As writer Janea Kelly astutely tweeted just after the latest Sia video was released, "if you found ["Elastic Heart"] creepy, consider that you are the agent of sexualization and creepiness." I'd wholeheartedly agree with this, but take it one step further: consider that you are the agent, and then ask why that is. Given how widespread the response has been, it's very unlikely that every individual who commented on their discomfort with the video is uniquely predatory or perverted. Rather, it's that mainstream western media has created a context in which predatoriness and perversion infects everything we see.

Research over recent years has found that exposure to mainstream pop music videos correlates with generally sexist attitudes; in 2009, a study of 195 students found that those exposed to music videos that were judged to have "high" sexual content were also more likely to believe in gender stereotypes and rape myths. In another study in 2012, male college students who watched sexualized music videos were also found to be less likely to feel empathy for date rape victims. The causal relationship here isn't that music videos directly encourage violence against women, but rather that the constant viewing of objectified and hyper-sexualized women contributes to a sexist environment in which violence is sadly a part. It's bleak, but not surprising—and it's also completely rife. Recent studies on the subject have been summarized in a report for British project Rewind Reframe, which highlights academic C. Wallis's conclusion that the overriding narrative of music videos is: "women are sexual objects, ready to be consumed by men." When this is the norm of music videos, then of course we'll feel uncomfortable when we see a child enter that dynamic.

But look again—when was the last time you saw a mainstream music video that depicted a girl going shopping and hanging with her best friends with zero sexual messages and no concern for boys? Sophia Grace did it. When was the last time you saw a mainstream music video that depicted the inner strength of a woman through the medium of a 12-year-old girl with enough talent and power to battle a grown man? Maddie Ziegler did it. The presence of both these girls in our pop cultural bubble is refreshingly uncynical. If you're feeling icky about liking "Best Friends" or "Elastic Heart," try redirecting your ickiness towards the videos that set us up to automatically objectify female bodies. Yes, looking at you, "Blurred Lines" and "Animals," but also the more benign-seeming examples currently riding the charts, like "Uptown Funk"—which shows several pairs of female legs but no female faces—and "Thinking Out Loud," where a fully suited Ed Sheeran dances with a lady in lingerie. Look at the world we've built around them: if anything about Sophia or Maddie's appearance on our pop cultural landscape is unsettling, we need to accept that that's our bad.