Girl In Red Thinks Your Sapphic Tiktoks Are Iconic

ACROSS HER DEBUT 'IF I COULD MAKE IT GO QUIET,' THE NORWEGIAN BEDROOM-POP STAR SHARES HER HORNY IMPULSES, INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE

Girl in Red has seen your sapphic TikToks using her name to pick up girls, and frankly, she thinks it’s “iconic.”

Zooming with MTV News from her bedroom in Oslo, Norway, the artist born Marie Ulven grins ear-to-ear when I mention her unexpected internet virality. After a tongue-in-cheek song written by a fan called "Do You Listen to Girl in Red?" made the rounds on TikTok, the question became an indirect way for queer girls to identify and connect with other women who like women — and the genesis of many a funny video. Ulven likens it to “friend of Dorothy,” a coded phrase used by gay men in the late 20th century to discreetly describe each other, and she isn’t the first to make that connection. “There are so many people who want to have that type of cultural impact, and I feel like it's really dope to be a part of something so cool,” she says, toying with the hood of her sweatshirt until it frames her face like a halo. “I just fuck with it.”

But Ulven's ascendance to icon status was hardly by accident; she shouldered her way into our social media feeds and Spotify playlists through sheer will. The 22-year-old broke into the saturated American indie-pop scene in 2018 with the head-turning “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend,” an angsty, guitar-heavy cut about having the hots for a straight girl. “I don’t wanna be your friend, I wanna be your bitch,” she confesses on the bridge, which, mood. She followed it up with enough singles to fill two EPs (Chapters 1 and 2, respectively), honing her musicality while steadily growing her very vocal, very queer audience. By the start of 2020, she’d signed a worldwide recording deal and covered Gay Times magazine. It all paved the way for her fiery, deeply personal debut album If I Could Make It Go Quiet, out today (April 30).

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