Isabel LaRosa and the Black River

     Isabel LaRosa is a Cuban singer-songwriter who found fame through social media, predominantly through short-form content on TikTok and Instagram. She has been creating music for the past four years, but became more well-known when she released her single “I’m Yours” in 2022. Short-form content can be very beneficial to small artists and creators; however, the question has to be asked. Is short-form content, “painting the cultural river black”?

In Culture Care, Fujimura mentions that in the mid-twentieth century, the Hudson River turned black due to the increase in industry. He mentions how many people viewed it as a good thing because that meant New York was a city full of industry and money. Fujimura then ties the black river back to today and our so-called “culture river”. He says that we “value repetitive, machine-like performance as critical to bottom-line success.” 

An artist like Isabel LaRosa, who became well known because of short-form content, may be contributing to the hypothetical river. In an interview, it states that, “When she’s writing – always as part of a collaboration with her producer and older brother, Thomas – it’s with those few precious TikTok seconds in mind. ‘You wanna write the punchline, and then write the rest of the joke, you know?’ she quips.” This mindset can be very beneficial for the artists, especially in the short term, but eventually it will become hurtful for the industry and the audience. Social media has become much more about grabbing people's attention for thirty seconds, so it has become less about the long-lasting effect it has on the audience and more about the number of people seeing it.

LaRosa is still a very talented artist and singer. She knows how to utilize her resources, through TikTok and Instagram, in order for people to connect and find her music. Fujimura states that, “many in our culture no longer value a bouquet of flowers because beauty contributes neither to the machinery of production nor to an advantage in the latest cultural battle”. Social media is never going to go away, so the next time we see an artist on social media, we need to remember the creative process that they went through and not let the cultural river turn black.

Read more about Isabel LaRosa and her creative process:

https://diymag.com/interview/isabel-larosa-muse

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/isabel-larosa-psychopomp-tour-snapshot-style-interview-2025