Zara Larsson is back, stronger than ever before!
The 28-year-old Swedish popstar first rose to international stardom with her 2015 hit “Lush Life.” Over the years, she’s had plenty of other hits like “This One’s For You” featuring David Guetta, which was even used as the anthem for the European Championship in 2016. In 2024, she gained viral fame on TikTok due to a bizarre trend. TikTok users were creating memes featuring a picture of two dolphins jumping out of the water with a rainbow in the background, with text overlay often featuring a pessimistic sentiment that contrasted the bright colors and mystical vibe of the background. The sound paired with the videos was Zara Larsson’s “Symphony.”
No one can really explain what the meme means, but thousands of people jumped on the trend, making it so big that Zara Larsson started using the image of the dolphins as a backdrop on her tour and made the colorful, rainbow-vibe part of her brand.
Last year, she released an album called “Midnight Sun”, which debuted on the Billboard 200. On her tour for “Midnight Sun,” she debuted a new dance for her old hit “Lush Life.” At every show, she brought a different fan on stage to dance to “Lush Life” with her. At the show in Amsterdam, a particularly passionate fan was reposted many times because of her amazing performance. This fan’s viral performance led plenty of other people to learn the dance themselves. It has become really viral on TikTok now, with plenty of people posting dance tutorials and even celebrities like Alex Warren doing the dance with her.
Another trend on TikTok started because of the line “Summer isn’t over yet” in her single “Midnight Sun” — which reached number one on the Billboard charts in Sweden. Users are posting videos of themselves playing in the snow and making jokes about how it is really cold for summer, but only Zara Larsson can decide when summer is going to be over.
Her entire wardrobe right now is very summer-y; she wears a lot of pastel tones and florals with shorts on her tour–she even wore a dress with spaghetti straps in 30 degree weather at New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, so in her world, summer is definitely still going on.
Additionally, she has been commended for her recent activism against ICE. Posting a TikTok that said: “Summer isn’t over yet, because fuck ICE” in addition to a very passionate Instagram story where she declared that she stands with immigrants and supports abortions, queer and trans people, and socialism amongst other things. She also spoke out for the decriminalisation of weed, claiming her boyfriend cannot visit her when she is in the USA, because he has a criminal record for weed and is therefore not let into the country.
Overall, Larsson’s fans cannot see what more she has to offer with her music, trends, and activism.