Yesterday I opened Spotify and was horrified by what I saw. I should have screenshotted it but I was “shooketh” (as the youth say), and immediately exited out and vowed to take a one week hiatus from listening to… Sabrina Carpenter.
When I opened Spotify, it said “Sabrina Carpenter has made something special for you! As one of her top listeners….”
Oh no.
How did we get here? How did I, Hadley Sachs, on the eve of my 32nd birthday, become one of the TOP listeners of a bubblegum pop artist like Sabrina Carpenter?
Great question.
I believe it all started when the hosts of my favorite podcast (other than my own, check out Haddles’ House wherever you get your podcasts!) Celebrity Memoir Book Club discussed having the “Summer of their Lives.” That sounded great.
I’m young, single, and just got a fabulous new haircut, so I decided, I too would have the summer of my life.
What does that mean exactly? To me it means saying yes to everything (except the things I don’t want to say yes to), going on lots of dates (already burning out on this one, dating is a young [wo]man’s game), and “leaning in to fun” whatever that means on any given day.
To me, it has happened to mean listening to a lot of the silly, bubblegum pop music that I had decided at a very young age I was too cool to listen to.
The first time I heard “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, I was genuinely worried for the state of society. I still stand by that this song was probably written by AI to prove that as a society we collectively have three remaining brain cells, “that’s that me espresso,” means literally nothing… BUT, after the first couple listens, I’ll admit I was hooked.
I then stumbled upon another SC classic, “Nonsense,” which is also… probably written by AI to prove I’m a moron, but I love it. I loved the lighthearted, youthful, happy vibe to it. She’s young and dumb in love. How fun!
I decided to stop trying to be edgy with my music taste for a few weeks and let Sabrina Carpenter rule the Summer of My Life.
This was all well and good for a few weeks until I was hanging out with my Very Cool Gen Z cousin, who alerted me that Sabrina Carpenter is a Mean Girl.
What! How could this fun, pretty, blonde, international pop star be a Mean Girl?
If you’re not as hip and plugged into the youth music scene as I am, (you can tell I’m young and fun because I call them youth), a few years back, a young artist named Olivia Rodrigo put out an album called SOUR that was mostly about how her boyfriend and first love was stolen away by another girl.
The girl in question? Sabrina Carpenter.
GASP!
Ok fine, but that was in 2021 Hadley, who cares?! That was ONE guy.
Nope. Well, maybe. Buckle up.
Sabrina Carpenter is now very publicly dating Barry Keoghan (of Saltburn fame). They appeared at the Met Gala together and even had a cute BTS video in Vogue — side note, I just googled and skimmed a “Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan timeline” article for you. I couldn’t do more than skim because normally this shit is the bane of my existence, but clearly, it’s doing something for me here!
Barry Keoghan was previously dating Alyson Sandro for several years and has a brand new baby with her! I remember seeing an interview of him when he was saying “she’s my everything, and I couldn’t do this without her…” and now he’s linked to SABRINA CARPENTER!
I’m not sure if she stole him away or what happened… my *very* quick sleuthing tells me that Barry and Alyson broke up in July of last year and he and Sabrina didn’t start dating until December, but they all have publicists who manage their SEOs so who really knows.
At this point you may be thinking… Why are we still talking about this? Also, your article was called “Mean Girl Pop Stars,” not “Sabrina Carpenter is Making Me Have an Existential Crisis,” who are the other pop stars?
We’re almost there!
The fact that Sabrina is very publicly dating a Man Who Has a New Baby reminds me of another pop star dating a Man Who Has a New Baby, one who I cannot personally stomach, because I view her, and have always viewed her as a Mean Girl.
Ariana Grande.
Yes, she has pipes. Yes, she’s beautiful (although she does make me very uncomfortable with her cultural appropriation. As a girl who uses self tanner… put the tanner down). But she is mean. And what’s worse is she pretends to be nice.
She’s not a girl’s girl.
Last summer, the Summer of Girls, Barbie Summer, Ariana Grande entered into a public relationship with Spongebob.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Last summer, Ariana Grande entered into a public relationship with Ethan Slater, her costar in Wicked. Ethan Slater, who played Spongebob on Broadway [pictured below] also had a Brand New Baby with his now ex-wife Lilly Jay.
Let the record show that Ethan Slater is a Bad Guy.
When a man cheats, it is rarely, if ever, the woman who he cheats with who is to blame. However, it takes two to tango, and entering into an affair with a man who has a very young baby with another woman takes a certain type of woman. Perhaps… dare I say, a Mean Girl?
To be one of the most powerful pop stars on the planet and to have your pick of any eligible man you want, and to (very publicly) date a Man With a New Baby with someone else… Feels really icky to me.
Especially when you’ve painted yourself as this sweet, funny, innocent girl who wears high ponytails and talks like a baby.
Ariana Grande is a good musician, but I can’t bring myself to listen to her music because I think she’s a shitty person. She’s a white girl who has been in Brown Face since she was 18, and she treats her exes in the same way the Kardashians do - she tries to publicly blackball them.
She stole this woman’s husband (after allegedly befriending her and constantly asking to hold her baby!!!) and publicly dated him. Mean Girl.
Sabrina Carpenter might be off the hook if the timelines I skimmed were correct, but she still stole Olivia Rodrigo’s boyfriend, so… Mean Girl (?)
The last Mean Girl I want to touch upon is Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift is the biggest pop star in the world. Even if you’re my mom (hi mom) and you don’t know anything about pop culture, you know about how huge Taylor Swift is.
She has won millions of awards and Grammys and has been on the Billboard Top 100 more than most people can even dream of. YET!!! She has a problem with letting other girls succeed. Mean. Girl.
Charli XCX (a British artist) released an album at the beginning of the summer called Brat, and the crowd went wild! People loved this album, and even dubbed this summer Brat Summer.
However, Taylor Swift decided that she wanted it to keep being a Taylor Swift summer, so she released a bunch of new UK exclusive versions of her album so that it would be hot and new and bump Charli from #1.
She also apparently did this to Billie Eilish when her album dropped this spring.
I’m losing braincells at this point, and my rant is running out of steam…. but basically, I don’t understand why these pop stars are Mean Girls.
They can date whoever they want, they can make new music whenever they want, they can do whatever the fuck they want. In a world where you can be anything, why not be nice?
Alllll that said, I have enough fuel in my system to stay off the Sabrina Carpenter for at least another week, which will hopefully give my Spotify algorithm a chance to recalibrate and leave some hope for my Spotify Wrapped.
Thanks for tuning in <3