When I was a child, I would sometimes lie in bed imagining what superhero powers I wished to possess. A cloak of invisibility? The ability to fly? The strength to lift cars? These seemed the most attractive options for a kid in 1970s Britain who adored sci-fi, Superman and Doctor Who.
No longer. Last weekend I went out to a shopping mall in a far-flung corner of suburban New Jersey, to accompany my tween daughter and friend to a “concert” of five wildly popular female YouTube stars named MyLifeAsEva, Meredith Foster, Alisha Marie, Mia Stammer and Sierra Furtado (no, I hadn’t heard of them before either).
Halfway through this event, over the cacophony of screaming tweens, one of the stars posed the question that I used to ask: “What superhero power would you like?”