KATSEYE stormed into 2026 with “Internet Girl,” a hyperpop commentary on the relentless scrutiny women face online.
The Grammy-nominated group dropped the track on 2 January following its live debut during their sold-out Beautiful Chaos Tour, where it became an instant fan favourite.
The song tackles diet culture, objectification, and comparison culture head-on. Lara explained the group’s vision in a BBC interview: “We’re always getting compared to each other. Being in a girl group, people see us as women to rank, which is so bizarre to me. We even get graded sometimes on the internet.”
The track’s peculiar “eat zucchini” hook directly references how diet culture infiltrates young women’s minds, whilst the repeated “I want you” speaks to constant sexualisation.
Produced by hitmakers Mattman & Robin (Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons), the studio version features maximal production, pitched vocal processing, and glitchy electronic textures.
The members’ voices blend into a heavily autotuned sonic assault that reflects internet chaos.
A toddler vocal sample punctuates the pre-chorus with “I’m getting out of here,” sourced from the same royalty-free library Melanie Martinez used in “Fire Drill.”
Fan reaction proved polarising. On Reddit’s r/popheads, hundreds of comments criticised the release as “their weakest yet.”
Eyekons expressed frustration with the heavy vocal processing that rendered individual members unrecognisable.
“The live version is somehow so much better,” one commenter noted, whilst others called it “absolute brain rot music” and questioned the creative direction ahead of the Grammys.
Despite mixed reception, “Internet Girl” performed commercially. The track debuted at number six on US Spotify with 919,000 streams and thirteenth globally with 2.87 million plays, becoming the platform’s top debut for 2 January.
Whether the group’s hyperpop experimentation connects with the general public remains to be seen.
For a group crowned TikTok’s Global Artist of the Year, “Internet Girl” speaks their generation’s language, even if the execution divides their fandom.