Whether you love or despise TikTok, the app has certainly altered how fans connect with music. Artists and their staff are continuously looking for ways to exploit it to their advantage, such as creating viral dances or memes to help fans promote their songs. However, it looks like Fiona Apple is not fond of having her songs reinterpreted via social media. Users noticed last week that practically her entire repertoire had been taken off the app, with the exception of a few niche songs like her version of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” and her rendition of “Frosty the Snowman.” Fans are worried whether they done anything wrong or were reckless with a fragile poet.
According to The A.V. Club, TikTok and Fiona Apple’s label house, Sony Songs Entertainment negotiated a pact in 2020 that allowed usage of its artists’ music on the app. It’s more probable that Apple didn’t like how her songs were being exploited to repopularize problematic “sad girl” stereotypes, the same heroin-chic area of pop culture that she’s been typecast into since her debut. Some people went so far as to produce TikToks with the hashtags “femcels” (ew) or “female manipulators,” referencing Apple’s famous “Sullen Girl.”

While some may have to discover new sorrowful songs to look into their phone cameras, others were amused by Apple’s little jab at internet culture. “Fiona Apple noticed that people on Tiktok were copying her music for their shallow, reductive aesthetics that do nothing but fetishize female misery and she said absolutely the f.ck not and I love and appreciate her so much for that,” one Twitter user named Grace stated in a popular Tweet. “Fiona Apple removing all her songs from Tiktok is so iconic lmao she hates y’all,” one user said. So far, no announcements regarding the update have been issued — Apple does not use social media, and Mic has sought out her agency for comment — but it looks like Apple fetched the bolt cutters and took that crap out herself.
