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Life + Culture

Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Manchild’ Is Going To Heal My Single Girl Era

All my pop girlies need to rise from the dead. Miss Carpenter is dropping her new single, and I cannot wait for it to become the breakup anthem of the year!

| Vishakha Punjabi
Sabrina Carpenter

At exactly 5:30 am tomorrow, I’ll be awake. Not for a flight, not for a boy, not even for a gym class I promised myself I’d go to, but for her. Sabrina Annlynn Carpenter. Because when Manchild drops, I already know my single girl era will be fully activated with a soundtrack.

Summer Of '24

Let’s rewind for a second. Last summer, Carpenter had us by the throat with Espresso. The outfits? Iconic. The lyrics? Unhinged and perfect. The energy? Unbothered, caffeinated, and completely unserious in the best possible way. And just when the world was starting to recover from Short n’ Sweet, she gave us the deluxe version with bops like Busy Woman, never have I ever felt so called out by a song (living and breathing EVERY lyric, it’s embarrassing) 

From Nonsense outros to Juno performance, waiting every day for her to get on the stage, drop a new position that I later am definitely trying in my room and FAILING, wondering how girliepop is so flexible (yes, the Juno positions meme lives in my head rent-free), and a thousand reasons to romanticise being the villain in someone else’s coming-of-age story.

Now she’s back in micro shorts, desert wind blowing through her ‘90s blowout, thumb out like a retro hitchhiker straight out of a cowboy girl fever dream and the golden title Manchild gleaming across the screen. I don’t need to hear a single note to know: this song isn’t just a bop, it’s a prophecy. From the pop star's recent caption, "this one’s about you!!" (We all know who she’s talking to), it’s already been interpreted as both a tease and a threat (as all good pop lyrics are). 

Manchild promises all the rage, revenge, and rhinestones we need. It feels like a wink to every girl who’s ever dated an emotionally unavailable situationship disguised as a person. The title alone says what we’ve all been too nice to say out loud.

So while I don’t technically know what Manchild sounds like yet, I know how it’ll make me feel. Empowered. Petty. Kind of insane. And ready to post a mirror selfie with a caption that says, “this one’s about you,” knowing full well he won’t get it, but my girls will. In this economy, closure is overrated. What we need is a pop anthem with bite, and Sabrina Carpenter is about to deliver — again. So here’s to another Sabrina-fuelled season of healing from breakups, heartbreak, and hinge screenshots. Single girl summer is calling. And Manchild is our answer.

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