Any grown person's commitment to pedobait under the guise of the "harmless" coquette aesthetic is very "you either die lolita or live long enough to see yourself become the humbert."
Jade this was incredible — also got me thinking (and lots of caveats here bc we don’t need to pit women against each other etc etc — but also I think pop stars are partially products offered into the cultural market and represent larger forces so some comparison is justified, idk) about the Olivia v Sabrina thing and how, at this point, we seem to have collectively “chosen” Sabrina’s version of young womanhood (overtly femme, cheekily sexual, cute and unthreatening) over Olivia’s (dramatic, painfully honest, aggressive, rougher around the edges). Kind of mirrors the Jagged Little Pill -> Britney and co. trajectory of the late ‘90s/early aughts. And obviously yes both of these are versions of an overtly white womanhood and both are enacted by wealthy thin women so truly the distance between them is not THAT far, but Olivia’s brief dominance 2ish yrs ago did represent a slight departure from femininity in the most traditional sense being marketed to young girls — and her “replacement” by Sabrina (again caveat caveat caveat) seems like a collective choice to be like lol nope, we want our women docile and manageable again!
I was a teenager in the late 90s, and I remember so clearly when the riot grrrls and outspoken singer-songwriters I adored (Shirley Manson, Alanis, Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan and her hard-won Lilith Fair) started to be eclipsed by Britney and Christina and Jessica. I think about that a lot. It felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it. I remember feeling so disappointed and sad realizing this was the beauty standard that girls my age would now be held to.
kiks and kylie--you both just gave me so much to think about!
Kylie: completely, beyond agree that the Olivia vs. Sabrina thing plays a role here--I would love to see someone else flesh it out (eyes). there's actually a line in one of the W mag interviews where the journalist says sabrina was "attacked for her blondness," and it reminded me of the utter TikTok uproar that ensued when driver's license came out. I also think Olivia's mixed identity makes things even more complicated: just as Sabrina inherited her own, culturally-specific lessons on femininity, I wonder if Olivia inherited something different (or at least adjacent), and how that plays out in her music? just riffing here but you hit on something big methinks
kiks: this has been echoing in my brain all day. "it felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it." I think you're right on the money, and clearly, this is all cyclical! while gen z loves to think we are very special, so much of this has been done and has been seen before.
yes to all the comments on this thread! also, it is fascinating to me that one of the common critiques i hear of olivia's music from internet reactors is that it's "immature" and only enjoyable by people her age and younger. whereas sabrina and her music are often seen as mature and enjoyable for adults of any age even though (or perhaps especially because) she's cosplaying a sweet/"innocent" child 😭 i sense adultism is involved (in addition to racism, misogyny, etc). many adults prefer to be able to control children, and i think the rage and intensity in olivia's music reminds some adults of teenagers and young adults, who are often harder to control as they differentiate from their parents/caregivers and develop skills and access to resources that can help them access more freedom (money, driving, etc). as a society, teenagers are absolutely disrespected. sabrina is perfectly on the tightrope of "white, feminine, fun, nonthreatening, not angry, and also a freak in the bedroom" which seems to be exactly what many men want, based on those disgusting comments from the Ask Men subreddit.
"attacked for her blondness" is WILD. i had not read that one. jfc. definitely the "innocent white girl damsel in distress" thing going on there.
your mind !!! this was a delicious read! your writing is expansive and your research is thorough and so refreshingly intersectional. as someone who doesn’t know much about sabrina carpenter beyond the ear worm-y songs and the generally ‘off’ vibes i could never put my finger on — thank you for bringing me up to speed. may need a surgical team to lift my jaw off the floor after reading those nonsense outros though x
dru!!! thank you so much for the kind words: it means the world to me ❤️ you articulated exactly the kind of writing i love and am proud to do: thanks for seeing it!!!
Right! She confirmed that weird off feeling Ive had about her. I found her annoying but didnt know why. and now as a mom to an almost 11 year old girl, i know why.
I was shocked for a different reason because I always thought her Nonsense outros were sexual but seeing the increase in overt innuendos made me realize a lot
Not gonna lie I was taken aback by the title and its potential implications, so I started off reading this a bit defensively. But I'm so glad I kept going. You present your arguments so compellingly, backed by such sharp research, that I changed my mind pretty quickly. There's something very troubling about the cultural obsession with white, small, innocent women that isn't discussed enough. Examining this through Sabrina's example is both important and relevant, it shows how pervasive cultural pedophilia is. Most cultural discussions focus on past contexts, but no one seems willing to acknowledge that this is still very much happening. This is an amazing piece—everything is so quotable. Thank you for writing such an important essay 🫶
You have no idea how cathartic and vindicating this was for me lol. It's also... interesting people think gender non-conforming people don't belong in the feminist movement. Just because I'm not feminine doesn't mean I don't face objectification and misogyny. The patriarchy effects everyone and the type of "femininity" that exclusionary femininists vouch for is usually very patriarchal.
thank you for reading, rose! i completely agree. like i wrote, the guardrails of “femininity” ensure only a certain type of woman could be involved in the movement: exactly the aim of first + second wave feminists (and the exclusionary feminists of today). in her attempt to not use binary language (my read), the quoted came off very TERF-y!
A lot of this post was really interesting to read. But as a fellow short woman (5’1”), I found parts of this piece frustrating. I’ve been talked down/condescended/infantilized my whole life due to my height. Are short women with round faces not allowed to be sexual adults? Or am I and Sabrina perpetuating some kind of pedophilic fantasy by simply existing?
hey erin! so fair to feel this way. I see sabrina's height as one aspect in a larger ecosystem of attributes and decisions (made by her and/or her team) that make up her brand. when we remove her height or face shape from the equation, her outros, her lyrics, the staging of her Skims and W magazine shoots, and her media quotes still reference and play with concepts of childhood. while her height might, grossly, add some "oomph" to these branding decisions for some people in her audience, i find the intentional decisions her and her team make as the core culprit of all of this--not the qualities she was born with.
Out of curiosity (because, like Erin, I’m a woman with a round, young-looking face who’s been infantilized constantly, and have struggled to present myself as an adult because of my appearance), how do you factor Sabrina Carpenter’s music videos into your critique of her overall brand and what she/her team are trying to accomplish with her image?
I really resonated with your "Kobayashi Maru" line. It wraps everything up nicely. We are so conditioned to be into these things that feed into the male fantasy, and the question always remains...where do we go once we're already there? Beautifully written.
Wow this is stunning; you pinpoint exactly that uneasy feeling that I have regarding Sabrina’s child-like qualities. Even some of her lyrics (tho catchy and funny) sound reminiscent of a child’s scrawl, for example “that’s that me” like what??? Considering her early childhood stardom (and thinking of the true stories we so often hear about child abuse behind the scenes, for example Jean Benet Ramsey, Alanis Morisette, too many kid stars to count), the queasy pedophilia angle becomes all the more disturbing and unsettling. Men compare women to pets, wtf guys it just keeps getting worse? In 30 rock there’s a guest appearance by a female comedian who presents herself as Sexy Baby, and Sabrina’s image is playing those cards but minus the dark comedy. Your essay is incredibly astute and brave. Many people don’t like to hear painful, uncomfortable truths. But you’ve put into words exactly what is going on here imo, regardless of Sabrina’s iconic status and popularity. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
thank you so much for reading and engaging, jessica! thank you for reminding me of that 30 Rock episode, too: so many cultural touch points of the “sexy baby,” far before the taylor swift lyric!!! you’re thinkin how i’m thinkin and i appreciate it ❤️
So I don't follow popstars and I had absolutely no clue who this was before reading it, I use Substack for one politics writer I'm subscribed to. But dang. I was a teenager at just about the time when this started becoming a problem (for reference I'm 21) for teenage girls, though I never participated in it or really followed along with the trends (I was a "weird kid"). But at that age, seeing my peers doing this infuriated me in part because I knew that we weren't supposed to be doing this sort of stuff, but mostly because to my teenage self it was shallow, trashy behavior and it didn't help that many of the ones behaving in this way clearly saw me as a freak. It wasn't until my late teens did I realize that my peers---my own classmates---were being groomed, either by social media or men sometimes a decade older than we were.
Another thing worth noting is that fascism often utilizes nostalgia as a tool.
NOSTALGIA AS A TOOL!!!! excuse me while I reformat the nostalgia / pandemic essay I've been toying with for over a year because... you just lit up some brain synapses. thanks for reading and engaging maddie!!!
Wow. I just stumbled upon this and I am so f*cking impressed with not only your analysis but also your deft rhetorical style. You kept me invested when I was sure that this was going to be another hot take by someone dismissing a talented artist and really pulled back all the layers of your thought process surrounding this topic. An incredibly valid take, hot but also enduring. I especially appreciated your inclusion of how race plays into all of this, and historical context. I love Sabrina's music but something was feeling off for me. You helped me put my finger on it. Excellent work here and I can't wait to read more from you.
Incredible read! As a black woman I often feel like I'm just watching this discourse on the sidelines but this is a reminder that these identities are all being triangulated at the expense of my and other black woman's humanity.
i have a page in a notebook of phrases that speak to me, and your entire second sentence is now in there. TRIANGULATED indeed. thank you for reading and being here ❤️
I had this thought when listening to “Juno” … Carpenter is 25 years old and dating (?) a man who literally has a baby, not the teenage girl she pretends to be in it
Beautiful analysis. Be careful with statistics and information from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They are essentially a conservative astroturfing organization that serves Christian ideology. Many many “missing” children ran away from abusive parents, and NCMEC serves the conservative abusive (often homophobia and Christian) child parents, not the children. They also consider every sex worker trafficked. Almost all “trafficking” numbers are fake too.
THANK YOU for telling me, Nicole!! it feels so tough and strange to even research this topic sometimes--something im sure orgs like this bank on so their research is uplifted even more--so I appreciate the context fr!
“The Lolita (1997) reference was striking, especially considering the obvious inspiration wasn’t mentioned at all in copy. W Magazine and the Sabrina Carpenter machine cleanly folded Nabokov’s controversial story— about an adult man’s obsession with a 12-year-old girl—into a feature about an adult woman’s child stardom.” Blew my mind omg
hey jade, thank you for writing this piece!! i'm glad i've found you through this piece & i've subscribed! i've felt weird about sabrina for awhile (even as she is one of my top-played artists lmao) and haven't fully been able to put my finger on why. her friendliness with and adoption by white feminist billionaire taylor swift definitely doesn't help. and your piece explains a lot of the rest!
also, one request - as an immunocompromised person, it's really painful when people refer to the ongoing pandemic in the past tense (such as "post-pandemic") when the pandemic is still raging and thousands of people are still dying and being disabled by long COVID. it also perpetuates the dangerous myth that covid is no longer a serious threat. i would appreciate it if you could update your way of talking about this. the podcast Death Panel has an episode called "the sociological production of the 'end' of the pandemic" if you're interested in learning more
soren!!!! thank you so much for this comment. i appreciate your perspective so much, especially for leaving it here. you’re so right that my language needs to reflect the ongoing threat of covid—i will so change that!
genuine ask: have you seen any writers or theorists use a better term for the jan 2020-summer/fall 2021 period, from covid’s entrance into the US to the vaccine’s mass availability? i am very interested in studying this period, but don’t yet know the best term. “acute pandemic” feels weird because cases remain acute for so many. would love any insight (from you or any other commenters)!
i appreciate your openness to this! that's a good question. i think the main term i've heard is something like "early [or first] years of the pandemic" or "early pandemic." i think i've heard "during lockdown" as well but there was never a true lockdown in the us. i'd be happy to hear from others too. and i might come back to comment again if i remember or hear of other terms :)
I say "early in the pandemic" or "before the covid vaccine" a lot of the time to describe 2020-21. Or I just say the year and month if I'm talking about something specific!
Really great insight!!
Any grown person's commitment to pedobait under the guise of the "harmless" coquette aesthetic is very "you either die lolita or live long enough to see yourself become the humbert."
i wish i could have opened the entire essay with that sentence ❤️ thank you principal investigator, love your writing
Jade this was incredible — also got me thinking (and lots of caveats here bc we don’t need to pit women against each other etc etc — but also I think pop stars are partially products offered into the cultural market and represent larger forces so some comparison is justified, idk) about the Olivia v Sabrina thing and how, at this point, we seem to have collectively “chosen” Sabrina’s version of young womanhood (overtly femme, cheekily sexual, cute and unthreatening) over Olivia’s (dramatic, painfully honest, aggressive, rougher around the edges). Kind of mirrors the Jagged Little Pill -> Britney and co. trajectory of the late ‘90s/early aughts. And obviously yes both of these are versions of an overtly white womanhood and both are enacted by wealthy thin women so truly the distance between them is not THAT far, but Olivia’s brief dominance 2ish yrs ago did represent a slight departure from femininity in the most traditional sense being marketed to young girls — and her “replacement” by Sabrina (again caveat caveat caveat) seems like a collective choice to be like lol nope, we want our women docile and manageable again!
I was a teenager in the late 90s, and I remember so clearly when the riot grrrls and outspoken singer-songwriters I adored (Shirley Manson, Alanis, Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan and her hard-won Lilith Fair) started to be eclipsed by Britney and Christina and Jessica. I think about that a lot. It felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it. I remember feeling so disappointed and sad realizing this was the beauty standard that girls my age would now be held to.
kiks and kylie--you both just gave me so much to think about!
Kylie: completely, beyond agree that the Olivia vs. Sabrina thing plays a role here--I would love to see someone else flesh it out (eyes). there's actually a line in one of the W mag interviews where the journalist says sabrina was "attacked for her blondness," and it reminded me of the utter TikTok uproar that ensued when driver's license came out. I also think Olivia's mixed identity makes things even more complicated: just as Sabrina inherited her own, culturally-specific lessons on femininity, I wonder if Olivia inherited something different (or at least adjacent), and how that plays out in her music? just riffing here but you hit on something big methinks
kiks: this has been echoing in my brain all day. "it felt like going backward, even as a young girl I could sense it." I think you're right on the money, and clearly, this is all cyclical! while gen z loves to think we are very special, so much of this has been done and has been seen before.
yes to all the comments on this thread! also, it is fascinating to me that one of the common critiques i hear of olivia's music from internet reactors is that it's "immature" and only enjoyable by people her age and younger. whereas sabrina and her music are often seen as mature and enjoyable for adults of any age even though (or perhaps especially because) she's cosplaying a sweet/"innocent" child 😭 i sense adultism is involved (in addition to racism, misogyny, etc). many adults prefer to be able to control children, and i think the rage and intensity in olivia's music reminds some adults of teenagers and young adults, who are often harder to control as they differentiate from their parents/caregivers and develop skills and access to resources that can help them access more freedom (money, driving, etc). as a society, teenagers are absolutely disrespected. sabrina is perfectly on the tightrope of "white, feminine, fun, nonthreatening, not angry, and also a freak in the bedroom" which seems to be exactly what many men want, based on those disgusting comments from the Ask Men subreddit.
"attacked for her blondness" is WILD. i had not read that one. jfc. definitely the "innocent white girl damsel in distress" thing going on there.
your mind !!! this was a delicious read! your writing is expansive and your research is thorough and so refreshingly intersectional. as someone who doesn’t know much about sabrina carpenter beyond the ear worm-y songs and the generally ‘off’ vibes i could never put my finger on — thank you for bringing me up to speed. may need a surgical team to lift my jaw off the floor after reading those nonsense outros though x
dru!!! thank you so much for the kind words: it means the world to me ❤️ you articulated exactly the kind of writing i love and am proud to do: thanks for seeing it!!!
Right! She confirmed that weird off feeling Ive had about her. I found her annoying but didnt know why. and now as a mom to an almost 11 year old girl, i know why.
I was shocked for a different reason because I always thought her Nonsense outros were sexual but seeing the increase in overt innuendos made me realize a lot
I got off vibes too but could never place it! This made it make sense
My thoughts exactly!!!
Not gonna lie I was taken aback by the title and its potential implications, so I started off reading this a bit defensively. But I'm so glad I kept going. You present your arguments so compellingly, backed by such sharp research, that I changed my mind pretty quickly. There's something very troubling about the cultural obsession with white, small, innocent women that isn't discussed enough. Examining this through Sabrina's example is both important and relevant, it shows how pervasive cultural pedophilia is. Most cultural discussions focus on past contexts, but no one seems willing to acknowledge that this is still very much happening. This is an amazing piece—everything is so quotable. Thank you for writing such an important essay 🫶
WOW, this is exactly the kind of discussion i was hoping for. thank you so much for remaining open and engaging with my ideas ❤️
You have no idea how cathartic and vindicating this was for me lol. It's also... interesting people think gender non-conforming people don't belong in the feminist movement. Just because I'm not feminine doesn't mean I don't face objectification and misogyny. The patriarchy effects everyone and the type of "femininity" that exclusionary femininists vouch for is usually very patriarchal.
thank you for reading, rose! i completely agree. like i wrote, the guardrails of “femininity” ensure only a certain type of woman could be involved in the movement: exactly the aim of first + second wave feminists (and the exclusionary feminists of today). in her attempt to not use binary language (my read), the quoted came off very TERF-y!
A lot of this post was really interesting to read. But as a fellow short woman (5’1”), I found parts of this piece frustrating. I’ve been talked down/condescended/infantilized my whole life due to my height. Are short women with round faces not allowed to be sexual adults? Or am I and Sabrina perpetuating some kind of pedophilic fantasy by simply existing?
hey erin! so fair to feel this way. I see sabrina's height as one aspect in a larger ecosystem of attributes and decisions (made by her and/or her team) that make up her brand. when we remove her height or face shape from the equation, her outros, her lyrics, the staging of her Skims and W magazine shoots, and her media quotes still reference and play with concepts of childhood. while her height might, grossly, add some "oomph" to these branding decisions for some people in her audience, i find the intentional decisions her and her team make as the core culprit of all of this--not the qualities she was born with.
Out of curiosity (because, like Erin, I’m a woman with a round, young-looking face who’s been infantilized constantly, and have struggled to present myself as an adult because of my appearance), how do you factor Sabrina Carpenter’s music videos into your critique of her overall brand and what she/her team are trying to accomplish with her image?
I really resonated with your "Kobayashi Maru" line. It wraps everything up nicely. We are so conditioned to be into these things that feed into the male fantasy, and the question always remains...where do we go once we're already there? Beautifully written.
thank you so much for reading (and for the extra uumph on my star trek reference) ❤️ appreciate you as always
Wow this is stunning; you pinpoint exactly that uneasy feeling that I have regarding Sabrina’s child-like qualities. Even some of her lyrics (tho catchy and funny) sound reminiscent of a child’s scrawl, for example “that’s that me” like what??? Considering her early childhood stardom (and thinking of the true stories we so often hear about child abuse behind the scenes, for example Jean Benet Ramsey, Alanis Morisette, too many kid stars to count), the queasy pedophilia angle becomes all the more disturbing and unsettling. Men compare women to pets, wtf guys it just keeps getting worse? In 30 rock there’s a guest appearance by a female comedian who presents herself as Sexy Baby, and Sabrina’s image is playing those cards but minus the dark comedy. Your essay is incredibly astute and brave. Many people don’t like to hear painful, uncomfortable truths. But you’ve put into words exactly what is going on here imo, regardless of Sabrina’s iconic status and popularity. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
thank you so much for reading and engaging, jessica! thank you for reminding me of that 30 Rock episode, too: so many cultural touch points of the “sexy baby,” far before the taylor swift lyric!!! you’re thinkin how i’m thinkin and i appreciate it ❤️
So I don't follow popstars and I had absolutely no clue who this was before reading it, I use Substack for one politics writer I'm subscribed to. But dang. I was a teenager at just about the time when this started becoming a problem (for reference I'm 21) for teenage girls, though I never participated in it or really followed along with the trends (I was a "weird kid"). But at that age, seeing my peers doing this infuriated me in part because I knew that we weren't supposed to be doing this sort of stuff, but mostly because to my teenage self it was shallow, trashy behavior and it didn't help that many of the ones behaving in this way clearly saw me as a freak. It wasn't until my late teens did I realize that my peers---my own classmates---were being groomed, either by social media or men sometimes a decade older than we were.
Another thing worth noting is that fascism often utilizes nostalgia as a tool.
NOSTALGIA AS A TOOL!!!! excuse me while I reformat the nostalgia / pandemic essay I've been toying with for over a year because... you just lit up some brain synapses. thanks for reading and engaging maddie!!!
Wow. I just stumbled upon this and I am so f*cking impressed with not only your analysis but also your deft rhetorical style. You kept me invested when I was sure that this was going to be another hot take by someone dismissing a talented artist and really pulled back all the layers of your thought process surrounding this topic. An incredibly valid take, hot but also enduring. I especially appreciated your inclusion of how race plays into all of this, and historical context. I love Sabrina's music but something was feeling off for me. You helped me put my finger on it. Excellent work here and I can't wait to read more from you.
thank you river 😭❤️ this comment means the world to me. thanks for being along for the ride!
Excited to see you find success on Substack! You are a really amazing writer and thinker imo, just judging from this piece. Can't wait to read more.
🫂🫂🫂
Incredible read! As a black woman I often feel like I'm just watching this discourse on the sidelines but this is a reminder that these identities are all being triangulated at the expense of my and other black woman's humanity.
i have a page in a notebook of phrases that speak to me, and your entire second sentence is now in there. TRIANGULATED indeed. thank you for reading and being here ❤️
❤️🔥
I had this thought when listening to “Juno” … Carpenter is 25 years old and dating (?) a man who literally has a baby, not the teenage girl she pretends to be in it
thanks for reading, caroline!!!!! i couldn’t agree more.
You just blew my fucking mind omg??
It's like when I found out Taylor Swift is about half a decade away from 40
And still singing like she’s 19-24
Beautiful analysis. Be careful with statistics and information from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They are essentially a conservative astroturfing organization that serves Christian ideology. Many many “missing” children ran away from abusive parents, and NCMEC serves the conservative abusive (often homophobia and Christian) child parents, not the children. They also consider every sex worker trafficked. Almost all “trafficking” numbers are fake too.
THANK YOU for telling me, Nicole!! it feels so tough and strange to even research this topic sometimes--something im sure orgs like this bank on so their research is uplifted even more--so I appreciate the context fr!
Wonderful piece wish I could've read this as a teenager
wish us as teenagers could have hugged <3 thanks for reading, ms. monique
This is so brilliant
“The Lolita (1997) reference was striking, especially considering the obvious inspiration wasn’t mentioned at all in copy. W Magazine and the Sabrina Carpenter machine cleanly folded Nabokov’s controversial story— about an adult man’s obsession with a 12-year-old girl—into a feature about an adult woman’s child stardom.” Blew my mind omg
thank you for reading, lex!!! ❤️
hey jade, thank you for writing this piece!! i'm glad i've found you through this piece & i've subscribed! i've felt weird about sabrina for awhile (even as she is one of my top-played artists lmao) and haven't fully been able to put my finger on why. her friendliness with and adoption by white feminist billionaire taylor swift definitely doesn't help. and your piece explains a lot of the rest!
also, one request - as an immunocompromised person, it's really painful when people refer to the ongoing pandemic in the past tense (such as "post-pandemic") when the pandemic is still raging and thousands of people are still dying and being disabled by long COVID. it also perpetuates the dangerous myth that covid is no longer a serious threat. i would appreciate it if you could update your way of talking about this. the podcast Death Panel has an episode called "the sociological production of the 'end' of the pandemic" if you're interested in learning more
soren!!!! thank you so much for this comment. i appreciate your perspective so much, especially for leaving it here. you’re so right that my language needs to reflect the ongoing threat of covid—i will so change that!
genuine ask: have you seen any writers or theorists use a better term for the jan 2020-summer/fall 2021 period, from covid’s entrance into the US to the vaccine’s mass availability? i am very interested in studying this period, but don’t yet know the best term. “acute pandemic” feels weird because cases remain acute for so many. would love any insight (from you or any other commenters)!
also can’t wait to listen to that podcast episode!!
i appreciate your openness to this! that's a good question. i think the main term i've heard is something like "early [or first] years of the pandemic" or "early pandemic." i think i've heard "during lockdown" as well but there was never a true lockdown in the us. i'd be happy to hear from others too. and i might come back to comment again if i remember or hear of other terms :)
I say "early in the pandemic" or "before the covid vaccine" a lot of the time to describe 2020-21. Or I just say the year and month if I'm talking about something specific!