Is The Dare just a fad?

Some of his growing cult had been there even before The Dare had materialised, sticking around since his 2014 indie project Turtlenecked, which dominated a certain corner of Tumblr. A bubbling section of the internet may not seem like the grandest of stages, but Smith managed to secure himself star status. If any 18-year-old bedroom producer can dominate a platform and create a cult of adoring fans, long before the helping hand of TikTok to make virality an easier task, and still become a critical darling with his debut album before he could even legally drink, then surely it’s a sign of greatness? 

Turtlenecked wasn’t just grabbing the attention of longing teenagers, but critics across the board, who latched on to his seemingly innate ability to deliver lyrics and songs that seemed integral to a new generation’s viewpoint. But when Turtlenecked disappeared and reemerged as The Dare — a new sunglasses-wearing, suit-clad character — the tone changed.

Since then, and especially since the prophecy of Smith’s success has come true along with the success of The Dare, there has always been the lingering question of whether his work, style, or cultural emergence is simply a fad.

It’s easy to see why it’s raised. The Dare, as a character, is a cliché. He struts onto stage, throws himself around, basks in the sound of the screaming girls, smokes endless cigarettes, including the ones said girls throw onto stage with their numbers on. It’s a pastiche that usually ends with a huge rendition of his breakout, ‘Girls’. 

That 2022 track epitomises him. “I like the girls that do drugs / Girls with cigarettes in the back of the club,” he sings, and the room of mostly girls goes crazy. With lyrics about “girls who got degrees, girls on killing sprees” or even “Girls who got so much hair on they ass, it clogs the drain”, it’s hard to see the tune as anything other than a complete and utter piss take. Save a few choice notes, it’s pure comedy, really, and it begs the question of how long that can last. Jokes only remain funny for so long.

And so that was the introduction; the rockstar caricature persona, the smack-you-in-the-face LCD Soundsystem influence of his music and lyrics like “They say I’m too fuckin’ horny / Wanna put me in a cage / I’d probably fuck the hole in the wall / The guy before made”. When Charli XCX then shouted him out, sending a huge influx of new attention his way, everyone looked and thought, “Yep, this guy won’t be remembered long”. 

But is that missing the joke? First, the people who argue that The Dare isn’t doing anything new or original enough, that he’s merely a copycat amalgamation of other New York City influences, forget that that’s sort of the point. When Smith launched The Dare, he laid that out right away, calling ‘Girls’ “a rejection of the last five years of music,” claiming modern sounds had become too serious and that he yearned to return to the indie sleaze era of debauched silliness. 

The truth is, despite the flamboyant figure on show, there is real talent behind the joke The Dare is telling. Sure, the character is one that surely can’t go on forever, but given that Smith first found success as a teenager with his music, moved to New York and swiftly made a name for himself there with his DJ sets. He captured attention in the biggest pond, and then managed to make The Dare a success and earned the trust of other established acts, like Charli XCX, to be hired to work as a producer on Brat.

None of that comes without obvious skill and talent, and, as he’s managed to make it work for a long time now, across several monikers and in several different roles, it suggests that Smith is much more of a career-focused chameleon than the character of The Dare makes him out to be. His latest move, with the release of ‘Tambourine’ and the announcement of a new dance EP that returns to his club-kid roots, is further evidence of his artistic integrity at play. We’re already seeing him morph once more.

But even if The Dare stays on the same path and eventually goes stale, that still doesn’t mean he’d be a forgotten fad. His debut album, What’s Wrong With New York? doesn’t deserve such a fate, as the banger-heavy LP masterfully traverses a whole landscape of dance sounds and indie textures to create a record that will last far longer than the after parties it soundtracked.

Whether it’s swathes of the population or a particularly fervent section of ex-Tumblr devotees, The Dare will is already part of the cultural archive. In the future, kids will sit in the back of cars as the radio station, ‘Absolute 20s’, plays the nostalgic hits from the decade we’re living in right now. If ‘Girls’ isn’t on the playlist, ‘Guess’ will be, and as that immortalising line plays out, not only will his name be remembered, but his talent too.

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