and has only made a modest movement into the mainstream since, some might deem this presumptuous. One name titles are typically reserved for icons. Her more famous peers Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter are touring the world with their last names firmly in place, surely modesty begs she wait?

But, making a grab even when it seems uncouth, is Addison’s signature move. And, it’s something she spoke about frankly in a New York Times profile published on June 3 just ahead of her debut album. 

In the interview Rae addressed the idea that she’s a somehow an artificial pop star thanks to her jarring past as a TikTok dancer. 

“When I reflect back on that time,” she said, “I’ve recognised how much choice and taste is kind of a luxury.” It’s a statement that sums up Rae’s appeal for young people who are increasingly turning away from a long held intergenerational terror of “cringe” and bad taste to simply… hustle.

‘Addison’: The Prodigal Daughter Of Cringe

In 2023 a surreal video went viral on TikTok. A cow stood in the waves on a beach gazing into the distance. The words that accompanied it were “I am cringe but I am free.” It’s a peaceful images that recognises the embarrassment increasingly demanded by everyday life. A companion to videos like “On my way to work because I was too embarrassed to dance on TikTok in 2018.” Its a mood and a movement that acknowledges that in the apocalyptic 2020s, success comes with a required dose of humiliation.

Nobody knows this better than Addison Rae.

Addison Rae grew up in Louisiana, a competitive dancer, something which thanks to Toddlers and Tiaras (she’s friends with some of the girls) is perhaps second to dressage in the line of uncool sports.  

She wanted to be famous, so she started posting goofy, synchronised TikTok dances up to eight times a day – the kind the app was known for during peak COVID. 

A far cry from her now ruthlessly styled and sexy music videos. 

But record labels noticed her. Reps would send her $20 for a dance video set to their artist’s music, something she says still causes her awkward moments today when she comes across these same people as a bonafide celebrity. 

Rae said because of her background on an app known for artifice,  people like to question her legitimacy. “[TikTok] comes up now… people feeling like, ‘Oh, this is inauthentic. Did you ever even like to make music. Or did you ever sing?” 

Presumably these people imagine her a digitally reverse engineered studio siren, signed for a follower count and repackaged as a serious pop star. And she kind of is. She admits she didn’t have an idea of what her album would sound like when she pitched it to Columbia Records so she pulled together a mood board. She wanted to show her vision for herself – compromised by some leaked demo recordings that made her seem deeply unserious and her track record of very public TikTok dancing. 

Rae’s moodboards sound satirical when described. They featured splashes of aquamarine, hot pink and purple, and words that were both earnest and childish (“intentional”, “intense”, “dance,” “glitter”). Images were of Britney Spears performing “Im a Slave 4 U” at the 2001 MTV Video and Madonna’s Girlie Show tour. Wildly presumptuous. 

But Columbia bought it and Rae embarked on a year-long journey of methodically reverse engineering her image. That meant stomping around LA in booty shorts clutching Britney Spears’ autobiography in a way that delighted journalists, enlisting stylist Dara Allen who is fashion director at Interview magazine and counts Hunter Schafer amidst her stable of clients to shape her look. 

In 2025 the discourse around what it means to be “cool” circles around authenticity. Brands need to come across as human, celebrities need to “real talk” and share their plastic surgery secrets to be liked, reliability is held sacred. 

In 2023 a surreal video went viral on TikTok. A cow stood in the waves on a beach gazing into the distance. The words that accompanied it were “I am cringe but I am free.” It’s a peaceful images that recognises the embarrassment increasingly demanded by everyday life. A companion to videos like “On my way to work because I was too embarrassed to dance on TikTok in 2018.” Its a mood and a movement that acknowledges that in the apocalyptic 2020s, success comes with a required dose of humiliation. Nobody knows this better than Addison Rae.

But having the power to take the gamble on being totally and authentically yourself is a privilege. 

Kylie Jenner has only started sharing the details of her plastic surgery now she’s at the peak of her career with a multi million dollar business and an A-list boyfriend to match. Hailey Bieber only made fun of herself for being a nepo baby and mean girl for Vogue’s What’s In Her Bag? weeks before pulling off a billion dollar sale for her brand Rhode and securing the stamp of legitimacy an American Vogue cover gives a celebrity that she was there to promote. Charli XCX who has been celebrated for bringing grungy “brat” realness into the mainstream but had been working for 12-years before letting it all hang out. 

Being yourself is a gamble and earnestly hustling is the reality for most young people who aren’t well connected nepo babies or independently wealthy, no matter the industry they’re trying to crack. 

Sure, we’re not all trying to convince Columbia Records that we have the potential to be mononymous superstars. But most of us have had the experience of tossing up between a stable unglamorous gig and a prestigious unpaid internship. A role at a start up where we have the opportunity to change the world or a title shared by 20 other juniors at a company that has existed for 50 years and never makes redundancies. As the economy gets worse and life feels more full of risk, it’s a choice that is harder and harder to make. Depending on our financial or social background the decision to make the one that perfectly aligns with our “authenticity” is a luxury that can’t always immediately be satiated. 

This is something Addison Rae openly calls out in the interview. 

“I was definitely strategic with it [TikTok]

Ray said. “It was a lot about like, ‘How am I just going to get out of here?’ It wasn’t about like, ‘Let me show the intricacies of myself right now.’” Her personal taste, personal style, personal vision for herself was a pragmatic sacrificial lamb.  

What might be perceived as cringe or calculated could also be perceived as “shameless” hard work. 

An example of the privilege of personal style, personal taste, earnestness and real hard work was on show during Timothée Chalamet Oscars run. 

In February this year the breathless 29-year old who spent his press tour making his desperation to win an Oscar incredibly clear, took to the stage to accept his Screen Actors Guild Award for A Complete Unknown. Dressed in head to toe leather Bob Dylan-core which had become his signature during his promotional tour, Chalamet gave a Very Earnest speech. “I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness,” he said, name checked Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Jordan and Viola Davis.

Chalamet’s speech which ended with him thanking judges for giving him the “ammo” to keep pursuing his dream, felt wincingly sincere to millennials raised on a diet of Daria and sarcasm. But, it was widely celebrated.

“We’ve been trained to expect humility and genuflection to one’s idols, and in taking a different tack,’ wrote Variety journalist Alison Herman. She cited Anne Hathaway’s brief career ending Oscars acceptance speech when she squealed “it came true” clutching her award. But, for Variety Chalamet’s speech was “the opposite of obnoxious” because the actor had used his project Dune and much less cool project Willy Wonka mainstream success to get A Complete Unknown off the ground.

Herman describes this as the relationship between star and star vehicle, an economy where fame and success in one project can be transmuted into fame and success in another a trick Chalamet had pulled off with, if we dare say, Wonka like alacrity. “It means when he aims for greatness, he’s doing the same for an entire industry,” wrote Herman. “He can only reach his goal if he gets the necessary opportunities, or more likely helps create them. 

Addison Rae, or Addison, has also created her own opportunities and is also hoping to be one of the greats. She’s just switched Daniel Day Lewis for Britney, Madonna and Gaga with TikTok her Wonka. In 2021 she released her first single “Obsessed” which the New York Times dismissed as “perfectly pulsing, pithy Peletoncore.” Four years later and the publication is favourably profiling her. 

Addison is, if nothing else, proof that being cringe is sometimes just part of the work and our personal goals are just one Britney-dense moodboard away. 

The post Addison Rae Is Cringe But She Is Free appeared first on ELLE.

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