Last month I went to an Ariana Grande concert in Charlottesville with three of my friends. The first thing that I noticed when entering the concert was that my group of friends was on the older side compared to the rest of the concert attendees. I kind of expected that before going to the concert but when I got there I was surprised by how many groups of young girls were there dressed like Ariana Grande, wearing oversized sweatshirts and long fake ponytails. I like Ariana Grande but had never considered the kind of influence she has on young, impressionable girls. With kids now having so much access to social media, they can look at pictures of Ariana Grande everyday and become very obsessed with her look and try to copy it. When I was younger, I was not as exposed to singers or actresses that I liked so I never really looked at them as people that I wanted to be. Now girls can see photos of their role models everyday and can become very influenced by how they look and want to copy their physical appearance in real life.
Another difference I noticed with the younger crowd was how many of them recorded practically the entire concert. My group of friends was flanked by two groups of early middle schooled-aged girls, all of whom had their phones in front of their faces for the whole concert and basically watched the concert through their camera. It was unfortunate watching these kids waste an experience because they were too busy focusing on recording it for whatever reason.