where's your malloy tonight ?

BLOG ENTRY : "manchild" by sabrina carpenter is indicative of my larger grievances with the fucking straights

published : feb 13, 2026 (originally written and released to limited audience dec 25, 2025)

I’m not a big enough Sabrina Carpenter fan to listen to her albums, but of course I’ve heard lots from one of the biggest pop stars of the decade, and I like her and also she’s hot but don’t tell anyone that they’ll call me gay. Her three biggest hits of 2024 were great earworms, but my favourite of hers is Juno, which funnily enough was introduced to me by Todd in the Shadows himself on his best hit songs of 2024 video. Just a banger of a song with extremely raunchy lyrics that might turn some people off (it’s not Juno, the Roman goddess, but Juno, the movie starring Elliot Page, if you want a hint) but damn it’s so good, and fun. A beautiful thing about Sabrina’s Short n’ Sweetness from 2024 was just how infectious the fun of it all was. Sabrina is clever, she’s confident, she’s self aware, she’s silly, and everything from last year’s album cycle just felt good to listen to.

I can’t say the same for this year, unfortunately 😔

Don’t get me wrong, Manchild isn’t a bad song, and neither is it the death of feminism as some people implied that the album art suggested. It's just kind of exhausting. This idea of Sabrina being into and getting with frustrating incompetent men was also the main thing in Please Please Please from last year, but in that song it felt less about men in general and more about painting a picture about one specific character, one specific instance, just telling a story, and it was fun ! Manchild, however, and subsequently Tears, and as I’ve heard people say even more of the album, go beyond and paint a picture of a greater disillusionment in men, in dating, in relationships. It’s supposed to be silly—self-aware and self-deprecating as much as it’s supposed to be a satirical critique of how men behave. But honestly ? As an outside observer, an aromantic ass nonbinary lesbian who is so many degrees separated from whatever goes on in cis allo heterosexuality, after only a few rounds of it, this stuff isn’t funny. It just brings everything fucking down.

My favourite music critic to watch on YouTube at the moment (who you might be surprised to learn is not Todd in the Shadows) is Sean Fay-Wolfe. While describing his own lack of excitement for Tears in this video here, he tells a story about one of his own dating experiences where a woman he once dated was so overjoyed at him doing the bare minimum it was really depressing to think about.

Overall, I like Tears’s sound a lot more than Manchild’s but the lyrics, especially the verses, are even more horrific. « Considering I have feelings, I'm like, "Why are my clothes still on?" / Offering to do anything, I'm like, "Oh my God" » ☹️☹️☹️ The reality that has led to the penning of these lyrics is too ridiculous to laugh at. It’s sad for one thing, but it’s also just annoying! The same joke over and over again of « Men suck, I can’t believe I keep going back to them » is tiring—boring, even.

Below is the video "Sabrina Carpenter, Heteropessimism & The Disney to Popstar Pipeline" by youtuber square cymbals ! The part that intrigues me the most is the exploration of the heteropessimism of Sabrina’s lyrics, heteropessimism being this sentiment of despair and hopelessness about the state of straight relationships—basically, the age-old question of « Are the straights okay ? », answered by the straights themselves : « no ». This general hopelessness, seeped into these songs of everything sucking, the resignation that it’s just like that, with no further challenge beyond just pointing out how bad it is ? Sabrina Carpenter is a fun pop star whose genre does not demand, whose heart does not desire, and whose brand therefore does not include profound transgressive societal analyses, but it says something about how so fucking dire it is out here. Someone save the straight women PLEASE. We can’t let them be miserable like this !!! This is why I’m always on that damn deconstruction of amatonormativity !!!!!! deconstruct deconstruct !!!!!!!!!!!!1

To add to how frustrating it is, you know one of my favourite artists who also has songs about how men suck ? CHAPPELL ROAN. But the conclusion to Chappell Roan’s Men Suck arc was the realization that she’s a lesbian !!!! This isn’t to say that Sabrina needs to go gay or whatever but it just exacerbates my personal subjective exasperation. And it’s funny, you know, how Chappell’s Men Suck lines aren’t even my favourites either !!!!!

One thing that really pissed me off once was that I once saw a reel on the devil’s app that was like « i just realized, tears isn’t about being horny, its making fun of men, gotta love sabrina's sarcasm 😜 ». At first I thought it was satire because how could you miss something so obvious, but upon reading the comments I realized that yes, it just doesn’t register to some people at first. I do realize that pop music is often just something people have on to vibe without a care for what they’re saying. I also realize that I’m ranting about a handful of pop songs I don’t need to care about from an artist I’m not even that invested in. I don’t know. Why do we live like this.

Anyways, all that baggage in the lyrics plus nothing of what I’ve heard being as excellent music-wise makes it that I just get a little sad when my dad has the radio on in the car and Tears plays. lol