On behalf of millennials in all places, I hereby declare Aug. 25 a nationwide vacation. Each Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez are releasing new music that day, and watching the Disney Channel alums enter new eras on the identical time is price commemorating. The pop stars serendipitously introduced their singles on Aug. 17 inside mere hours of 1 different: Gomez’s “Single Soon” will tide followers over earlier than she ultimately drops her fourth studio album, whereas Cyrus’s “Used to Be Young” shall be accompanied by one other Yard Periods particular and an in-depth interview about her profession and life.

Fairly than pitting them towards each other, many followers, myself included, are selecting to root for each singers and replicate on all that led them thus far. Cyrus and Gomez got here up within the golden age of Disney Channel — a time when “sweet niblets” was on a regular basis slang and The Tipton was way more covetable than any Ritz-Carlton lodge. Their main roles on “Hannah Montana” and “Wizards of Waverly Place” secured their standing as bona fide Disney Channel darlings within the 2000s.

Within the years that adopted, each former youngster stars skilled their fair proportion of setbacks. Cyrus was ridiculed for her shows of sexuality. She handled melancholy, misplaced her Malibu house in a hearth, and divorced Liam Hemsworth after an off-and-off relationship spanning 10 years. Gomez endured a public battle with lupus and underwent a kidney transplant; struggled with bipolar dysfunction, nervousness, melancholy, and psychosis; and can not seem to escape fodder about her earlier relationship with Justin Bieber.

With the world anticipating them to fail, it could’ve been comprehensible for the celebs to step away from the highlight fully, however they cast on.

As somebody who seemed as much as Miley Stewart and Alex Russo for a lot of her adolescence, seeing them crush it heals my inside youngster.

Now of their 30s, Cyrus and Gomez aren’t simply surviving after going by way of the wringer; they’re thriving. Cyrus’s “Endless Summer Vacation” album was a rousing success, with “Flowers” changing into the quickest tune to achieve a billion streams in Spotify historical past. In the meantime, Gomez’s Uncommon Magnificence is booming, and “Only Murders in the Building” is airing its third season after receiving quite a few Emmy nominations. As somebody who seemed as much as Miley Stewart and Alex Russo for a lot of her adolescence, seeing them crush it heals my inside youngster.

I would be remiss to not point out the opposite Disney Channel alums who’re additionally on the prime of their recreation this 12 months. Demi Lovato, who completes the so-called Disney Trinity alongside Cyrus and Gomez, will quickly launch her album “Revamped,” that includes rerecorded rock variations of their largest hits. The Jonas Brothers dropped “The Album” in Might and simply launched into a brand new tour throughout North America. And Dove Cameron is near releasing her debut solo album.

That is to not say that everybody has been as fortunate. For all these success tales, there are extra who had been burned by youngster stardom and nonetheless grapple with the consequences of rising up beneath a microscope. In a manner, that makes it all of the extra exceptional to see Cyrus and Gomez nonetheless hitting peaks of their careers to at the present time.

Come Aug. 25, I am curious to see if Cyrus and Gomez acknowledge their simultaneous music releases. (If I had been on their PR groups, I would recommend they play into the social media chatter by referencing their onscreen feud as Hannah Montana and Mikayla Skeech.) A part of me can not help however surprise if the date choice wasn’t a coincidence in any case and hints at a future collaboration between the 2. If there’s something Disney Channel taught me as a child, it is to dream huge.