Aside from COVID-19, one of the biggest talking points of the last year has been “cancel culture.” If you have been fortunate enough to have somehow lived your life to April 2021 without knowing what the term means, I applaud you.
Essentially cancel culture is a phenomenon in which past discretions or grossly misinterpreted/spun statements or actions are held in the public kangaroo court. In the case of cancel culture, the defendant is most always found guilty and thus loses fans, partnerships, jobs among many other different building blocks of their social life. Before the 2020’s cancel brigade, artist Titanic Sinclair was in the throes of his own cancellation and the scathing wrath of the internet.
Titanic Sinclair (real name Corey Mixter) was a young artist, a part of the Mars Argo band when he first made his way onto the internet music scene. He and his partner Mars Argo would make many odd videos on the internet such as Delete Your Facebook and Rejected Mountain Dew Commercial. The pair were seemingly on the rise in terms of popularity with the music video release for Using You. However, the band unceremoniously disbanded for reasons that would eventually implode to the internet’s surface in May 2018.
After creating a few singles, Titanic found new success as a creative director, writer and producer behind the Poppy channel. The internet went crazy for the doll-like girl stuck in a pink and white void, talking to plants, mannequins and suffering from frequent nosebleeds. Even the biggest creator on the platform, Pewdiepie was making a video on Poppy. Soon Poppy had a record deal, was walking runways, attending award shows and even had her own YouTube Red series. Both Poppy and Titanic participated in reactionary content, from calling out artists for supposedly copying them to starting a “cult,” — these odd shenanigans only propelled their newfound celebrity.
Poppy’s music gradually transformed from bubblegum pop to Tokyo-inspired electronica and eventually to Nu Metal, illustrating not just Poppy’s versatility as an artist but Titanic’s as an author.
However, come May 2018, the first real controversy happened, when Mars Argo sued both for infringement on her copyright for similarities between the Mars Argo persona and Poppy. In the heat of content being created commenting on this case, videos were leaked of Titanic acting in problematic ways towards Argo. Although the case was eventually settled, this wouldn’t be the end of controversy because in December 2019, Poppy and Titanic went separate ways.
The internet did what it does best and began to cancel Titanic, bashing him for the way in which he treated both women and his overall condescending and rude internet persona. Instead of being combative, Titanic took a break from the internet and would emerge several months later, his hair back to dark brown and a smile on his face.
I got to sit down with Corey Mixter, not Titanic but Corey. We talked about a great many things including his sound, past escapades at Columbia and his connection to DePaul University but most memorably, his growth as both an artist and a person.
I won’t lie, I have been following Corey and his various music acts since I was in highschool and some of his songs are my favorites, but at the same time I don’t agree with the actions he took in his past. From the very beginning, there was some sort of mask and persona he was placing on himself. Titanic was always very distant from the viewer, not only because he was filming in a sterile environment but the overproduced sound mixing paired with his slightly-condescending voice always felt alien.
From a content perspective, his art has become much more humble, as he quoted legendary songwriter Harlan Howard “Country is Three Chords and the Truth,” a line that Corey now bases his new content around. Corey’s YouTube channel nowadays is him sitting down in a dimly lit room just talking about his life and the lessons he has learned along the way. Likewise his music has taken a country-turn focusing on his own truth and more positive emotions. Additionally the way he interacts with others has also changed. Previously, Titanic would only interact on social media by insulting people: This was so prevalent he even began selling shirts that stated “Titanic Sinclair was mean to me on twitter.” As of now, Corey seems to respond to almost every single comment, making an effort to show his appreciation towards his fans.
Throughout my talk with Corey, there was such a genuine energy from him. From the way he spoke about his past actions, you can hear the sincerity and regret in his voice. It really struck me when he talked about the advice he would give himself five or six years ago; “Don’t take yourself so seriously and learn to say you’re sorry.” There is something so profound in that statement, the self-realization and journey he has gone through over the past year and a half, being able to recognize that not only you were wrong but to wish you could go back in time and apologize for how you acted. I am honestly really excited to see more of this side of Corey because for so long it was just Titanic being reactionary, and it appears that Corey was just as interesting if not more.
So often with “cancel culture,” the internet is so focused on the cancelling, that the movement to get somebody deplatformed negates any possibility the individual might hold towards bettering themselves. What I find remarkable about Corey’s story is that he is an outlier. So often, celebrities such as Jeffree Star and James Charles are consistently cancelled but don’t take the time to work through their problems and recognize why they were witch-hunted. It is perfectly okay to call people out for their mistakes and transgressions, in fact that is needed in order for us to better ourselves, but the issue comes down to when people aren’t given the proper chance to change and show that they have grown.
I am incredibly excited to see what is in store for Corey in the near future, specifically with his new upcoming album, Texas Dream, which is going to be filled with truth, sincerity and most importantly disco. Titanic’s discography can be accessed through Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, and YouTube.