Why a Terror Attack at an Ariana Grande Concert Is an Attack on Teen Girls Everywhere
I was in grade five when I went to my first concert. It was 1998, and it was Hanson.
No, I did not have "refined" musical tastes. I had the far more powerful and lucrative musical tastes of a pop culture-obsessed teen girl.
My love for Hanson, and then NSYNC, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Aaron Carter, The A*Teens, and a steady stream of now forgettable blips on the mainstream musical map of the early noughties was rabid and all-consuming.
I clutched at pop music and its icons as a desperate escape from the emotional tribulations of being an awkward, incredibly self-conscious teen girl.
And the pinnacle of each pop-idol worship was The Concert. The one night where anything could happen.
Maybe I'd be pulled on-stage and Britney would make me her new backup dancer. Maybe I'd lock eyes with Zac Hanson from row Q in the balcony and we'd run away together!
Outfits carefully planned, my friends and I meticulously rehearsed scenarios for what we would do if we just happened to run into Justin Timberlake hanging out at the McDonalds near the arena or casually bump into Baby Spice in the parking lot.
We never rehearsed how to survive a terror attack.
When a suicide bomber chose to blow himself up in the foyer of Ariana Grande's Manchester concert on Monday night, killing 22 innocent fans, he penetrated that sacred fan space.
He intentionally targeted a vulnerable population of mostly young girls with their families who let their guard down for one night to soak up the magic of seeing their idol.
Taking advantage of their passion, he twisted their blissful distraction into an aid for mass murder.
This wasn't just any public event. This was an Ariana Grande concert.
Ariana – Nickelodeon kid actor turned music superstar – caters to teen girls like I once was with her doe eyes and perfect ponytail. To her millions of fans, she represents what they could be if only they caught the right break.
"I'm kind of a boring, normal girl who likes Harry Potter and to sit in her pyjamas and sing," she told Cosmopolitan in 2013. "A lot of my friends are partiers, but I've never really clicked with that."
A tiny girl with a big voice, the 23-year-old is cool, but not so cool that she wouldn't be your best friend in an alternate universe.
She speaks to the wallflowers and the dreamers, the shy girls who can't get up the courage to talk to their crushes. And she's there to help them navigate the waters, not just with her music but with her very existence.
"When you go through those teenage years, there's lots of crying and drama and craziness and doubting yourself," she said, adding, "They didn't expect much from me, because at the end of the day, I'm just a nice Italian girl from Boca [Raton, Florida]."
That's why attacking her fans, legions of fellow "nice girls" from Manchester, Perth, São Paulo, and Mumbai, feels like the lowest blow.
Last month, Harry Styles passionately defended his own female fan base to Rolling Stone.
"Who's to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy?" he said. "Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they're not serious? How can you say young girls don't get it?
"They're our future – our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool'. They like you, and they tell you."
And they go to your concerts.
As an adult, you attend a concert looking for an evening escape, a nice story you can reminisce about and maybe an envy-inducing Instagram to post.
I saw Adele at Sydney's ANZ Stadium in March, and she was fantastic – but my heart wasn't in my throat for days beforehand trembling with anticipation of getting to see her in-person.
I didn't memorise her hobbies or paint my nails her favourite colours.
I didn't cry when she came on stage or wait outside the backstage exit to scream her name after the show.
Those are specific teen girl experiences. Ones that should never be violated. And voices that should never be stifled.
