the pop girls are anxious

just like me

A couple of months ago I was listening to Chappell Roan and found myself rejecting her music even though I love it. I didn’t know why. I was having a headfuck week of intrusive thoughts, anxiety and overthinking, which has become quite normal for me in the wake of PTSD and burn out. During those weeks I look for signs in everything; every song lyric is secretly trying to communicate something to me, every thought needs to be excavated, every fear needs to be tried on for size through a series of hypothetical questions or scenarios that I strain to imagine in order to “discover” how I “really” feel, even though none of this is feeling and all of it is hyper-vigilant intellectualisation that mutes my ability to feel.

Chappells reckless abandon, lyrics about not giving a fuck, partying, hooking up and flying through her twenties with gay abandon were not it for me that week. It made me feel old, sad and like someone she’d never want to hang out with. Am I even fun if i’m stable? Am I having enough sex? Do I care too much? I don’t even know this girl, so you can clearly see how fucking weird I was feeling. Next up, Spotify served me Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso (naturally), and my living room was drowned in female awareness of how insatiably men want her, the idea of perfectly perfumed skin, and independence that feels like a drug. I was standing in the kitchen, crusty-eyed, feeling like a deeply broken woman for whom life is a bit too hard at times. I don’t relate to you, Sabrina. I turned the music off.

Sometimes the mainstream narratives I am around make me feel like I’ve failed. Don’t hate your cis male partner? You’re deluded You should! Don’t want to be so independent that you answer to no one? Boring. It doesn’t matter that my relationship is mostly pure joy, wrestling, laughing, great sex and individual growth or that inter-dependence, empathy and deep and terrifying vulnerability are the only thins that have ever helped me get though anything in my life. These things don’t feel c o o l when I open my phone or listen to pop culture. This, of course, is all hyperbole; I don’t actually believe these pop-culture narratives are a problem, are bad – quite the opposite as they are redressing an imbalance – or are causing me pain. I just sometimes feel like I’d be cooler (and more successful) if I was something I’m not.

The day after the crusty-eyed kitchen moment, I saw a video of Roan lamenting about how hard being demisexual was, how shy she is and how little the idea of one night stands given her anxiety. “it’s super interesting” she said “because my project is very sexually forward… that’s the character of Chappell. That is very much the performance art of it”. I felt a feeling of confusion then quickly realised I’d clearly made up my mind about her life based on her art. It’s as if I was a child who’d just learnt what stage personas were. Why had I assumed that Kayleigh Rose Amstutz’s life was devoid of the social anxiety and the banal normalcy of being a girl? Why did I assume she was somehow was living a techni-colour, queer Gen Z fantasy existence? Why did I compare myself to a sweet girl’s alter ego? Many of her songs were wishful thinking, in the same way her onstage persona allows her to escape and author her own reality. Keyleigh is trying to feel free from her own struggle by creating Chappell just like we all are by enjoying her music.

Yesterday, Sabrina Carpenter revealed she wrote Espresso as a "a manifestation tactic, because no one like me romantically at that point — no one was obsessed with me," she said. "I didn't have anyone I was even talking to." Espresso was penned to make herself feel better, and to give her the opportunity to embody a fantasy. That’s what music is supposed to do for the listener; let them step into a new world, yet in my over anxious state I was comparing my whole self to lyrics and drawing conclusions about my value. Yet another example of how easy it is to constantly compare instead of realise we’re all just girls thinking we should be doing more than we are. Even Chappell and Sabrina.

G x