so I haven't offered my two cents about this Sabrina Carpenter thing because 1

so I haven't offered my two cents about this Sabrina Carpenter thing because 1 I don't listen to Sabrina Carpenter 2 not a fan of her brand and I haven't been a fan of her brand ever since what was it like that one was it just last summer when her and Chappell Roan were like both like top of their game and a lot of people were identifying the fact that Sabrina Carpenter leans very heavily into traditional femininity aesthetics and I couldn't unsee that I couldn't see it um also she doesn't seem to give a hoot about anything going on in the world socially and politically at all so when she came out with this um man child album cover I was like yeah sounds about right um sounds about white woman sounds about little blonde white woman ha ha but even though I don't listen to her I am someone who likes pop culture and I get a lot of content regarding her and things going on with her and what fans are saying blah blah blah blah yesterday I was on Instagram and I saw the video of Gail King asking Sabrina Yo what was up with the album art like what did you think about the backlash um what is what did you actually intend to convey with this artwork and um yeah like what's the deal and I left the interview like I exited the video thinking damn like you really said nothing here you said nothing and then today I was here on TikTok and I got a video from this one creator who I'll put her video or not her video but I'll put her name here because she's like a pop culture podcaster and she was kind of doing more of a close reading of the video and in that video she affirmed kind of what my initial beliefs were but she pointed out that Sabrina did a lot of deflecting she was even belittling her fans she was belittling everyday people who actually have to worry about things worry about the reality of being a woman under the patriarchy um she was just obfuscating and also she was contradicting herself in a lot of ways there were a lot of logical fallacies in the way that she was responding and justifying her decision and her team's decision to go with this um artwork and it was after reading or listening to this close reading of the interview that I realised I don't think Sabrina has as much of a say in what her brand has become at this point and some of y'all probably think that's wild like no she definitely has a say and at the end of the day she's just like a white woman she's just like a white woman white womaning um a white woman who checks like every every beauty standard box she's just doing what she does um yeah and that's I thought that too I did until about a month ago I listened to this episode of Clio's World podcast which is called Bread and Circuses I'll link it here I love Clio's world her brain love it um if you guys don't follow her I recommend doing that because she offers some of the most like original like really compelling um criticism through a feminist and anti capitalist lens and she briefly mentioned on her podcast um Sabrina Carpenter and how she believes how she highly highly highly highly doubts that Sabrina Carpenter has creative control over her brand and this pissed me off because I was like nah like nah Sabrina Carpenter this is her doing like she's orchestrating this sht um and I know that all (major) celebrities have especially not especially but we're talking about musicians celebrity musicians they have creative teams but I operate on under the understanding that they do have creative teams like they sign off on everything and um these are their extensions of their ideas at least or interpretations of their ideas but Clio's world was like I highly doubt this was her idea and I really like I even commented on her podcast on Spotify I was like can you elaborate on this because I'm I'm not following babes and now now that I heard Sabrina talk about her own creative direction in such a way that suggests she actually has no clue what is going on cause if you can't even come up with a like a strong like concise like firm statement dismissing all of these quote unquote misinterpretations of the truth then it sounds like you don't even know the truth is and she actually doesn't because in the interview she makes it very clear as the creator who did the close reading uh notes she contradicts herself she says she knows exactly what the album means but then at the same time she's like it's up for interpretation it's one of the other um so yeah I think Sabrina is a puppet in some ways and I think she's a puppet who has consented to being a puppet she'd I do believe she signs off on this stuff at the end of the day but I do think that there are shady actors who are pushing her in this direction um and that it's not I think some elements of her of her creative direction are hers but I think she's just she's just a capitalist going with the flow going with the flow of whatever's gonna get people talking about her and therefore maintaining cultural capital maintaining status and also maintaining album sales