In the spirit of end-of-year wrap-ups, TikTok star Brooklynne Webb, better known as XoBrooklynne, has pulled off one of the best Internet pranks of the year.
Since joining TikTok in 2019, Brooklynne quickly became a creator people loved to hate. Like many other mainstream TikTok creators, her content includes POVs and dance videos, but her knack for responding directly to hate comments has fuelled a mob-like negativity towards her account.
Releasing her debut single ‘My Crown’ on December 8, Brooklynne’s auto-tuned pop anthem about brushing off the haters, was unsurprisingly met with much Internet trolling.
The hate comments were further fuelled by Brooklynne posting videos of herself singing out of tune, leading people to question whether Brooklynne’s move to music was a joke.
The other shoe finally dropped when Brooklynne released her full album ‘My Crown: The Album’, which turned out to be 14 remixes of the same single, including a heavy metal rendition, and a version in Spanish.
@xobrooklynne one of my favourite songs I created on my debut album- screaming on the inside 💕😭❤️👑
♬ screaming on the inside – Brooklynne !
On December 18, Brooklynne finally revealed that her musical pursuit was indeed satire by posting a video on YouTube, titled ‘How Trolling Gave Me A Music Career’.
In the video, she explained that her foray into music had been a joke all along, and that it was really the haters that allowed this to happen in the first place.
“I’ve been on TikTok for two years now and I’ve gotten to know the hate really well, and I got to the point where I would know what people were gonna say before I even posted the video so why not just play off of it?” she said.
“It was the haters that really blew me up and gave me a music career out of nowhere. If you guys didn’t keep feeding into it and being negative and just making fun of me […] it probably wouldn’t have gotten this big,” she continued.
Brooklynne also assured her viewers that she would not be continuing her music career going forward.
After revealing her master plan, it seems Brooklynne has won the respect of many of her former trolls.
One TikTok user commented, “y’all can’t lie she’s smart for this”, while another said, “literal marketing genius”.
Other users pointed out how quickly people changed their minds about Brooklynne, speaking to how little we really know about content creators and the personas they portray online.
Brooklynne admitted she had been playing into the hateful comments all along, carefully crafting her persona knowing full well the reactions she would get. From the terrible singing to the ditzy attitude, we’re now all eating our humble pie because those plays were intentional.
“I hope you guys realise there’s a lot more to myself than just the 15 seconds you see of me on TikTok,” she said to finish her video.
All we can say is touché, Brooklynne.