‘If your 12-year-old daughter’s a bit thick, she probably likes Ariana Grande,’ is the ridiculous start to - surprise, surprise! - Rod Liddle’s latest column in The Spectator about the youngest-ever female solo act to top the UK album charts, Billie Eilish. ‘Come on, dads — you’ve got to face up to this stuff,’ he continues, ‘you’ve got to JUDGE. Be ruthless. If, however, she’s a bit smarter, but also sullen, lazy and probably prone to self-harming, she’ll be a big Billie Eilish fan.’
That’s only the intro. It gets worse - but I will save you from reading the four paragraphs describing Eilish’s debut album, because they are awful. I got so angry reading it that I had to leave the office to take my lunch early and go for a walk; you do not - if you haven’t read it yet - need that negativity in your life.
The piece needs to be talked about though, because it is serious: making jokes about young women and self-harm in the name of sarcasm is never okay, especially when Eilish - who is 17 - has spoken candidly about her struggles with depression. It’s not funny - and it’s never going to be. Not when there has been a steady rise in the number of young women who self-harm, or when The Children's Society charity reported last year, nearly a quarter of 14-year-old girls in the UK have self-harmed. Obviously not satisfied by using a cheap joke about that, the pay off to the article is, somehow, even worse. ‘If Eilish can resist the temptation to top herself, we may have a major talent on our hands.’
Cheap jokes aside, there is also the question why the fuck is Rod Liddle - a man who is 59-years-old, and, apparently, a music journalist - writing about the music tastes of 12-year-old girls?
I promise I’m not just asking this because today I am wearing a ‘thank u, next’ t-shirt. And it shouldn't need saying, but there is nothing ‘thick’ about liking Ariana Grande’s music. No matter how old you are, your IQ is not determined by your choice in music; whether that be death metal or princess pop (a lot of the studies that say your music taste is intelligence linked aren't very scientific, btw.) And, apart from the fact that they are both the two most successful young women in the industry at the moment, Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande are two completely different artists - the comparision is lazy and serves no purpose other than an opportunity to pit two female popstars against each other.
Probably the only amusing thing to come from this article is that the original headline spelt Ariana Grande’s name wrong. Because, as it's been pointed out on Twitter, 'If you're gonna call 12 year olds thick at least spell Ariana Grande's name correctly.'