New Zealander Lorde might not be used to international travel, having only been a member of the jet set in the past year - ‘pretty soon I’ll be getting on my first plane’ she sings on Tennis Court, released only last June – but she’s been all over the world loads since. And now the singer, real name Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, considers herself a 'child of the world', according to an interview she gave to The Guardian.
Mind you, being a millennial, she's always been pretty connected to the world through the internet. And though it can be a precarious place, particularly for young women, Lorde seems to enjoy it. Her observations of what your dad might call ‘the web’ are worth repeating – because they prove she truly is the first 21st-century popstar.
So here’s our Lorde-inspired guide to the internet…
Do good PR, even when you’re only 13 years old
‘If you use the internet, you’re crafting a version of yourself that you want people to enjoy,' she said. 'On Facebook, when I was 13, all my tagged photos were photos that I wanted to be there. All my status updates were typed in exactly the right syntax. My bio was just how I wanted it. Everything was perfect. But I’d look at people who’d cropped their face out of a larger picture, so I’d click on the picture and it would just be a tiny square in a black box. I’d see the tiny picture in the black box and I’d think: “This person just can’t do their PR very well.” That’s all the internet is: doing your own PR.’
Only listen to the people you want to talk to in the first place
‘At the beginning, because I’m really interested in pop and pop culture and how things work and why something’s successful, I was just wanting to have a discussion about pop while forgetting that I was actually in it. Having the world weighing in on you from all sorts of different perspectives is intense, but the criticism I listen to most is what comes from people the same age as me; they’re the only people I care about liking my music.’
See the funny side to your haters
‘It’s amazing that [Lorde’s age truthers have] dedicated a Subreddit to my “real” birthdate. People revel in having an alien opinion, and I do too. It’s important. It’s complete unfiltered democracy,' she says diplomatically. And on that note, she really doesn't mind being 17 right now: ‘It’s alright – alhough I feel like I get away with less. But I’m exactly where I want to be; it couldn’t really have gone much better.’
A child of the internet is a child of the world, especially if they’re Lorde
‘The first album was about a really small world that the listener isn’t in, and it felt like a very insular world. Now I’m kind of a child of the world, I’m everywhere all the time… or whatever. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to explain. It’s about feeling displaced.’
Always get tips from Kanye West
Later in the interview she referred to the Yeezus rapper and team Kardashian newcomer as ‘like my school principal, if the school is pop’. Perfection.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.