Buy the Rings

7 Rings is one of those songs that’s everywhere and I can’t resent it. The production is candy-bright, Ariana running through what’s basically a shopping list with her friends, the whole philosophy built on: money solves problems. Or at least buys enough stuff that you stop noticing the problems for a while.

By that point she’d been through things that end people. Pete Davidson and the tabloid circus that turned the breakup into spectacle. Mac Miller dying. The Manchester bombing during her concert in 2017—that was the kind of moment that kills careers, kills people. She’d already put in years by then, since she was a kid on Nickelodeon, that hyperactive character on Sam & Cat with Jennette McCurdy. The slow climb toward actually mattering as an artist. Then the world tried to destroy it while she was still building.

7 Rings is her response: I’m going to buy myself something nice. My friends too. Diamond rings. The song isn’t sad about any of it—not profound, not making some statement about survival. It’s just happiness that’s bubblegum-bright and purchasable, and she’s moving on.

I respect that more than I can say. Not the survival narrative—those are exhausting, everyone’s got one. But the refusal to let it be the biggest thing about you. Just buy the rings. Move on.