On “Mediocre At Best”, Pluto Koi Is Packing Up His Insecurities

Pluto Koi used to be known as a hopeless romantic. Now he wants you to show a more complex version of himself.

Photo by Madison Enriquez

When he thinks about it, Pluto Koi theorizes that for a long time he was a people pleaser. You can hear it in his music, he says, because as his songs gained traction on streaming services, he began to feel pigeonholed by his success. Tracks like “You’re Not Lonely” and “Hopeless Romantic” earned him millions of listeners, and a close knit group of devoted fans. But the music, which often revolved around “vague love songs” (as he describes them today), began to feel stale. 

“I think subconsciously as I started to accumulate more listeners, in the back of my head, I felt like I had to appeal to the new listeners to keep them engaged,” he told me recently from Bay Area, California. “So I thought I wanted to write music similar to what I’d already been making.” The reason was pretty obvious: For one, he believed that because listeners found him as the indie pop artist who makes safe, palatable love songs, then he should stick to that lane. The second reason came from that tendency to want others to like him: He wanted his listeners to stay. 

“Even though I still wrote music that I’m happy with and proud of,” he continued, “still, in the back of my head, I had this mindset that I’m going to write this because I think people will like it.” 

What resulted was a stream of singles that performed fine, but never took off in the way Pluto wanted them to. There was “Sober Thoughts”, which saw Pluto attempting to write from a different perspective – a first for him. But looking back at it now, his authentic voice wasn’t present. He also released “Little Pieces”, a collaboration with the Filipino singer Sunshine Blvd., which perhaps best hinted at what was to come. Then there was “Evergreen”, a song that Pluto joked to me would fit great in a K-drama. (He is correct – it would fit right in.)

But Pluto, who I know personally by his real name Ethan Ayaay, is a little more complicated than these songs might lead you to believe. He’s emotionally intelligent, eager to learn about who you are, interested in how to make himself a better person or artist. But he’s also, by his own admission, deeply insecure. At 25 years old, he wondered, is it ridiculous that he’s still pursuing a career in music? Especially when the majority of his friends and neighbors seem to have settled into full-time careers or settled down into families? 

These questions led him to work on a new EP that is centered around the lead single “Mediocre At Best”. This is the most painfully honest song in Pluto’s discography. It’s heartbreaking in Pluto’s descriptions of how he can’t measure up to others around him, even if it’s also a little funny. I can hear Pluto’s sense of humor when he claims in the lyrics that he can barely carry a tune or strum a guitar. This is also, notably, one of the first singles that doesn’t revolve around love or a romantic relationship. The relationship, instead, is between Pluto Koi, the artist, and Ethan Ayaay, the human who recently returned to college to study coding. 

In doing so, Pluto is trying to listen to his gut for the first time in years and not worry about what others think of him. If the listeners don’t like the music, he told me, then he’s prepared to be okay with it. “That’s a challenge I’m trying to work through with the entire EP,” he said. This time, he added, “I want to make it for myself. “

Pluto Koi performing early in his career.

Pluto’s first EP “Destination: Planet Koi” actually had no audience in mind beyond his friends. So when the lead single “You’re Not Lonely”, a bouncy track that is led by a keyboard, went viral, no one was more surprised than Pluto. 

Today, Pluto remembers that time as a really happy, exciting experience. Maybe because he didn’t know how many people would listen and enjoy his music, Pluto felt more free to experiment and release what he wanted. The EP was entirely homegrown, too, from the time he spent producing and recording it in his bedroom, to the cover art that he painted. 

It took Pluto two years before he released his second project, “Hope This Helps”, which marked the musician’s growing talent.  “I like to release EPs with enough of a gap in between where I can see that growth in myself,” he explained. “I like to view my work as a mirror into that moment of my life.”

“I think subconsciously as I started to accumulate more listeners, in the back of my head, I felt like I had to appeal to the new listeners to keep them engaged,” Pluto says.

“There weren’t many overarching themes on the EP,” he continued. Instead, the music brimmed with more love songs that were often inspired by Ed Sheeran or Keshi. “I think back then, when I released ‘Hope This Helps’ and why I wrote a lot of vague love songs is because in some shape or form, I was scared to be vulnerable or open up,” he observed. 

It’s been three years since “Hope This Helps” was released, which Pluto finds surprising. “What have I even done in three years?” he laughed. But he took the break as a challenge. Once he decided that it was time to work on a full body of work, he decided that the most important thing he could do was follow his own artistic intuition. 

Pluto sees the change that has happened both personally and musically. “Over the course of the past three years, I’ve grown to be comfortable being vulnerable or emotional with friends,” he said. “I think that’s starting to show through a little bit more in my music and that shift is more drastic and now is the perfect time to release an EP.” 

What’s coming together is an EP that looks back at his experiences growing up as an Asian American and the self-acceptance that comes after years of hard-won internal fights. “It’s not as scary as I thought to release something like this,” he said. “And maybe I would have thought it would have been scarier back then, but not anymore.”

Behind the scenes of “Wonderland”.

Sure, the changes he saw in himself were gradual. When I asked Pluto what caused him to open up more, he told me that he “couldn’t pinpoint it”. Maybe part of it was turning 25, a time when our frontal lobes develop the most and we finally become adults. “One day I woke up and something just clicked,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’m not so socially awkward anymore.’” But what really happened, Pluto guessed, is that he fell in love. 

“When I met my girlfriend, she pushed me in directions that would help me better myself. She’s a very good listener and she’s very easy to open up to,” he said. “I think having her over the course of those two years has helped me learn to be more vulnerable.” Maddie, his girlfriend, is even featured in the music video for “Wonderland”. 

Pluto also found an artistic community of Asian musicians who share the same struggle with finding representation in an industry that doesn’t know what to do with Asian-made music that isn’t K-Pop. On Discord, he’s grown a group of friends who share demos, memes and hang out on Friday nights. (Full disclosure: I also join these hang outs sometimes.)  

“I used to be really isolated and only talked to the same people but meeting more people has really helped me to open up as well, and helped me to break out of my shell,” he said. “I’m still very introverted and would much prefer to have time to myself. But I find that I’m a lot more excited to even hang out with friends or talk to people on the street.” 

Photo by Madison Enriquez

Talking about this can be scary, and Pluto can’t name many Asian artists who are being open about their feelings of inadequacy. This is still a somewhat taboo subject for Asian male artists to talk about, and it’s a gap that Pluto is looking to fill.

“I grew up without a lot of role models to look up to. The few role models that I had, like AJ Rafael, wrote a lot of vulnerable music but it was more along the lines of love and heartbreak,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ve heard many songs from Asian male artists about how they don’t feel good enough or feelings of imposter syndrome and self-doubt.” 

Pluto is candid that these feelings have followed him since childhood. “My whole life I’ve dealt with imposter syndrome and feeling self-doubt,” he admitted. “I’ve always been insecure and had feelings like I’m not good enough.” Pluto wonders if these feelings come from being Asian American, an experience that isn’t entirely linked to one diaspora. But is rather felt by the pressures of immigrant parents who must provide for their children, and who expect their children to succeed at any cost. 

“I’m 25 now and being the age that I am and feeling like I haven’t accomplished much compared to all of my friends around me,” he told me. He sees this everywhere: At the dog park where he takes his dog Luffy and runs into neighbors or his high school friends on social media who now have high-paying jobs or are starting families. Twenty-five is an age where young adults start to show what they’ve accomplished, but Pluto looked around and wondered just what, if anything, he succeeded at.

“I feel like I’m so behind and that’s why I feel mediocre at best. Even in terms of musicality. I’ve been playing guitar since I was 12 but I don’t think I’m even close to as good as I should be after all that time,” he continued. “I have all these standards that I hold myself up to. I want my songs to sound this good but my skill level is down here so I can’t reach that peak. There’s a lot of things that culminate in these feelings.”

The lyrics for “Mediocre At Best” came from these exact thoughts. Pluto was inspired by artists like Rex Orange County whose music is expansive and often lacks structure. “The whole thing feels like an experience. That’s what I was going for with this,” he explained. Pluto wondered what kind he could make if it didn’t have a chorus and instead the verses bled into one another.

Structurally, “Mediocre At Best” begins like a typical Pluto Koi song. It’s soft and insular, relying on Pluto’s voice and a guitar to carry the lyrics. But then around a minute in, the song crashes in with a symphony of guitars and instruments. As the song becomes more unhinged, Pluto’s lyrics get sharper. 

What I like most about the single is that it mirrors Pluto’s journey to not caring what anyone thinks of him. If he spent the past three years culling out music that was as much for others as it was for himself, “Mediocre At Best” pushes back at any expectations. 

Recently Pluto read a book called “Grit” that helped him release some of his feelings of inadequacy. ”What I took away from it is that your talent isn’t the end all be all. It’s really your grit and how hard you push yourself,” he explained. “It helped me deal with imposter syndrome. Everyone feels this way, even the best of the best. Knowing that there is a lot of solace in that.”

Pluto couldn’t have written this record five years ago. He didn’t even know how to identify the name of this foreign feeling, imposter syndrome. Therapy has helped him understand what’s going on inside, but it’s taken time – plus love from friends and his girlfriend – for Pluto to realize that there’s nothing wrong with who he is or how long he’s taken to grow into who he’s supposed to be. This is just his life’s journey, and he’s going about it at the pace he needs to

 “It felt a little freeing to put everything down on paper,” he added. “These are insecurities that I’ve had, and I’m working towards getting through them. So, this record is me packing them into a box and shipping them out.”