Charli XCX, the hyperpop provocateur who turned lime-green chaos into a cultural juggernaut with Brat, has traded TikTok rants for something unexpectedly analog: a Substack.
Launched under the handle itscharlibb, her debut post — "Running on the Spot in a Dream" — blends raw vulnerability with artistic introspection that feels worlds away from club bangers and viral dances.
In a landscape where celebrities typically drop newsletters as thinly veiled merch funnels, Charli's entry feels disarmingly genuine.
Or does it? As fans flock, whispers of "Brat 2.0 marketing" swirl. Could this be the next chapter in her world-building playbook — or a sincere pivot to prose?
The timing is poetic. Just after dropping the brooding single "Chains of Love" — a track from Emerald Fennell's gothic Wuthering Heights adaptation — Charli's essay dives into the void left by Brat's supernova success. "After brat, I had a feeling that I wouldn't be able to make music anymore," she confesses, describing the post-release emptiness as "stuck, I was empty, I was barren."
It's a rare peek behind the curtain: the euphoric "abundance" of ideas during creation giving way to a hollow ache when the work is "thrust out into the world" and becomes "everyone's."
But then came Fennell's script — "undeniably raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British, tortured" — a lifeline that yanked her from depletion into a "sense of freedom." The resulting album isn't a "Charli XCX album," she insists; it's a "celebration of my freedom as an artist right now," evoking the dreamy haze of her early work.
No tour planned — just songs "living as songs, within and adjacent to the film." It's a manifesto for reinvention, hinting at her growing film fixation: "I’m enjoying acting, I’m enjoying writing, I’m enjoying watching... discovering a new craft."
The Brat Echo: Marketing Magic or Authentic Unload?
Skeptics smell strategy. Brat's rollout was a masterclass in viral alchemy: a manifesto dictating everything from 909 drum machines (brat-approved) to the exact shade of "puke green" (Pantone 3570 C).
It spawned "Brat Walls" in Brooklyn (livestreamed on TikTok for fan pilgrimages), secret Boiler Room raves, and even political rebrands — "kamala IS brat." The album didn't just sell; it infiltrated culture, boosting streams by 340% and turning "brat summer" into a meme lexicon of user-generated edits and ironic merch.
Substack feels like its literary sequel. "I’m also knowing that I’m enjoying talking about the work here in long form," Charli writes, teasing more dispatches from her "overwhelming creativity."
Marketers are buzzing: This isn't a one-off promo drop; it's "world-building marketing" extended, fostering intimacy without the algorithm's glare. Fans dissect her Velvet Underground nods and John Cale collab ("To be on a song with one of my heroes is quite frankly completely magical").
Not the First Pop Star Scribbler — But the Most Bratty
Charli isn't Substack's inaugural A-lister. George Saunders pens wry essays for years, amassing hundreds of thousands of subscribers with his lit-fic wisdom. R.L. Stine dishes Goosebumps lore to tens of thousands of fans. Even Taylor Swift-adjacent voices thrive: Sarah Chapelle's *Taylor Swift Style* newsletter unpacks Eras Tour fits with forensic glee, hitting NYT bestseller status. But Swift herself? Absent. Charli channels that fever: Her Substack evokes Swift's Easter-egg hunts but swaps fan theories for unfiltered voids. A Taylor drop might shatter servers, but Charli's feels like slipping into a dimly lit afterparty — exclusive yet eavesdrop-friendly.
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Substack's Glow-Up: From Niche to Neon?
For Substack — a platform now valued in the billions — Charli's arrival is rocket fuel. It's grown steadily, but celeb influx risks the "brand takeover" dread fans voiced during Brat's commodification. Will it spawn a "celebrity-to-Substack pipeline," or dilute the indie magic?
Charli's betting on the former: "I’m happy to stay here for a while." If Brat taught us anything, it's that her "energy" — chaotic, collaborative, unapologetic — turns skeptics into superfans. Substack might just get a little more gothic. And hey, if it lures Taylor? The discourse would break the internet all over again.
