Friendship includes hanging out, laughing, inside jokes, and being added to a Close Friends story on Instagram. Usually Close Friends stories consist of sharing memes, rants, fit checks, and reposting. These stories are for close friends and highly trusted individuals. However, Billie Eilish’s Close Friends story is nothing short of a marketing tactic.
After her recent song ‘What I Was Made For?’, that was featured in the Barbie movie, fans have been patiently waiting for Eilish to release new music. On April 4, Billie began posting spoilers and added all of her followers on her Close Friends story on Instagram. Her first post on this story was on a hand floating through darkness. This image was nothing out of the ordinary, as she tends to post ominous images, however, fans noticed the green ring around her profile, symbolizing being on her Close Friends. Now if you noticed your new status, you may have taken a screenshot (like I did).
Fans of Eilish began to freak out, thinking that they were carefully selected to be in her story. The brilliance of this is that there is no way of viewing who else is included in her Close Friends story. The excitement was short lived as fans began to post their new status realizing that they were not alone. To many people’s surprise, being on Eilish’s Close Friends was not as special as they thought it was.
Why Did Billie Add Everyone To Her Close Friends Story?
Fans of Eilish realized quickly that they were not personally selected for her list. It was all a marketing ploy for her upcoming album titled Hit Me Hard and Soft.
While fans were slightly upset, that feeling was short lived as they are now excited for the upcoming release. Billboards with bold fonted blue text were spotted around New York, Sydney, and Los Angeles. The quotes featured were, “I try to live in black and white,” “but I’m so blue,” “She’s the headlights, I’m the deer,” and “Did I cross the line?” All of the billboards featured her “blohsh” logo in blue. Along with these stories and billboards, Eilish also changed her profile picture to the color blue. She tends to change her profile image to a color relating to her upcoming albums due to her Synthesia. Synthesia is when you can see images and colors when listening to something, in her case, music. She associates certain colors and shapes with her feelings and songs, so her album releases are typically color coordinated.
The use of Eilish’s Close Friends story was a never done before marketing tactic that proved to be groundbreaking. She gained over ten million new followers in the span of a week after this stunt. Billie stated that she will not release a single but instead will release her full 10 song album. Needless to say, Billie Eilish remains extremely popular and leaves fans eagerly waiting for her new album’s release on May 17, 2024.