Lorde’s ‘Mood Ring’: A Satirical Case Study in White Spirituality

Graphic by olivia stern

Mention of Gwyneth Paltrow’s “goop” wellness empire is almost exclusively met with eye rolls in politically savvy circles; but for many of us, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why. In prolific sad-girl singer Lorde’s highly anticipated comeback single “Mood Ring,” she examines this universal exasperation with rich, white women’s spiritual antics. Her satirical music video condemns privileged Westerners’ appropriation of East Asian cultural practices in the name of “wellness” and, in doing so, comments on the innocence white women are granted in conversations surrounding racism. She punctuates her criticisms of Western lust for a watered-down, “oriental” lifestyle through the music video’s unnervingly polished and minimalist aesthetic. While this cliché, faux-zen atmosphere Lorde creates is perfect for conveying her concerns, the subtlety of her blows combined with her target demographic  — the group of young, privileged, white women “Mood Ring” condemns — make it easy for her message to be lost in the, as she calls it, “vibey” nature of the song. Really, how different is Lorde’s public image from Gwyneth’s?    

The vapid, detached perspective “Mood Ring” is written in is complemented by the imagery we see in the song’s music video: Everything is light, bright and just a little unsettling, from the sound production to the almost-mechanical movements of the legion of Caucasian women. This off-putting atmosphere Lorde creates is a mockery of white minimalism. Minimalism is a practice rooted in Japanese Zen Buddhism, concerned with finding beauty in nothingness and abandoning material ties. However, when attempted by affluent Westerners, the meaning behind minimalism is more often than not corrupted, which places even more value on the material. Lorde’s posse all wear trendy, monochromatic outfits, a nod to the juxtaposition between microtrends and fast fashion and the central principles of minimalism. They writhe around on a beige, fabric floor with various “oriental” props (e.g. burning sage, an antiquated book, a wooden hairbrush). In conjunction with the video’s soft, natural light source and lack of saturation, the materials and props evoke a fake minimalist aesthetic that’s overwhelmingly reminiscent of your favorite lifestyle influencer’s Instagram page.

This pseudo-simplistic setting is used to denounce the appropriation of minimalist style, which has deeper meanings that are neglected by the white women that Lorde condemns.

On top of the visual phony minimalism Lorde creates, her lyrics allude to a yearning for the peaceful disposition that comes from the practice. In East Asian minimalism, emotions are traditionally treated as “momentary phase(s) within a much larger cosmic cycle,” and being at peace with the motions of life is a core idea of the practice. Lorde’s character is on a quest for this serenity but can’t quite let go of her individualistic worldview. We see her struggle for control in lines such as “we can get high but only if the wind blows just right” and “… as dark as my roots if I ever let them grow out.” Her character’s inability to dive deeper than surface-level minimalism is representative of white appropriation and how the neglect of cultural experience and attitudes when adopting aesthetics from marginalized communities is inherently harmful. When white people take only the aspects from Eastern cultures that they see as beautiful, the deeper meaning ingrained in those practices becomes trivialized.

One of the most notorious East Asian culture vultures Lorde chastises is the aforementioned Gwyneth Paltrow, former beloved actress and current wellness product curator. While she is not named outright, it’s incredibly difficult to separate the platinum-haired protagonist singing “Plants and celebrity news, all the vitamins I consume” from Paltrow, the woman who promoted $90/month vitamins called “High School Genes” that claim to prevent weight gain. Similarly, Lorde’s lyric “Let’s fly somewhere Eastern / They’ll have what I need,” could fit right into “The Healing Power of Acupuncture,” a 2020 piece Paltrow wrote for her lifestyle brand blog “goop.” In the article she claims, “Eastern medicine has a different approach than Western medicine — it’s more holistic … the benefits can work wonders.” Aside from critiques of the decadent health products based in pseudo-science peddled on “goop,” the wellness guru comes under fire quite often for her appropriation of Asian and Indigenous cultures. “Shades of Noir” writer Naima Sutton goes into great detail of these microaggressions in her article “The goop Lab and White Wellness” and eloquently expresses the harm people like Paltrow perpetuate. “It is exhausting to watch continuing generations of excessively privileged and woefully ignorant white people act like they’ve ‘discovered’ something new,” she laments. Paltrow’s “Columbusing” (a term Sutton references from a College Humor sketch) of incredibly meaningful and oftentimes closed cultural practices is time and time again written off as harmless “white people shit,” allowing yet another powerful woman to get away with casual racism. Lorde’s caricature of Paltrow is a comment on the naivety and innocence white women are automatically permitted and a call for consequences.

As Lorde raises these issues with celebrity wellness, she simultaneously asks her viewers to self-reflect, rather directly. The video begins with a plain black screen with the warning “objects are closer than they appear” bolded and capitalized. 

Lorde is, quite literally, telling us to look in the mirror. She knows that many of her devoted fans are spiritually inclined white women, and she’s imploring them to think critically about the ways they perpetuate East Asian appropriation in their own health journeys. She knows that celebrity critique will resonate with most of her politically-correct teenage fanbase, but she attempts to drive home the idea that she’s reprimanding their actions just as harshly as Paltrow’s. In addition to her blunt forewarning, “Mood Ring” is littered with imagery of mirrors and symmetry. The women in the video sit in a perfect circle and gaze at their reflections in a puddle in the middle of them; at multiple points, they just stare blankly into handheld mirrors. How much more literal can she get?

By urging her fans to question the ways they interact with elements of cultures they are not a part of, Lorde does something unexpected — she actually reprimands white women. From falsely accusing Black men of assault to appropriating Indigenous cultures at Coachella, white women are constantly contributing to racism and subsequently being exonerated because of their presumed inherent innocence. This infantilization stems from an unwieldy combination of white privilege and sexism; white people are less likely to be associated with wrongdoing than people of color, and women are seen as weak and unassuming. When combined, these assumptions create a unique position of power for white women, as they are absolved from blame because they are seen as too naive and unassuming to perpetuate racism. In directing her critique toward spiritual white women, whether it be Paltrow or her fans, Lorde acknowledges this complex and takes a stand against it,  an unusual stance to take as another spiritual white woman. 

Despite this valiant attempt to encourage self-reflection, Lorde falls short in separating her satirical lyrics from genuine lines of the past, leaving many naive fans to interpret “Mood Ring” as just another catchy pop tune as opposed to a sharp critique. One of the main struggles the protagonist in “Mood Ring” deals with is feeling wronged by the world, which is wildly reminiscent of just about every song off of Lorde’s 2013 debut album “Pure Heroine.” In “The Love Club,” Lorde complains, “I’m sitting pretty on the throne / There’s nothing more I want / except to be alone,” and the “Mood Ring” protagonist echoes, “Can’t seem to find what’s wrong / The whole world is letting me down.” While she may very well have just grown out of her whiny tendencies, Lorde was once a white woman complaining about how hard privileged life is to a synthy melody, just like Miss “Mood Ring” is now. 

Lorde can restart her social media feeds and reflect on the climate crisis in Antarctica, but she can’t deny that her persona may be too close to what she mocks to truly have an effective argument. Following her wildly acclaimed sophomore album “Melodrama,” Lorde seemed to take a step back from the life of a famous 20-something pop star and took a four-year hiatus. She abandoned her once-active Instagram and went essentially off the grid, escaped to Antarctica for a week in 2019, and came back mid-2021 with a far sunnier sound. In the New York Times article “Lorde’s Work Here Is Done. Now, She Vibes,” she is described as “zen” and tells author Joe Coscarelli that the trick to dealing with fame is “having a life — a real life — far away from all of this. And also throwing her phone into the ocean.” These newfound ideals fit comfortably into the realm of spiritual white women, and her advice wouldn’t be out of place in a “goop” article. After all, it’s pretty difficult to adequately critique young, wealthy, white women as another young, wealthy, white woman and avoid complaints of hypocrisy. 

However, I find Lorde’s proximity to the types of people that she condemns to be charming and indicative of a deep level of self-awareness. By introducing a song like “Mood Ring” as the premier single for an album focused on inner peace and self-exploration, Lorde showcases her growth from the girl she was on “Pure Heroine” and lets listeners know that she isn’t attempting to steal her “zen” lifestyle from East Asian culture. Her critique of the constant protection and infantilization of powerful, racist white women is a breath of fresh air in the pop landscape. In addition, she deftly avoids implicating herself as a white minimalist (and she makes fun of Gwenyth Paltrow, which is as good of a reason as any to listen).