Dayna Carney

“This will be, in my opinion, the most technically advanced Super Bowl halftime show that’s ever been done because of the amount of tech used to move the platforms,” says Aaron Siebert, the project lead from  Tait Towers , which made the platforms. 

Even so, I was also a teenager, making decisions based on the visibility that our culture teaches us to desire. I knew that my audience wanted to feel authenticity from me. To give that to them, I revealed pieces of myself that I might have been wiser to keep private.

Because that’s what it was like before the Internet. You made your own fun.

Instead, the superstar made her comeback performance (it’s Rihanna’s  first since the 2018 Grammys ) atop seven platforms suspended anywhere from 15 to 60 feet above the field. And while the LED-lit platforms, which were arranged in different positions as the singer moved through hits ranging from “Bitch Better Have My Money” to “Rude Boy,” looked

Black teenage girls are the invisible tastemakers creating and popularizing some of the biggest trends simply by being their authentic selves. It’s the everyday Black girl, without a platform or the machine of capitalism behind her, who exudes cool without having to try.

" Each choice made informed all of the other choices down the road as the design developed. Paula walked me through each step of the process and shared strengths and weaknesses with each choice."