Upon the release of a new commercial for the Game of Thrones-inspired smartphone game Game of War starring Mariah Carey (the ad, not the game), a friend posted a link to an online news article on Facebook, the headline of which read: “Mariah Carey Slays A Dragon In Bizarre New Video Game Ad.” Since this wasn’t the first headline I had seen worded in a similar fashion (other examples include “See Mimi run! Mariah Carey is the clumsiest warrior princess ever in new video game ad” or “Mariah Carey has two bizarre seconds of screen time in ‘Game of War’ ad”), I left this comment (the post has since been deleted, so I’m quoting from memory): “Why is everybody and their mother making fun of this? It’s not any more bizarre than any other TV commercial for computer games” – I may have added an extra f-bomb or two – and I followed up with: “If this were Beyoncé, it would be ‘iconic’, but since it’s Mariah, it’s ‘bizarre’? I don’t get why everybody seems to hate her all of a sudden. Because Britney got too boring to ridicule?” A short exchange ensued, concluded by my friends with the words: “I will not have a serious discussion with you on the ridiculousness of Mariah Carey.”

It got me thinking: Why the hell not? When did it become OK for everyone to make fun of Mariah, with the meanness often times bordering on cyber-mobbing, when all she has ever done is entertain us (in one way or another)? I think it’s about damn time that we have a serious discussion not only about Mariah Carey’s inherent ridiculousness, but also about the public ridicule and scrutiny she, so it seems, has become a frequent target of in recent years. So here it goes.

Many might argue that the downfall of Mariah Carey – a pop music pioneer credited widely for establishing the now common use of featured rap verses in R&B/pop songs, as well as remixes that are in fact complete re-imaginings of the original songs; a now 45- or 46-year-old singer/songwriter (sources differ) who to this day famously remains the bestselling female artist of all time – began with her split from Sony Music as well as her (then already ex-)husband and longtime mentor Tommy Mottola, a man whom none other than Michael Jackson publicly described as “the devil” in a 2001 press conference. It might then also be mentioned that the beginning of Mariah’s decline coincided with the rise of a certain Jennifer Lopez, Mottola’s next protégée (and rumored lover), an ambitious young dancer and actress who found popstar fame and fortune with the replication of the exact two pop song formulas described above.

But I don’t even wanna go that far back. I don’t wanna go back to the infamous Glitter fiasco, to flops, public breakdowns, crazy behavior and a triumphant (and certainly unexpected) redemption with the aptly titled The Emancipation of Mimi four years later.

Let’s rather start there, circa post-2005. The Emancipation album was another in a long line of many highpoints in Mariah Carey’s career – alas, it proved to be the last. Granted, the follow-up E=MC² (short for The Emancipation of Mariah Carey 2; for the title, see: inherent ridiculousness) was a commercial and critical success as well, but since then, the diva’s appeal has been gradually declining. Fast forward to 2014: After a more than messy promotion campaign that included several “first” singles (none of which stuck; the most successful of the bunch being the 2013 Miguel duet #Beautiful that peaked at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100), Mariah’s latest studio album Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse tanked in every aspect of the word, opening at #3 on the charts with first-week sales of 58,000 – a figure that seems abysmal even in comparison to 2009’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, at the time Mariah’s lowest opening week number to date (168,000). As of today, Memoirs, while generally considered a flop, can boast certified worldwide sales of roundabout two million copies, while Chanteuse is stalling at less than 200,000. What happened in those five years between these two albums?

It can’t be the music, because Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse easily ranks among Mariah’s strongest artistic achievements, radiating creative freedom and eclecticism as well as a joy and love for music reminiscent of earlier works like Butterfly. The record is, in one word, inspired. So no, the problem is clearly not the music itself; it’s everything around it. Poor single choices, questionable live performances, horribly photoshopped artworks, diva antics – not to mention the cringe-worthy title, probably the tackiest album title of all time ever, which Mariah herself justified with a cutesy self-portrait she allegedly drew herself at age three, complete with a butterfly (her chosen personal longtime symbol, go figure) in her hair and everything. It’s all not very believable or even remotely relatable (when has Mariah ever been, you ask? OK, OK – point taken), the public just doesn’t buy into it anymore, and the occasional write-up – like Out magazine’s Aaron Hicklin identifying her as “wise”, “witty”, “savvy”, and “self-aware” in a 2014 portrait for The Guardian – is far from enough to win back its affection.

But Mariah doesn’t seem fazed, just like she probably wasn’t fazed when during her mostly embarrassing home-shopping TV stint, people (in particular, the very outspoken MC aficionado Rich Juzwiak, whose review of Chanteuse for Gawker I highly recommend) compiled hilarious video clips of the glammed-up singer throwing around words like “festive”, “love”, “moment”, and, of course, “dahhhling”; or when the main attraction of her American Idol tenure were her catty exchanges with co-juror Nicki Minaj, earning Mariah the title “Queen of Shade” (side-eyeing and shade-throwing being yet another art form she has undeniably mastered to perfection). The Queen, meanwhile, continues to live in a world of her own making, a world of great divas and old Hollywood glamour, of rhinestone applications on skin tight dresses and girly heart- or flower-shaped jewelry, of opulence and kitsch, of Marilyn Monroe (Mariah’s greatest idol), champagne flutes, high heels and teeny tiny lap dogs.

There was another incident of public diva shaming at the inauguration of Mariah’s own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in August, when at the photo call, her four year old twin son Moroccan, close to tears, was pulled away from his mother who seemingly did her best to ignore the frantic child and hold her pose undisturbed. The singer’s reaction has nothing to do with the quality of her motherhood; it rather shows Mariah’s deeply internalized professional instincts. It’s just what you used to learn in her time, and it’s what Mariah instinctively does after almost three decades in show business: Tuck away your private life where it belongs (in the private sphere) and smile for the cameras. Smile through break-ups, breakdowns, failures, flops and crises, big or small.

But in this day and age, this diva demeanor doesn’t cut it anymore; in a time where private snapshots are the common form of self-promotion and illusions of all-time accessibility propelled by social media the new industry standard, affected pop star behavior feels simply outdated, strangely out of touch, and yes, at times even ridiculous.

Akin to Madonna, 11 years her senior, Mariah is on the verge of turning into her own caricature, with the help of a heap of badly retouched press pictures showing the 45-year-old with an impossibly slim body, several sizes below reality, that she obviously hasn’t had since the late 1990s (if ever), and an increasingly peculiar obsession with everything Christmas, which this year once more culminates in her starring in a schmaltzy TV movie written around her own 1995 holiday single “All I Want for Christmas is You”, entitled Melody & Mistletoe (sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little). Why she keeps doing these things, thus exposing herself to ridicule and scrutiny, is hard to tell, nor is it clear whether or not she actually does it on purpose, because she really is savvy and self-aware after all (and unlike Madonna, often acts with a considerable amount of self-irony, which tragically in most cases is lost on the general public), and maybe the why and how is not even important. But the fact that she feels the need to put on a borderline cartoonish diva persona is very telling for a seasoned superstar who has apparently (and objectively) next to nothing left to achieve career-wise.

Enter Katy Perry. No, seriously. The 30-year-old singer (of all people!) recently dedicated a song to Mariah (it was “I Kissed a Girl”, FYI) during a performance at Harper’s Bazaar’s New York Fashion Week party with the words: “You paved the way for so many of us. Now you can just enjoy yourself.” Although Perry (another professed MC fan, or “lamb”, who name-checked her idol in the 2013 song “This Is How We Do”) most likely meant nothing but well by her little homage, and although the light remark contains a lot of truth, this shouldn’t be the only thing there is left to say about Mariah Carey in 2015. Because, as Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse (catchy, isn’t it? Yeah, I know) impressively stated, her creative streak is far from over, and so should her musical career be. While her million-shifting heyday might be long gone, at least artistically the best may yet be to come. So don’t write her off just yet. (Also, does Mariah Carey really know how to enjoy herself after 25 years of working like a horse? I’m not sure.)

Screenshot from Katy Perry’s This Is How We Do, which contains the line “Sucking real bad at Mariah Carey-oke” 

Newly reunited with Sony Music, the label that launched her career back in 1990, the team around industry veteran L.A. Reid is now charged with the task of rebranding the (former) best-selling diva’s name. It’s not an easy task for sure, but it might be a rewarding one, seeing as Mariah is now finally free of the high commercial expectations that go with her public persona and the immense pressure to deliver her 19^th #1 record (because, let’s be honest, the chances of that happening are slim to nonexistent).

Two-and-a-half decades into her mind-blowing, record-breaking, bar-raising and standard-setting career, the pop phenomenon that is Mariah Carey without a doubt still has a lot left to give and to say. She just needs to find a public that’s willing to listen. I know I will be.