Princesa Alba in The 8 Playlist: Internet viral empowerment
Football. Boobs. Trap ĀæOr maybe just pop? These were the ingredients chosen to create the Latin American girl sensation: Princesa Alba, and here at WIDE weāve been keeping track of her for quite some time now. This week, the 8 Playlist brings you the eclusivest interview with the Chilean mini-idol and a selection of her favourite girl power tunes.
ā¦ since I was very little Iāve been a fan of the Colo-Colo football club, my bro played in the team when he was a bit younger and, as far as I can remember, my dad always took me to the Monumental stadium. Sometime between 2016 and 2017 I noticed that when I instagrammed with the location āEstadio Monumentalā I kept getting reblogged by another account, which uploaded all the pics taken by women who supported the team. The account was named Princesas_Albas (because the teamās tee is white) and it read āPrincesses no longer wear crowns, but Colo-Colo t-shirtsā. I loved the idea of alluding the imaginarium of Chilean and Latin American football on my first vidā.
And so, in less than a year,Ā Princesa Alba got to record her first musical vid on her teamās stadium, which is one of the most popular (in that underclass drift) teams in her country, which quite conveniently bears the name of a āwise old Mapuche cacique”.
Princesa Alba stir up quite a fuss on Chile’s online space
She couldnāt have imagined that her brief and giddy pop fantasy would stir up quite a fuss on Chileās online space, with quite a few of the nearly two-million youtube viewers losing their sh*t over their class identities, machismos or feminisms (according to taste) and your regular everyday stupidity.
Trying to cry out āĀ”Gentrification!ā without finding the word, those from the upper, lower and the middle didnāt quite know whether to call her cuica or flaite (the firs denoting posh and the second chav, for some brit parallels): Yes, everyone gets an itch very hard to scratch whenever Marx pokes his head out. Not the least naieve to this, she remarks:
ā¦ one has to understand that in Chile, like in many other Latin American countries, thereās much social inequality. In fact, Santiago is (geographically) very divided according to social strata, as well as in education, health and many more aspects.
(…) The school I went to was indeed a very expensive one, at least for the Chilean mean acquisitive level. And therefore I couldnāt call myself a fan of the Colo-Colo since itās a āpopularā team (…).
And yes, I was born in privilage, but my mum and my dad werenāt. My parents were the first generation in their families to go to college. My grandpa was a bus driver, as was my uncle (…)
Others, on a fashion note, took issue with her nice, kitschy attire, with the fancy cleavage and baseball hat, or her curvy shapes, but in a tone very far off flattery. Such is life ever since the world has been called a world: to exist is, among other things, to be disliked by somebody.
Photo by: blvvelvet x MarĆa Teresa Aravena
Princesa Alba’s production
What the inexperienced gaze might not quite see is that Trinidad was already well prepared with a firm grasp of feminist discourse and a thick skin, staying nonchalant and chill at the publicās deafening āREEEEEEEEEEEEEEā.
Her production, although naif, is a crystal clear manifestation of the new ways in which subjectivity is being produced:
In fact, my songs talk about thatā¦ about empowerment, about having a good time on oneās own, about girl power. I consider myself a feminist, and so my songs will always go in that direction.
Others needed only to take a look at the 3D gif/text which presents the video, with its thick doggy-filter and dancing baby vibes, to understand that her āaesthetic proposalā had nothing to do with the unberable tendency of taking itself too seriously, as she points out regarding her lyrics:
ā¦ I feel like today weāre all a bit dissociated between our real world selves and digital selves, and that the latter is always less inhibited and cooler. Sometimes I feel Iām Lil Miquela and that Princesa Alba is just a show, but it really exists and itās my interior world, which I can only bring out by means of virtuality, art and music. By this I mean that my lyrics take as much from my personal experiences as from my fantasy, which is all the same to me.
Even if sheās not into heavy or contrived content, without any pretense of being avant-garde, she isnāt oblivious to the way a pop star image is interpreted; she can second-guess the antagonistic positions within feminism regarding her work.
Femininity is still an annoying subjet?
If thereās anything that her critics demonstrate is that the āmale gazeā doesnāt gaze unto itself, and that the freedom of femininity is still an annoying subject; something the singer has felt on her own body:
Truth be told, I was bulimic for about 6 years or more. I had a plight with myself, I hated myself deeply and, in this sense, when the online bullying started off, I already had an armor of sortsā¦ because when youāre your own worst enemy for so much time, no one can hurt you as much as you can. Thatās why, after coming to terms with that and getting to love myself again, I feel that Iām finally immune to all that sort of judginā <3
In Venezuela weāre renowned for our elloquence, and thereās an expression that comes to mind when thinking of Princesa Alba. You may read it on a cute (or maybe not that cute) girlās instagram, or on the account of one of our unsinkable LGBTQ divas: āĀ”Un saludo a todas las envidiosas!ā (āCheers to those who envy me!ā), a statement which is totally rhetoric, poking fun at an audience that you canāt reach but is always watching (with a scowl on its mug). And if you could equate Princesa Albaās smile to a phrase: defying, teasing, holding a sparkling light mood amidst an avalanche of haters.
Below youāll find a cute little playlist featuring the songs that bring her up and make her impossible to bring down:
