why addison rae's 'diet pepsi' is genius songwriting

when she said "summer love (ah, ah), sexy" i felt that...

Let me start of by saying, not a day has gone by this past week where I’ve not listened to Diet Pepsi and subsequently gone into work and quoted it like slam poetry to my colleagues. They love it.

Not only is Diet Pepsi insanely catchy, but it is also probably the smartest move of Addison Rae’s career, for one simple reason…

You cannot convince me that its not at least 20% satirical.

The lyrics are bursting with carefully chosen cliche’s depicting “young lust”; “cherries”, “cross-gold chain(s)”, “the backseat”, and finally, “diet pepsi” a clear reference to the coca-cola-ification of Lana Del Rey. This song is so heavy handed in its likeness to Lana, that Addison is clearly letting us know that she knows exactly what she’s doing. This isn’t just a case of one artist ripping of another, it is a case study in clever branding.

Pre Diet Pepsi’s release in April of this year, Addison posted a picture of her covering her topless chest with two diet pepsi cans to Instagram, the caption read “I love Lana”. Self aware check number one. Since then she has been posting pictures with heavy filters, pic collage style grids, and general early Instagram vibes. These visuals paired with the lyrics of Diet Pepsi have surrounded her in a semantic field of playful, youthful, sexy americana.

This call back to the early days of social media takes our subconscious back to a time where Lana Del Rey ran the tumblr-sphere. To the days of flower crowns, diet coke bottles, American flags, denim short shorts and sepia tones. And you know what, nostalgia sells, baby. Addison has not only selected a new brand for herself, she has selected someone else’s brand, one that feels comfortable and sentimental, and even highly regarded. She is now more closely related to the revered work of Lana, than she is to her days of TikTok dance challenges.

When people say “unironically, I love Diet Pepsi” or “I cant believe i’m saying this, but Addison Rae’s new song slaps”, Addison achieves exactly what she set out to do, to prove that she exceeds the expectations people have of her. She cannot change where her fame came from, and I don’t know that she wants to, but she can change the way she is seen.