Doja Cat is beefing with her Kittenz again.
The “Kiss Me More” singer went on a Threads spree over the weekend in which she slammed members of her feline fan group over her claims that some were using her given name as their screen names.
According to social media analysis company Crowdtangle it may have already cost her dearly. Figures provided to Billboard by the Meta-owned company report that Doja lost 237,758 followers on Instagram following her string of since-deleted Threads blasting her fans this weekend, with the total number of lost followers nearing 300,000 over the last 30 days; at press time she still had a robust 25.7 million Instagram followers.
Additionally, Crowdtangle revealed that searches for the rapper’s name spiked by 82% following the series of posts in which Doja reportedly lambasted her fans for calling themselves “kittenz,” while telling them to “get a job”; as a number of followers pointed out, Doja is the one who selected the Kittenz name for her fandom in a 2020 Twitter poll.
According to CNN, Doja seemed angry that fans were calling her by her given name, Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, saying to one Kittenz, “You making my government name your sn [screenname] is creepy as f—k,” which was reportedly followed by a message to fans to delete their social media accounts if they insist on continuing to use her birth name.
The singer also claimed that Kittenz was a term dreamed up by an “alcoholic teen,” adding, “My fans don’t get to name themselves s–t.” That harsh comment was followed up by an even more bruising criticism of her followers, in which she allegedly said, “If you call yourself a ‘Kitten’ or f–king ‘Kittenz’ that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house.”
One fan responded with a reminder to the 27-year-old singer who dressed up as a cat for this year’s Met Gala that her followers were, “??? only using the name YOU gave your fans.” Another quipped, “Doja being mean to her fans for the word kitten like her name isn’t doja CAT and she wasn’t dressed as a cat and meowed her way through an entire interview a few months ago oh she has lost her mind.”
The singer, who has had a tense relationship with the music industry, recently told V Magazine that one of the reasons it’s taken her so long to follow up her hit 2021 album "Planet Her" is that she is tired of making music that is “palatable, marketable and sellable,” while admitting that she’s “thrown fits my whole career” because the music she’s made didn’t allow her to have “mental release.”
In May of this year, she appeared to diss Kittenz who were fans of 2021’s Planet Her and 2019’s Hot Pink albums by calling them “cash grabs” featuring “mediocre pop” and taunting, “yall fell for it.”