There’s a new New Yorker feature about TikTok’s impact on the music industry this week. The story explains the conundrum faced by artists who do not want to play the part of social media “talk show host” every day, but whose record labels routinely badger them to create videos for the platform in hopes of going viral and boosting their streaming stats. One of the artists interviewed for the piece, Florence Welch of Florence And The Machine, famously complained about this label pressure earlier this year, but has since relented.

In the article, Welch says she responded to her label’s requests for TikTok content by explaining, “Oh, I actively don’t want to go viral. Anytime anything of mine has gone remotely viral, it’s filled me with dread. Any kind of attention that is not directly related to the work or an album, I don’t want it.” She also argued, “My fans, the people who follow me, are not going to believe that I just suddenly decided to do TikTok.” She eventually caved: “I was just, like, I am about to go into another meeting about this launch, and they are going to fucking ask me why haven’t I done something.”

@florence

The label are begging me for ‘low fi tik toks’ so here you go. pls send help ☠️ x

♬ original sound – Florence

The resulting video, in which Welch sings part of “My Love” from her new album Dance Fever, went mildly viral, and Welch took a liking to the TikTok community, “which I found to be anarchic and hilarious and weird in a way that I really enjoyed.” She has continued to post videos to her account, noting, “I feel like it’s a platform on which you can be stranger. Like, if I just want to drink fake blood in a graveyard, TikTok is an environment that would embrace that.” Let’s see it, Flo!