A YouTube user by the name of “thatPoppyTV” uploaded its first video, “Poppy Eats Cotton Candy,” onto the Internet on Nov. 4, 2014. In the bizarre minute-and-a-half-long clip, a girl named Poppy, who has bleach blonde hair and brown eyes, eats an entire cone of cotton candy, then looks into the camera and laughs. Three years since the video was initially posted, Poppy has received over 200 million views on her YouTube channel; uploaded over 300 other videos there; and released her debut studio album, Poppy.Computer, under the record label Mad Decent. Starting on Oct. 19, of this year, Poppy began touring across North America to promote the release of her new pop album. Thus far, she has starred in 23 shows in locations ranging from her hometown of Los Angeles, California, to Vancouver, Canada, and Brooklyn, New York.

Poppy performed her eighteenth show of the tour at the Musical Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on November 15. Fans of all ages and walks of life waited in line outside the cozy venue to see the Streamy Award-winning breakthrough artist play. At 7 p.m., Poppy’s fans were allowed to start entering the music hall. Inside the dimly-lit theater, Toto’s 1982 classic rock song, “Africa,” played on the speakers on repeat while Charlotte, an uncanny-looking mannequin that occasionally appears in Poppy’s videos, sat on stage behind a DJ booth with sunglasses covering her face. Concert-goers stood in the pit chatting with each other and waiting for something to happen.

One hour after fans were initially allowed entry, “Africa” stopped playing and the blonde director of Poppy’s YouTube videos, Titanic Sinclair, walked on stage. Ignoring the cheering crowd, Sinclair pretended to whisper something into Charlotte’s ear, then left through the same door he came in by. As a result, Charlotte began acting as a disc jockey, playing remixes of popular songs from the last decade by artists such as Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Kesha, and more. Concert-goers watched visuals that coincided with the songs on two television screens and danced to the so-called “opening act,” anticipating their icon’s arrival.

At 8:45, the music stopped and SMPTE color bars and warnings flashed on the TV screens. What happened next is comparative to initiation into a cult. Donning two antennae-like braids at the top of her head, a pink latex blazer with extended shoulder pads, a matching pink latex belt, white gloves, and white lace-up boots, Poppy arrived with Sinclair and two male background dancers behind her. Fans began chanting Poppy’s name over and over again. The group of performers handed out cups of a red Kool-Aid to a few brave fans, an allusion to the mass suicide by the People’s Temple cult led by Jim Jones in 1978 (however, Poppy has stated multiple times on social media that she is not a cult leader). Afterwards, the electronic instrumental to Poppy’s energetic song, “I’m Poppy,” began playing, extremely juxtaposing what had just happened moments before with the Kool-Aid. “P-O-P-P-Y, I’m Poppy,” the pre-recorded vocals repeated three times before Poppy turned around and sang, “That’s me!” During the number, Poppy and her two male background dancers (who wore black morph suits and masks, blonde bob wigs, and yellow tutus) conducted a bouncy choreography while blue stage lights shined, lyrics played on screen, and Sinclair stood at the back of the stage as the replacement DJ for Charlotte. The first verse’s lyrics, “Welcome to the new world; I’m your Internet girl,” were perfect for introducing herself and getting the crowd excited for the rest of the concert.

Following the first track of Poppy.Computer, Poppy was given a box of doughnuts from a fan in the front row. “Should I share them?” she asked the crowd. The crowd gave an assuring “yes,” and Poppy tossed the doughnuts to fans from all corners of the venue. After that, she performed “Computer Boy,” the sixth track of the album. During this number, Poppy sang about her lover, who is actually her laptop computer. Some fans believe that the lyrics “I’m in love with my favorite toy / Can’t go a day without computer boy” and “The only one who brings me joy is my boy” are actually social commentary on people’s obsession with technology in the twenty-first century. Ironically, the fans at the show recorded videos and took pictures of Poppy non-stop, but to be fair, Poppy appearing in public is so rare that it was justified.

After that was “Moshi Moshi,” the fifth track of the album. “Moshi Moshi” is Japanese for “hello,” which makes sense for Poppy to title a song because her aesthetic is greatly inspired by the Japanese “kawaii” subculture. While performing “Moshi Moshi,” Poppy and her background dancers re-enacted the upbeat choreography from the song’s music video. The instrumental of this song features an impressive guitar solo after the chorus, but unfortunately, it was not performed live.

Up next was “Bleach Blonde Baby,” the third track of the album. The meaning of this slow song is believed to be social commentary of society’s unrealistic beauty standards for women, which is highlighted in lyrics like “My eyelashes are seven feet long,” “I was born with makeup on,” and “I’m softer than a daisy.” An interesting thing to note is that Poppy’s true identity is kept secret from the world, so the public will never know her age and can never apply age-specific beauty standards to her.

The fifth set was “Interweb,” the ninth track of the album. Poppy actually performed this song live before the Poppy.Computer tour on The Late Late Show with James Corden on August 3. “I’m going to need your help to sing this song,” Poppy requested of her fans before singing the chilling “La la la la la” chorus to the mysterious and almost hypnotic song. The alleged meaning of this song relates to how the Internet can distract people and take up their time, which Poppy describes when singing, “When you’re down and you’re alone, I’ll be there watching you / I caught you in my interweb, I caught you in my Internet.” Just like in the music video and her Late Late Show performance, Poppy mostly sang in the same place, facing either direction, while her background dancers did spider-like movements beside her.

After “Interweb” was “Let’s Make A Video,” the second track of the album and another catchy song. The lyrics seem to narrate her video-making process for her YouTube channel, with the chorus lyrics being “Action, I’m ready / Don’t want to miss a frame / Lights, camera, action.” However, the words also seem to hold some social commentary as well about how curated social media posts can be, specifically described in the lyrics of the first verse: “Time for a pic, ’cause I’m all dressed up / Don’t make me look too typical / ‘Cause I’m ready for my close-up / I said I’m ready for my close-up.” During this number, the background dancers took the phones from a few lucky fans in the front row and recorded videos of Poppy singing as a special treat.

The next set was “My Style,” the seventh track of the album and the only track to have a feature: Charlotte. Although Charlotte is only a mannequin, she is characterized as being a bad friend to Poppy who is jealous of her fame. In the song, Poppy sang about the things that she considers to be reflective of her style, such as macaroons, cartoons, and Dr. Seuss. For the chorus, which Charlotte “sang,” Sinclair took Charlotte’s head off her body and held it up like a trophy. As the chorus repeated, he took off Charlotte’s brown wig. When the song was first released in August, fans were puzzled about the lyric “Poppy will break your neck” that Charlotte sings, but after seeing the performance live, it finally made sense.

The last two songs of the show (before the encore) were “My Microphone” and “Software Upgrade,” the fourth and tenth tracks of the album. During “My Microphone,” Poppy sang about needing to find her microphone before the show, which was ironic because she was using her microphone to sing and the show was already going on. Throughout the number, Poppy, her background dancers, and Sinclair pretended to look for the missing microphone. During “Software Upgrade,” Poppy sang about her dissatisfaction with her relationship with Computer Boy. The bridge “He’s a fine, fine hologram / Oh, but he’ll never be a real man,” suggests that although technology may have an increasing presence in our lives, it can never completely replace face-to-face human interaction.

When Poppy finished “Software Upgrade,” Poppy and her company bowed and exited the stage. The crowd cheered and cheered Poppy’s name to finally come back. Finally, Sinclair reemerged and thanked the audience for being one of the best shows of the tour and said that Poppy would only come back for an encore if they chanted “Monster Energy Drink,” a reoccurring symbol in Poppy’s videos, three times. Of course, the crowd complied with Sinclair’s request and Poppy and her dancers returned to perform “Money,” the second track of Poppy’s 2016 extended play, Bubblebath, a fun song with satirical lyrics about the importance of money in people’s lives. Interestingly, Poppy did not perform the eighth track of the album, “Fuzzy,” or the last and only acoustic track of the album, “Pop Music.”