Who else has used the rubber band method to create mystery and desire from their audience? You can let me know in the comments on the Substack ⬇️
You can read Rolling Stone’s cover story on Addison Rae here
In today’s episode of “Ahead of the Curve with Coco Mocoe”, we will be talking about Addison Rae’s recent Rolling Stone cover story. In it, she gives some insight into her mysterious strategy. How was she able to break through the stiff, glass ceiling of influencers before her and become pop music’s newest darling? She has performed alongside Charli XCX, had co-signs from Grammy-winners like Finneas and most importantly, has Gen-Z on the edge of their seat. A generation that is known for not holding back their insults and honesty when it comes to how they feel about TikTok’s biggest creators.
I believe Addison Rae used what I call the “rubber band method” in marketing. But what exactly is that and how can you implement it as a creator, yourself?
“Ahead of the Curve with Coco Mocoe” is a marketing podcast that covers internet and pop culture but from a branding angle. Coco Mocoe is a trend forecaster and marketing expert who loves diving deep into why things go viral on the internet and how you can apply that to your own brand or creator journey.
IG: @cocomocoe
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Email: cocomocoe@gmail.com
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TOPICS + TIME STAMPS:
0:00 - Addison Rae’s “Obsessed” seen as a “flop”
1:50 - “The Rubber Band Method” in Marketing
3:13 - Coconuts thoughts on Addison Rae’s re-brand
5:07 - Rolling Stone Addison Rae cover story summary
7:08 - Popular Vs. Cool
8:22 - The movie that shifted Addison Rae’s career
9:12 - The failure of item beauty
11:00 - Addison Rae’s transition off TikTok
12:20 - The rubber band method in marketing
15:40 - How to know when to shift your niche
15:30 - When to pull back as a creator
Extended Episode:
18:56 - Other influencers who have used the rubber band method
Emma Chamberlain
Brittany Broski
Alex Cooper
35:03 - How to know if it is time for you to pull back as a creator
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE:
Did you know that Addison Rae’s first solo song, “Obsessed”, performed so ‘poorly’ that it didn’t even crack the top 100 charts? This is despite the song being produced by hit-maker Benny Blanco and having a huge PR push for the song, like Addison Rae performing it on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.
Now, we must look at this comparatively because the first solo song for a new artist getting 28 million views on YouTube should never be considered a “flop”. And I personally loved the song. I think it was a look into Addison’s future artistry. One with lyrics that remind us music can also be for fun and for escapism. You don’t always have to give a deep Ted Talk and have a million easter eggs or Pulitzer Prize-Winning lyrics for it to be considered “good”.
But what I didn’t know is that the low performance of “Obsessed”, at least by industry standards, made Addison Rae almost radioactive to record labels. I never knew of this fact until I read about it in The Rolling Stone cover story about her, written by Brittany Spanos. In fact, this deep dive interview with Addison Rae inspired this episode. I always assumed that Addison Rae purposefully maneuvered off social media and into a somewhat mysterious figure, intentionally, when I began toying with the idea of doing an episode on her for AOTC. But this interview confirms some of my theories I had about her and her rise to prominence. So that is what we will be talking about today!
I am calling today’s episode, “The Addison Rae Effect”, which in theory is what I call, “The Rubber Band Effect” in marketing. How does one become more famous by pulling away from public life? Instead of fading into irrelevancy? Especially as the internet becomes more and more fast-paced and the supply much outweighs the demand.
In the free portion of this podcast, I am going to break down some of the most telling parts from her Rolling Stone interview. But I will only brush the surface. You guys know how much I love collecting physical media to keep the art alive so I encourage you to buy a physical copy of the magazine if you are left wanting more when this episode ends.
I will also discuss what the rubber band effect is, exactly. Why do some fan bases become even more rabid and obsessed with their favorite creators or artists when they pull away? Why do some lose interest in them and they fade into irrelevancy?
Then in the paid portion of the podcast, exclusively on my best-selling Substack at cocomocoe.substack.com, I will talk about how you can implement the rubberband effect without fading into irrelevancy. And I will also discuss other examples of creators and artists who have done this successfully.
When drafting this episode, I asked the coconuts in the Substack chat what you thought of Addison Rae’s successful shift into music and pull away from TikTok.
Oli said:
Janine Said:
And Morgan said:
The Rolling Stone article starts out with Addison Rae picking up journalist Brittany Spanos, at LAX in a black range rover with a pink glitter license plate cover. The article then spans over the course of two full days as Spanos shadows Rae. To start out, Rae goes to multiple workout classes in one day, one including Barry’s Boot Camp with Rosalia. She eats at Joans on Third, a west hollywood hot spot as fans run up to her and she meets up with fellow dancer and creative director, Lexee Smith. I am fascinated by Lexee Smith, by the way. I wrote about her on this Substack once but she is a fellow dancer and best friend to Addison who seems to be one of the huge pushes behind Addion’s rise into a sort of avant garde, boundary pushing creative.
Spanos describes Rae as “strange, campy but most importantly, fun”. Spanos poses the question, “How did the popular girl with a Southern charm get invited to the cool kids table?” And this title right here can slip by but it actually defines this whole interview and episode for me. I always associated “popular” as an adjective that aligns with “cool”. In fact, they could be used in replacement of each other. But maybe that isn’t actually true. Maybe they are more the antithesis of each other. To be “cool” is to reject the mainstream. To reject popularity. Cool’s true meaning is to cool down. We might think of something becoming popular as “heating up”. But to be “cool” is to reject the chance at attention for your work and instead turn to possible rejection or a fading into irrelevance in the pursuit of being different and unpredictable.
In the article, they touch on how dismal the reception to “Obsessed” was by critics and fans alike. Rae says, “It almost wasn’t even about the song. It was about me doing it.” But the lightning rod moment that gave Rae a new wind when it came to transitioning from TikToker to celebrity was when she appeared in Netflix’s “He’s All That” movie. Despite the actual script being seen as weak from critics, they did agree that Rae seemed to do the best with what she was given. Even more notably, the movie was a streaming hit. It was the most streamed movie on Netflix the week it was released. As a result, Netflix signed Rae to a multimillion dollar, multipicture deal. She will start filming her second Netflix movie later this year.
Rae tells Spanos that it was the financial flexibility of this Netflix deal that allowed her to pull back from TikTok and not post on social media as much. And this is where I want to interject with one thought that did not come up in the interview. I personally believe one of the most pivotal moments for Addison Rae when it came to transitioning offline as an “influencer” and into becoming a "celebrity" was when she released Item Beauty. This was a beauty brand launched in August of 2020 at the height of the TikTok-craze and the height of the celebrity makeup brand craze. To me, the launch didn’t ever make much sense as Addison Rae was known for being a more bare-faced beauty. To this day, I always say it would’ve made more sense if she released a hair care line instead since she is known for her hair and it is a less saturated market. Even the name “item beauty” didn’t make much sense or seem to have any full circle moment for Rae and her brand. It felt similar to when Emma Chamberlain launched “bad habit” skin care with Morphe then we never heard of it again a year later.
Sephora discontinued Rae’s beauty line in 2023, along with fellow TikTok star, Skin by Hyram’s skincare line called “selfless”. Beauty brands come and go all the time but I do think this was a turning point for Addison specifically. She realized she had become one of the few faces of TikTok and Gen-Z social media. But that comes at a cost. You will never be taken seriously as an A-List talent if you are a cookie cutter TikToker. Not only will you not be taken seriously, but it is also seen as something that is somewhat replaceable. You become a dime a dozen and with social media, supply is always more than demand.
Around this time, we see Rae take a dramatic left turn off social media. Of her 8 videos posted in 2025, 6 were either advertisements for big name brands or promoting her own music video. At one point in 2020, she was posting multiple, if not dozens, of videos a day. By 2024, she was only posting once ever few weeks with the majority of them being ads. Despite her pulling back from posting, she still actively watches the platform, like any Gen-Z young adult. She mentions that in the article but she also reposted my own video about the Rolling Stone article within a few minutes of me posting it last Friday. I mentioned in the video wanting to have her on as a guest for Middle Row when the time is right and she has the perfect music video she wants to break down, so fingers crossed that happens! But back to her pulling back from posting on the platform that “made her”.
I actually think that this was a brilliant but risky move. Other TikTokers who crossed over into a more A-List fame have followed a similar formula, like Brittany Broski, but I will get to that more in the paid portion.
This leads me to what I call “the rubber band method” in marketing. The “rubber band method” is this phenomenon that happens where audiences become more obsessed with you as you pull away and begin posting less. The mystery is something that I believe separates the A-Listers from the influencers.
Let’s think about the way a rubber band works. If it is sitting idly in your hand, it will not be in motion. It will be stagnant. If you push two ends closer to each other, it will not stay in that position nor will it snap closer together.
The only way to get a rubber band to snap closer together is to pull two sides away from each other. The harder you pull, the quicker, faster and louder the slap will be once you release one side.
If your audience pulls away from you or loses interest, and you constantly chase them, the rubber band will never have enough tension to snap back into place. The chasing of the rubber band, in the context of influencers, is when they see their views drop (which is totally normal btw) and then they begin chasing the trends in a way that feels empty to their audience in an attempt to “snap back” to relevance to their audience. Audiences are wicked smart and they can catch on to this behavior. They can sense when you are doing something because it is genuine and when you are doing something out of fear, as a creator. Across all niches, the one thing audiences want from their creators is to be fearless. Even if you make a mistake or a creative misstep, they respect you more if you own it instead of cowering away from creative risk and walking a fine line that leads to boredom.
And if you, yourself, can’t tell if you are making a creative decision from fear or authenticity - what you can ask yourself is; would I be doing this if a camera was filming me or not? If the answer is “no”, then you are probably just doing this video to maintain relevancy out of fear. Which ironically leads to irrelevancy.
The thing that keeps you relevant as a creator is constantly offering a new and fresh perspective to your audience. If you become a copycat, you can no longer do that.
And if you feel that your videos and perspective has become redundant, then it might be a good time to pull back. I use this example a lot but I started out by doing tarot and astrology videos. I grew tired of it and the genre became over-saturated. I told my audience I would be taking a break from content and that I would be back on the internet in a new way but I didn’t know what that would be yet. I promised myself I would only post a TikTok if I wanted to, not because I felt like I had to. Putting myself on a self-imposed, TikTok sabbatical actually gave me the itch to post even more. Because it was fun again and not a requirement. My videos started going much more viral and I was able to jump out of the tarot niche and into a niche I think I pioneered on the platform which was digital trend predictions. If I had never taken that break, I would still be doing tarot content. I might have millions of followers more but I would have never gotten the chance to travel multiple times a year to speak at conventions and meet clients, to work with A-List artists that I admire, to film in Spotify’s theater and much more.
While my audience didn’t snap back to me in full force when I pulled away, I think I snapped back to them. I snapped back to enjoying the art of creating in a way I had lost the year prior. And I also unintentionally snapped towards an audience that never knew I existed before. The rubber band method acted as a slingshot to new heights.
Now for the paid portion of AOTC, we are going to discuss more about the rubber band method. Who are some other influencers who catapulted to A-List fame but pulling back from their usual, social media platforms and instead of fading into irrelevancy, they became household names instead?
And how can you, yourself, implement the rubber band method if you are feeling stale about your current content. That will be exclusively on cocomocoe.substack.com!
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