Usher dressed as Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen is a big win for fans
I think I’m both terrified and completely in awe of the power of Satoru Gojo fans.
On Tuesday, popular R&B and pop singer Usher shared a TikTok of himself dressed as Gojo from the popular anime Jujutsu Kaisen. Usher cosplayed the character not because he had previously expressed a particular love for the series, but because Gojo fans decided to make one of his songs the character’s unofficial theme. Fans have been using the song “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)” for months to create viral fan edits of the character and have called for a Gojo shoutout during Usher’s upcoming Super Bowl halftime performance. Apparently all the internet chatter worked, because we now live in a world where Usher has cosplayed Gojo Jujutsu Kaisen.
You can watch the video below. It shows a clip of Gojo using one of his powers and then an image of Usher dressed as him and posing in a similar manner. (Here I warn you that Usher actually ruined a plot point of the manga, so avoid the video if that matters to you.)
Since the anime release in 2020, Jujutsu Kaisen has become a major cultural force in the world of anime and beyond. The manga the show is based on became a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic and one of its characters, Satoru Gojo, managed to weave his way into almost every facet of various internet trends. He inspired several viral meme trends and has even had his voice become a viral audio. A lot of people love to share shitposts with the character, but fans also just love to thirst for him. A simple clip showing a video of him breathing in a Season 2 trailer has been viewed more than 20.4 million times on TikTok.
Gojo is simply very popular. So much so that people have even built monuments dedicated to him.
So when Gojo fans decided to make Usher’s song “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)” Gojo’s unofficial theme, it almost felt like a matter of time until the musician took notice of the fandom. Popular fan edits of Gojo were made to this song earned more than 4.7 million And 8.7 million views. Once Usher was announced as the headlining the 2024 Super Bowl halftime showfans begged for a Gojo acknowledgment in the comments of Usher’s videos and even started a petition he asked the singer to perform “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home)” at the event.
Fans’ obsession with Gojo and Usher has only increased. Fans scoured Usher’s new work for any possible Gojo references. In one case, some people noted a moment in the music video for “Standing Next to You” with K-pop idol Jungkook where it sounds like Usher is saying the name “Gojo.” We’re not sure if that moment was a nod to Jujutsu Kaisen fans, but at least we now know that the musician has noticed such fans. It has only fueled further speculation that Usher might give a nod to the character during the Super Bowl performance.
It’s not that uncommon for internet fandoms to latch onto specific songs and associate them with certain characters. In another case the Banana Fish And Jujutsu Kaisen fandoms decided to ‘claim’ songs by musician Ricky Montgomery and used them to make edits with their favorite character ships. The viral clips had a tangible effect on Montgomery’s career and anime fans contributed to the viral success of their music. In Usher’s case, the anime trends were enough to make one of America’s most beloved R&B and pop artists take notice of a bunch of wild fans.