Ceci Browning

When my mum picks up my WhatsApp video call, she’s on the beach. As we chat, I watch her take small sips from a wet can of lager, dodging the hairy men in budgie smugglers who try to pass behind her. Inevitably, I’ll spend most of our conversation staring at her earlobe, since she’ll press the phone against her head in order to hear my various life updates over the screeching sound of holidaymakers frolicking in the shallow water. If the connection’s good enough, I might be able to make out her excitement about the pink bikini she’s just bought, or get the gossip from the local scuba shop, with its dramas that are more exciting than a soap opera’s.

Sabrina Carpenter first emerged in 2014 as a child actress on the Disney Channel. From there, she signed with a record label, becoming yet another entertainer to take advantage of the tween-TV-to-music-charts pipeline (see Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez et al). Ten years and five average albums later, she was known only to a few teenage girls, but over the last few months this has changed. The 25-year-old is now everywhere: music videos, magazine covers, billboards, chat show sofas and, of course, Instagram and TikTok. If you’re under the age of 30, you can’t escape Carpenter.