Julie Ragbeer

Submission 8,836

Featured Episode

Overview

Julie Ragbeer is a pop artist from New Jersey who released her debut album Perplex in July 2023. Ragbeer began posting original music online in 2019. In February 2024, Ragbeer went viral on X / Twitter after the @ThePopTingz account made a post advertising her debut album, which many believed to be a paid promotion due to her low monthly listeners across social media. The post inspired memes mocking and ironically praising Ragbeer's music over the following days.

Online History

Julie Ragbeer first started posting videos of herself singing on YouTube^[1] on June 11th, 2017, when she posted a video of herself performing "America the Beautiful" during Multicultural Day at William L. Dickinson High School (shown below, left). That year on July 28th, she then posted a tribute to Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, who had recently died, to YouTube^[2] in which she sang their song "Shadow of the Day" (shown below, right).

On January 31st, 2019, Ragbeer posted her first original song and music video to YouTube,^[3] titled "Trespasser," garnering over 1,500 views in five years (shown below).

Ragbeer continued to post original songs to her YouTube page over the following years, uploading her debut EP, "You Were Never Mine," to Spotify^[4] on November 1st, 2021. On April 10th, 2022, she released her EP "My Father" on Spotify.^[5]

On July 3rd, 2023, Ragbeer released her debut full-length album Perplex on Spotify.^[6] On August 11th, she released the single "Older Guys," along with a music video for the song on YouTube,^[7] garnering over 1,600 views in six months (shown below).

Online Presence

As of February 2024, Julie Ragbeer is active across multiple social media platforms, including X,^[8] YouTube,^[9] Instagram,^[10] TikTok^[11] and Facebook,^[12] all under the username @julieragbeer.

February 2024 Virality

On February 22nd, 2024, the X^[13] account @ThePopTingz made a post seemingly advertising Ragbeer's debut album Perplex, sharing a photo of Ragbeer and writing, "JulieRagbeer reminisces with her 19 year old experiences in her new debut album." The post gained over 6,300 likes in four days (shown below).

The post inspired memes about Ragbeer over the following days regarding the quality of her music and her low monthly listeners, leading some to believe that she paid for the promo. Many of the memes celebrate Ragbeer for being a "pop icon," although many are seemingly ironic in nature. On February 25th, X^[14] user @AnneLuvTheReUp posted a clip of Ragbeer's song "Mary Whiton Calkins…," garnering over 11,000 likes in a day (shown below). The song is about philosopher Mary Whiton Calkins.^[23]

That day, X^[15] user @dorathydotmp4 posted, "julie ragbeer probably spent like 5 dollars for that pop tingz post and now she’s a niche gay icon how can you not say mother," garnering over 13,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, X^[16] user @Bigpinkcolalips posted a photoshop of Pitchfork giving Perplex a 9/10 rating, garnering over 15,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Later that day, Ragbeer's album was shared to the /r/popheads^[17] subreddit, garnering over 200 upvotes in a day. On February 26th, TikToker^[21] @ulrxu posted a meme comparing a beat in one of Ragbeer's songs to a Beyonce beat, suggesting Beyonce stole the beat, garnering over 1,000 views on TikTok and over 9,000 likes on X^[22] after it was reposted by user @tweetymouth7 later that day (shown below).

On February 26th, 2024, Ragbeer reacted to her virality in several posts to X.^[19]^[20] In one, she wrote, "I want to a track by track analysis of ‘Perplex,'" garnering over 700 likes in under a day. In another, she writes, "s/o to my besties for helping me (you know who you are) as I’m apparently going 'viral'???" garnering over 650 likes in the same span of time (shown below).