The backflipping, monster-voicing, V-neck-wearing male pop star that America loves (and loves to hate)

A mustachioed man sitting at a table meekly pulls a microphone out of his suit pocket and begins to sing, looking around as if he’s surprised it’s all happening.

He stands, meandering among celebrities seated around him, like Jennifer Lopez and Jim Gaffigan, before pausing in front of Heidi Klum and Nikki Glaser. They grab him, ripping the top of his suit off to reveal a glittering blue jumpsuit with the deepest V-neck imaginable. He rips his own pants off, gaining energy as he struts toward the stage. As his song approaches its climax, he jumps onto a piano, doing a flip off of it before launching into the song’s chorus.

This is Benson Boone. The 23-year-old is performing at the 2025 Grammys, where he’s nominated for Best New Artist. At a star-studded ceremony, his “Beautiful Things” rendition emerged as the talk of the town. Who was this guy, singing a vaguely familiar song and dressed like Freddie Mercury as he repeatedly did flips?

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“Beautiful Things” was Boone’s breakout song, first hitting the Billboard Hot 100 in February 2024. Now, 75 weeks later, it’s still near the top of the chart. It’s a ubiquitous radio song, inoffensive and catchy with an explosive chorus, also used frequently in TikTok posts and Instagram Reels. He’s not a one-hit wonder either — his songs “Mystical Magical” and “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” are also lingering on the charts now. His latest album, American Heart, came out on June 20 and remains on the Billboard 200.

Despite his fame, each time Boone performs on a big stage, be it the Grammys, the VMAs, Coachella or Saturday Night Live, swaths of social media commenters respond with outrage as if it’s the first time they’ve seen him. Maybe it is, somehow, but why is that so worth remarking about?

“Benson Boone threatens to release more music,” one TikTok user wrote in the comments of one of Boone’s videos. “No real presence just flipping,” an X user wrote.

Others have said his songs are “giving nothing,” sound like “grocery store” music and “lack authenticity.” They poke fun at his name and his Mormon upbringing. Making fun of him is a trend unto itself, though none of these perceived offenses are cancelable. Why does he inspire such rage?

‘He’s become impossible to ignore’

“[Boone] kind of walks a knife-edge a little bit in his relationship to authenticity, which is a crucial way that people relate to popular music,” Mark Laver, an associate professor of music at Grinnell College, tells Yahoo.

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“On the one hand, his lyrics are pretty intimate, about his dad, best friend or an unnamed woman ... he invites people into his personal orbit — Taylor Swift does [this too] and the Beatles did the same thing,” Laver explains. “On the other hand, he’s wearing these really glam suits ... and he switches into this ‘monster voice’ on ‘Beautiful Things’ ... at the emotional climax of the song. There’s a gulf between the emotional sincerity of the lyrics and the fact that he’s backflipping at the peak of emotional sincerity.”

The drama of Boone’s performance could also be what is aiding his breakout success in the social media age. After all, it’s been a while since a new male pop star emerged — singing, dancing and developing an identifiable style as their female counterparts do — and he has successfully done so. There aren’t even that many male pop stars in general.

Charlie Lewis, the founder of Lewis Line Public Relations, specializes in helping emerging artists break out. He tells Yahoo that there’s “a pattern in pop culture where male artists are expected to earn public approval slowly, often through years of visible effort, reinvention or struggle.”

“When someone like Boone breaks through quickly and confidently, especially without a rebellious or ironic edge, it can spark resistance. The reaction isn’t really about the music or the backflips, it’s about how fast he’s become impossible to ignore,” Lewis says. “We haven’t seen a new male pop star achieve this level of visibility in a while, and the culture isn’t quite sure what to do with him. That ambiguity becomes the controversy. Boone’s not polarizing because he’s trying too hard. He’s polarizing because his rise disrupts expectations.”

‘People feel like they are being sold a product’

The performances and hooky choruses that lead to his bursts of virality also make him the butt of constant jokes on social media. People mock his backflips and his expressive singing voice. On TikTok, people are making fun of the funny way he sings “moonbeam ice cream” — a made-up term — in his song “Mystical Magical.”

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In response, he named the cookie he launched with the brand Crumbl, which frequently collaborates with celebrities on themed limited-edition treats, “moonbeam ice cream.” When people jokingly posted videos of themselves flipping after tasting the cookie, he responded with his own version.

He sees your jokes. He’s making them too.

“It’s my birthday!” Boone playfully says in a June 25 TikTok. “Stop the hate for a day and let me relax. We can continue tomorrow.”

One of the reasons people have said they don’t like Boone is because his sudden rise makes him seem like an industry plant, or an artist who is presented as an independent newcomer when they secretly have backing from a record label. Boone’s record deal isn’t in any way secret, and his story is far more complicated than that. He shared music on TikTok before auditioning for American Idol in 2021. As his online popularity grew, he dropped out of the show to focus on breaking into the industry that way instead.

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Nikki Camilleri, a music industry executive, tells Yahoo that the way Boone promotes his content on social media and punctuates all his performances with showy backflips is what gets people talking about him, though not all the talk is positive.

“For some, this feels inauthentic, and you’ll see many comments questioning his perceived lack of identity,” she says. “Some artists really lean into narrative, world-building and direct fan engagement ... [but Boone] seems to have focused more on pushing his hooky tracks as much as possible.”

Though Boone’s voice is everywhere, he still feels unknowable. We know certain things about him for sure — he’s going to belt a chorus, he’s going to do a flip and he’s going to pose topless with a mop of curly hair on his album covers — but he’s still somewhat mysterious. We know the tone of his posts and the style of his performances, but little about him, or even his persona. He’s constantly courting virality, but he hasn’t found the same committed fan base as other stars. That makes him feel more like a corporate experiment than an organic pop sensation.

Lyric Mandell, the cofounder of the artist media management company Tutti Agency, tells Yahoo that Boone does so much self-promotion, it sometimes makes “people feel like they are being sold a product rather than hearing the product of someone’s creativity.”

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But here’s the thing — he is selling us a product. As long as we’re streaming his music, we’re buying that product.

“That old saying, ‘All press is good press,’ feels relevant here, meaning a little backlash might not just be collateral damage, but part of the branding strategy,” Mandell explains. “If that’s the case, it would explain why he hasn’t shifted course. The hate, ironically, might be what keeps us hitting play.”

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