Poppy (singer)

Moriah Rose Pereira (born January 1, 1995), known professionally as Poppy and formerly as That Poppy, is an American singer, songwriter, YouTuber, and model.

She first earned recognition for starring in surreal performance art videos on YouTube as an uncanny valley-like android who commented on and satirized internet culture and modern society.

Moriah Rose Pereira was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1995.

She moved with her family to Nashville, Tennessee at age 14.

She recalls wanting to be a Rockette as a child, and took dance lessons for 11 years until deciding to be a musician.

She was bullied at school for being skinny and quiet, leading her to complete the latter half of her studies via homeschooling.

She moved to Los Angeles at the age of 18.

Poppy's YouTube channel was created on October 6, 2011, under the name ThatPoppyTV, alongside another channel, Moriah Poppy, and posted covers and vlogs, but in 2014, all of these videos were deleted, alongside the Moriah Poppy Channel.

Poppy had her first performance at IndieCove in August 2011, where she covered an Alanis Morissette song.

She moved to Los Angeles in 2013 to pursue her musical career.

There she teamed up with director Corey Michael Mixter, known by his stage name Titanic Sinclair, to make a series of abstract promotional videos on a YouTube channel originally titled "thatPoppyTV".

Poppy signed a recording contract with Island Records in early 2014, and released her debut pop extended play (EP) Bubblebath in 2016.

A few months later, her earliest currently public video (an abstract skit called Poppy Eats Cotton Candy, directed by Titanic Sinclair) was uploaded on November 4, 2014, The videos are described by her producer Sinclair as "a combination of Andy Warhol's pop accessibility, David Lynch's creepiness, and Tim Burton's zany comedic tone".

The channel has been discussed by other YouTubers, including PewDiePie, Social Repose, Night Mind, the Film Theorists, Reaction Time, and the Fine Brothers on their React series.

She starred in an episode in which she reacts to children reacting to her videos.

She has also appeared in an episode of the web series Good Mythical Morning.

Sinclair alluded in an interview that Poppy's character in the promotional videos presented itself to him as an android and how some of the concept relates to the uncanny valley hypothesis.

Poppy has stated that her YouTube videos tell a story.

Her friend Charlotte, a celebrity-interviewing mannequin with a synthetic voice, is a recurring character.

She usually appears interacting with Poppy but also on her own.

She appears to have developed a drug and jealousy problem after Poppy became famous, which strains their relationship.

Other characters include Charlotte's son, a boy mannequin who has taken the brunt of abuse at the hands of his mother during a drugged stupor; Plant (voiced by Sinclair), a potted basil plant who is one of Poppy's closest friends and biggest supporter; and Skeleton (also voiced by Sinclair), a plastic model skeleton who is revealed as Charlotte's drug dealer.

The channel has an animated promotional miniseries called Everybody Wants to Be Poppy, directed by Titanic Sinclair and illustrated by Melanie Foreman, which stars Poppy as herself, Titanic Sinclair as Rex, actor Matt Bennett as Pho, Canadian poet and songwriter Simon Wilcox as Phoebe, and Los Angeles-based photographer Sam McGuire as Wyatt.

The series documents Poppy and Rex's journey as they attempt to find a "magical kale shake".

Aside from her abstract promotional videos, Poppy's channel features her original music, various covers, and acoustic versions of her songs.

Prior to 2014, she performed at social media festivals, including VidCon in June 2012 and DigiTour in June 2013.

In 2015, she signed to Island Records under the name That Poppy and released her debut single, "Everybody Wants to Be Poppy", in June of that year.

She performed at the Corona Capital Festival in November 2015.

She released the song, "Lowlife", a month after releasing her first single "Everybody Wants to Be Poppy" and released her first EP, a four-track pop record called Bubblebath, on Island in 2016.

In August 2016, she released a series of advertisements for the shoe company Steve Madden on her channel as a part of its Steve Madden Music program.

In 2017, she signed with Mad Decent and released her debut art pop studio album Poppy.Computer.

To promote the album, she embarked on the Poppy.Computer Tour.

This led to the release of a pilot for the proposed 2018 surreal comedy online series I'm Poppy on YouTube Premium.

She released her second album Am I a Girl? in 2018, where she experimented with electropop and nu metal.

Though her partnership with Sinclair dissolved in 2019, as of April 2022, the channel is actively uploading videos and has attracted a large audience.

In 2020, Poppy signed with Sumerian Records and released her third studio album I Disagree, which incorporated heavy metal and industrial rock and featured lyrical themes and music videos described as "disturbing", "violent", and "macabre".

The album spawned four singles, including "Bloodmoney", which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2021, making Poppy the first solo female artist to be nominated in the category.

In 2021, as part of her long-time collaboration with professional wrestling promotion WWE and its NXT brand, she released the metalcore EP Eat (NXT Soundtrack).

Her fourth studio album, Flux, was released in 2021 and featured an alternative rock sound.

In 2023, she released her fifth studio album, Zig, which was described as dark pop.