The pop girls are just as starstruck as you.

So, Hailey Bieber.

She seems to be the very first famous girl, at least in my estimation, that had a crush on a "celebrity". That's not usually how it's meant to work. If you're already famous, you can't have crushes on celebrities – that's just having a crush. That's your peer! There's no implied block of access. You're Hailey Baldwin, of the Baldwins. No one is keeping you from Justin Bieber.

Yet it is widely known that Hailey Bieber was a Belieber before she was his wife, and she's now been able to live every fangirl's dream. This is yet another data point in the development of the "blurred line" – that cultural vermillion border that has developed between celebrity and audience, that increased access we all have. In some ways, Hailey's perceived "success" became the hope of "us all" – a fan can marry Justin Bieber, so if you're a fan, you won alongside her.

Then there was Gracie Abrams. This, to me, was even more egregious. Her father is famed lens-flare-wielding, macguffin-obsessed filmmaker JJ Abrams – the kind of director someone like Paul Mescal would kill to work with at the time. I do not know anyone who was keeping Gracie Abrams from reaching through the screen and having Paul.

Yet still, Abrams' entire debut album is believed to be about the parasocial, and then social relationship, and then situationship, and then romantic relationship she developed with the actor over the last few years. The track Normal is so comically obvious about Mescal as to almost feel like a publicity stunt – alas, I believe it's completely earnest. She talks of falling in love with him during his famed stint on the limited series Normal People (get it, 'Normal'?), like every other young woman of a certain disposition did, including Mescal's current partner at the time, Phoebe Bridgers. Abrams writes, I remember when I saw your face not long ago, I was on my couch, you were on my screen, one of us was stoned– and the plotline was rare, swear I felt you right there, Maybe that was the beginning of our love affair."

With all the love in the world...you're JJ Abrams' daughter, just grab him! Well, I guess she did.

Despite my love for her work, there's a whole other piece I could write about how Abrams begs and prostrates herself on that album as if she isn't a conventionally attractive young and successful musician with famous and successful parents – but then I'd have to get feminist with it and weigh her age against her status, and we'd be here for weeks, so we'll save that for another time. The focus point here is that, in begging for the affections of Paul Mescal and then winning them, her fairytale, "she's just like you" story comes to completion, and now, you can bond with Abrams on her win – it's almost like you're dating Paul, too!

I'll sneak Doja Cat in here, although I think she was very tasteful with it – with which I mean she was very vulgar, and it worked. She was like, "That boy on Stranger Things is hot", and then a few years later she just bagged him. No Fanfare, no prostration, no pretending she isn't just as much of a catch – she just went fishing and caught, and I respect it.

Olivia Rodrigo started dating British Actor Louis Partridge in 2023. On paper, they felt like the ultimate "Young Hollywood" couple - although it seems they're no longer together. Though Rodrigo's vulnerability on the new record felt just as fresh, young, and naive, as it should for her age, it did also seem to play into this "Fangirl made good" narrative that we've been discussing – "One night I was bored in bed and stalked you on the internet, It's feminine intuition, 'cause I always had a vision of us standing like this".

She then goes on into the line "Kiss me, and I might drop dead", along with a myriad of other lines that imply absolute and complete devotion to the romantic moment. Again, we'll do the feminism another time, but this prostrate posture alongside the "stalking" runs the same lines we've discussed.

In 2023, Olivia Rodrigo was the most important thing in Western Pop Music. He bagged her. If anyone should have been having visions and making plans, it should have been Partridge. Hell, I have yet to see him act in anything. With all love and respect, who is he? Perhaps he's better known to the kids, god knows I'm aging out of the heartthrob demo.

When did we make this switch? Perhaps with the "relatability" apocalypse, as more women in the public eye try to ward off the evil one. Am I saying a famous woman can't be a fangirl? No. Am I saying they can't express it? No. Am I saying it's damaging to the cultural zeitgeist for famous women to pretend they're climbing an uphill battle toward the ultimate prize of a Famous Man? Potentially.

I wonder where this fits into the music as consumption for the maladaptive daydreaming phenomenon we're seeing in fandom - famous women write songs about yearning for a famous man, but normal people can insert themselves into the story and live through them, even in their yearning.

Celebrities. They're just like us.