PinkPantheress Fans Only

Everyone’s a main character at PinkPantheress’s show at Le Poisson Rouge in New York. Onstage, the 21-year-old TikTok-famous artist looks down at her fandom in amazement. “You guys all look so good!” she says.

I know I’m in the right place when I see a large crowd of people dressed in what I’m calling “seventh-grade alternative”: black-and-white checkerboard belts slung over low-rise flares, midriff-baring baby tees with maxi skirts, tiny bags with gigantic boots, bucket hats and more than one cosplay wig. They’re here to see the 21-year-old internet-famous artist PinkPantheress, who is making her live New York debut at Le Poisson Rouge. Later, onstage, the artist looks down at her fandom in amazement. “You guys all look so good!” she says.

It’s Friday the 13th, and a miserable one at that, white-gray and opaque with heavy, humid fog. It is apt weather for listening to someone like PinkPantheress, who makes the kind of yearning, melancholy garage music that leaves you wistful for a time and place even if you never experienced them firsthand. (“New nostalgic” is how she describes her work.) The majority of the people in attendance were toddlers in the early 2000s and perhaps not even alive when drum-and-bass took over the U.K., and yet when the warm-up DJ plays Daniel Bedingfield’s classic of the genre “Gotta Get Thru This,” they seem right at home.

The London-based artist shot to fame the same way dozens have before: by uploading snippets of her music to TikTok and letting the algorithm work its magic. Her first flirtation with virality was “Pain,” which blew up on the app in early 2021, followed shortly after by “Break It Off.” By October, she had signed with the record label Parlophone and released her first mixtape, to hell with it. What separates her from the crop of Zoomers building music careers on TikTok: Her fans don’t know her name. (That anonymity is fiercely protected by her team, who are strict with press and denied any interview or photos for this story.) The PinkPantheress moniker came to her when she was watching a game show on which the host asked the question, “What is a female panther called?” The Daily Mail has, of course, published her real name, but to her fans it barely matters: She’s still the most relatable artist they know, someone who writes lyrics filled with a sense of longing and loneliness. “She makes it feel comfortable to be shy,” says Sebastian, one of a group of college students standing by the bar who say they all have crushes on the artist. “She’s shy, and I’m like, Okay, I can be shy, too.” Another kid says she makes him feel like a “main character.”

Citlali, 18, waits in line for the PinkPantheress concert.

From left, Alex O., 19, and Michelle, 19.

Nia Grundy, 20, (far right) takes a selfie in line.

Laila M., 19.

A concertgoer before the show begins.

Photographs by Maridelis Morales Rosado

PinkPantheress onstage at Le Poisson Rouge.

During the show.

Photographs by Maridelis Morales Rosado

Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the May 23, 2022, issue of New York Magazine.