In 2023, it feels like almost everybody has daddy issues — but in this case, no expensive family counselling or friends staging sombre interventions are necessary. Instead, the rise of daddy refers to something rather more benign; the practice of referring to certain people — usually celebs, but the definitions are quite loose; daddy is not a binary — as a strange, quasi-parental figure.
The practice of declaring select figures to be adoptive parents has been floating around for a while, and arguably took root as an internet phenomenon when pop star Lorde commented “mom” below Kim Kardashian’s now infamous Paper magazine cover shoot back in 2014. “Call me daddy,” Christine and The Queens jokingly urged a fan on Twitter, three years later. In subsequent years, countless people have been bestowed with the honourable title. Thanks to her much-celebrated “silky daddy suit”, Rachel Weisz has obviously made the cut, as has Cate Blanchett and her leather trousers. Thanks to his side hustle as a DJ (not to mention a role in a film which is literally called Daddy’s Little Girls) Idris “Daddy” Elba is also a leading name, as is Penn Badgley thanks to his innovative use of TikTok.
