THINGS THEY LOVE ARE RIDICULED BECAUSE THEY LOVE THEM SO BOLDLY

equal zealousness. And never was there a night that didn’t disappoint, lip-synching be damned. With each sway of a hip, each belted lyric, those concerts were our church. Hyperbole now, maybe, but at that age, there weren’t words to describe the sheer experience of it all.

So it seems natural that my parents were always terrified of my sister and I going to a concert. Presumably, they imagined us getting lost in the crowd, or worse: having our youthful optimism and obsession corrupted. The potential for this must have seemed ever-present to them; among the sweaty masses in attendance and an eardrum-bursting soundtrack.

But actually, there has never been a place I’ve ever felt safer or more in touch with my girlhood than in a concert hall with a thousand other prepubescent girls, waving the same signs etched in pink sharpie. I have yet to go to a concert that can sing in unison the way we sang along to Christina Aguilera, as if the cumulative energy would keep us rooted there forever, united in our boundless love for pop music and the pretty face on stage who helped us forget our parents, school, boys and all the little things that felt so much bigger at the time.

There is a difficult-to-define kinship between girls of a certain age and the artists they love. Worship feels too strong a word, but for a teenage girl, there is a sense of great admiration and hope found in the vestiges of pop music; a sense of safety in a love that binds. To some, it may seem like a gripping mania, but for them, it’s a vessel to channel their evolving identities into a person who feels like a saviour in their world.

Obviously, there is no victim of terrorism that is less tragic than any other. However, for many of us, there are certain faces that appear more familiar and feel more personal because we see ourselves in them. In the tear-streaked faces of the teenage girls spilling out of Manchester Arena, I see myself and my friends, just over a decade ago, preparing for a night never to be forgotten. And unfortunately, for these girls, it will be for a different reason entirely that Monday night remains etched in their minds.

The awful memories that resulted, though, have shown no signs of breaking their spirit. Just a day after the Manchester attack, hundreds of Arianators have tweeted out their support for each other and for those lives lost, along with an image of a black ribbon against a pink background, emblazoned with Grande’s signature cat ears. A symbol of solidarity, it’s a defining moment for the power of fangirls in one that sought to rip them apart.

That, to me, is the best we can do with such a situation. I’m not so sure it’s ironic, or if one aspect leads into the other, but it seems very much as though the group whose tastes we’ve been most dismissive of is also the group that might prove most resilient.