Melanie Martinez / YMMV

Alternate Character Interpretation:
- "Pacify Her" is frequently interpreted as a song sung from the perspective of a Stalker with a Crush and/or a third wheel (which is supported by the video). However, Word of God and the Cry Baby Storybook give a different meaning: Cry Baby has become so broken after her encounter with the Wolf that she's deliberately ruining someone's relationship not because she actually loves the boy, but purely because she could. Take your pick which is worse.
- In "Class Fight", we can clearly hear Crybaby's father supporting his daughter to attack Kelly. It's the previous line by Melanie's mother that says "No no no, Don't you choke", that has fans confused. Is she also just as encouraging as her husband or is it literal and she actually scolding and/or begging Crybaby to not attack?
- In "Class Fight", the lyrics "And my one true love called me a monster" in the song context seems to be adjusted to Crybaby. However, in the music video, Kelly attacks first; some fans think this was adjusted to Kelly because of this.
Awesome Music:
- A few of her tracks can count, including the relevant and well-done use of sampling in "Pity Party", and "Cake", which has a surprise dubstep chorus after piano in the BGM for the verses.
- "Mad Hatter" lives up to its name — manic, irresistible, and just a bit creepy.
Broken Aesop: In "Lunchbox Friend", Melanie complains about people judging her for smoking weed. However in "Dollhouse", the brother smoking weed is treated as a character flaw.
Fan Community Nickname: Melanie's fans call themselves Cry Babies.
Fandom Rivalry: Had one with Sonohara due to her frequent "attacks" on Melanie, but it has pretty much completely died down as Sonohara stopped talking about her.
Friendly Fandoms:
- With Marina Diamandis and Halsey. The former is mostly due to similarities in style and content, the latter because their first full-length albums both dropped in 2015, and they're both genre-defying young female artists.
- There is a bit of an overlap between Melanie Martinez fans and Twenty One Pilots fans.
Harsher in Hindsight: "Tag, You're It" has not-so-subtle themes of assault on a girl, which many found in terrible taste in light of allegations that Melanie herself sexually assaulted a female friend, with the excuse that "she never said 'no'".
Memetic Mutation:
- Various jokes and theories about the One-Person Birthday Party in "Pity Party" — instead of focusing on the theme of loneliness, the video's comments are filled with users attempting to explain why nobody arrived, from the vague date, to the placing of the invitations in Cry Baby's own box for the mailman to deliver, to the seeming lack of time before the party.
- Fans of South Park have also taken a liking to applying her song "Pacify Her" to Kyle, who came across to some as really jealous of the relationship between Cartman and Heidi.
Misaimed Fandom: Anyone who takes Melanie's metaphors at face value and discount the metaphorical meaning either fall into this or an inversion of such. The two most vocal (at least on the Internet) cases of the inverse:
- Because of how easy it is to listen to "Tag, You're It" and think that Cry Baby was raped as well as kidnapped, some interpret it as such. Unfortunately, some of these same people think it's a pro-rape song. Regardless of whether or not rape plays a part in the song, the events of the song are portrayed as bad (especially since "Milk and Cookies" has Cry Baby killing the kidnapper).
- It's also possible to sympathize with Cry Baby in "Pacify Her", even though she's painted in a negative light, being clingy and refusing to let go of a relationship that's moved on.
- Some believe that Melanie's whole theme is sexualizing children. It's actually a metaphor for how children often suffer through similar situations in real life, and it adds to the horror of her songs by accentuating that stuff like this happens everyday in the real world. It's not supposed to be Fanservice — it's supposed to be intentionally disturbing.
Narm: People who aren't fans can say that while Melanie's a decent musician at her worst, her music and videos are really edgy and can't be taken seriously.
- Some of the faces she pulls in her videos fall into this territory, too. She tries so hard to look deranged and disturbed that it can take away from the already-creepy lyrics and just come across as goofy.
Narm Charm: Melanie tries some weird things in her songs (ex: the beat-drop in "Carousel", the phonetic "A"-"B" chanting in "Alphabet Boy", the bubbles in "Soap"), but something about it works.
Nightmare Fuel:
- Seeing as she combines dark, frightening themes with a childish aesthetic, most of her music can be considered this.
- Special mention goes to her perfume commercial, which shows Melanie/Cry Baby becoming nigh-possessed after using it.
- The depictions of surgery in the video for "Mrs. Potato Head" are calm and professional, but no less disturbing, as we see a forehead being peeled off and the incisions for breast implants being stuffed.
Nightmare Retardant: The scene in "Cry Baby" where the toys come alive and menace the titular character is sort of creepy, but the dancing dog became a lot less scary to a lot of fans when Shane Dawson uploaded a video featuring a cat of the same model...that was actually a novelty music speaker.
No Yay: It's heavily implied the reason why the Wolf kidnaps Cry Baby is because he has an inappropriate interest in her. In the "Tag You're It/Milk and Cookies" double feature he tries to touch Cry Baby's hair, with her flinching away in disgust. It's not helped by Cry Baby's questionable age, or that some of the lyrics of "Tag You're It" can have rape undertones.
Overshadowed by Controversy: She lost a lot of fans after being accused of coercing her best friend, as they felt her work had got a lot more disturbing with that in mind. While some fans have cited potentially conflicting reports as contradicting the statements made by her accuser, nothing's been confirmed either way. She’s begun to gradually gain back at least some lost fans and released new music in 2020, but the situation and Martinez herself remain controversial.
Signature Song: "Dollhouse".
Squick:
- Melanie's whole shtick of Subverted Innocence. She dresses up as a child or a schoolgirl and wraps very adult and really disturbing topics in childish metaphors. It is intentional and makes her even more impressive and effective.
- "Orange Juice," the song about eating disorders. The titular juice is made when a girl eats oranges and then throws up.
- "Teacher's Pet" milks Teacher/Student Romance for all its Squick. The teacher has wife and kids of his own, and student is quite likely underage.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Melanie dresses in cute pastel dresses and sings cheery sounding songs with names like "Teddy Bear" and "Dollhouse". Despite this, she is not a musician you should probably let your toddler listen to. Her songs are often about dysfunctional romances, abuse, murder, and mental instability. Almost all of them feature profanity, and some of the music videos contain Nightmare Fuel as well.
The Woobie: The title character of the Cry Baby concept album is this. She's a sensitive girl living in a broken home full of Stepford Smilers, she has trouble finding love, she gets kidnapped, and by the end of the story she goes insane (although she embraces her craziness).

YMMV / Melanie Martinez

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