Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Manchild’ Calls Out Every Woman’s Red Flag Ex (Thankfully)

While Sabrina Carpenter’s hit song, “Manchild” pokes at toxic exes and their careless behavior – and we love putting those toxic exes on alert – she also gives a little tough love to herself in the song. It’s not surprising because we’ve gotten a lot of quality dating advice from Carpenter’s songs. She calls herself out on dating patterns that might not be the best. Carpenter sings: “Oh, I like my boys playing hard to get / And I like my men all incompetent / And I swear they choose me, I’m not choosing them.” Carpenter isn’t shy to dish it out to exes, but she also gently calls out her own relationship patterns of choosing the wrong men. 

The music video for “Manchild” stresses this point even more, as Carpenter hitchhikes along a highway, and jumps in and out of beater cars, driven by even less lovely men. She goes from one car to the next, with each vehicle offering some new form of disaster. We love a gal who can give a jab, but who can also identify her own part in dysfunctional relationships. “Okay, I get it: each car is a relationship—chaotic, makes no sense, sometimes full of danger—and jumping out of one car into another is Sabrina jumping into a new, uncertain (but almost predictably wild) relationship,” a fan commented on YouTube. Plus, the video is loaded with fabulous outfit changes, including one Dasiy Duke ensemble that proves that Carpenter is still a fan of retro trends. There’s so much to love here!