Mean Girl Moment 2/8

The Taylor Swift Likability Index has shifted PART 2 (Let Me Explain)

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The thing I predicted happened. I’m not surprised that it happened or that I’m right but I’m shocked by the way it’s happening. I thought in the backlash we might get thoughtful critique. Surely someone who has been biting their tongue has come to terms with their thoughts on Taylor Swift’s place in culture and has something interesting to say. Not the case!

Our collective Twitter brain rot is now terminal. We can now only think and discuss things in black and white. People who I consider smart cultural commentators are refusing the engage or making the same comments we’ve been seeing since 2015. There are incredibly smart people using a lot of words to say the same thing that dads and younger brothers have been shouting at the TV for years. I understand hating her from several perspectives but what I would like to see from the haters/cultural critics is a rebuttal, a response to other arguments, an engagement with the text. It doesn’t feel like we’re having an argument about her place in culture but we’re two groups of people talking past each other. It does not feel worth it to engage in conversation with people who hate her, because they don’t want to argue. Their opinion is just as manufactured and scripted as the people who love her.

That’s all this comes down to for me, which camp is more interesting to engage with. No one who dismisses her is coming up with anything that even touches what Swifites with half a crumb of information are doing. I love thoughtful, sharp, cutting criticism and I’ve yet to see any that impressed me. That’s probably because I used to be a hater and I defected. I know all their tricks and I’m not impressed by any of their arguments. The best criticism of Taylor Swift, and of anything, is willing to give concessions. Current haters of hers refuse to give even an inch and end up writing bad criticism as a result. All their camp has to offer is bad criticism while Swifties have 10,000 batshit crazy funny posts to read all day, where the more you know about Taylor the funnier they are.

What I present now are my reasons for liking and continuing to engage with Taylor Swift in the year 2024. I feel I have to explain myself in order for people to understand that I am not just another Swiftie willing to fall on my sword for the most famous woman in the world. She is not the only music I listen to and she is by no means my favorite musician. I am heavily invested in her career.

I know there are several others like me but this is also a unique place in culture to hold. Swifties will turn on you if you acknowledge the negative in any way and normal people see you as another Swiftie. The conversational well around Taylor Swift has been poisoned so there’s no way to convey how I feel. She’s too easy to write off and too easy to love that falling in between seems impossible to other groups. It feels as if I am stuck between evangelical fanaticism and die-hard atheism. I have chosen to take a more studied devotion to this figure. I need all the information I can get and I would love to argue about the philosophy and the ongoing stories rather than worship as the altar. Taylor Swift as a practice rather than Taylor Swift as a belief.

It is interesting to me to watch and analyze the persona and next moves of the most famous person in the world. How do you manage that? How do you maintain that? What kind of music do you make next? What do you say when everyone wants to agree with you? What are you able to communicate and what parts of your real personality shine through when you are making music for the masses? All of that is interesting to watch. I am a fan of Taylor the celebrity the way I am a fan of a TV show. I want to see how the story of her career unfolds. Plus I like some of the songs and I think it’s funny to pretend she’s a closeted lesbian and analyze lyrics with the context.

It’s not that Taylor Swift is necessarily a cipher of mystery. Still, it is fun to watch what facets of her personality are allowed to shine through in a persona designed to be marketed to everyone. Once you start making a persona rather than one-off songs designed to be hits, it becomes a lot more risky and a lot more fun for the audience. Her career is fun because we all know it can’t last forever. We can’t love her forever like we didn’t love the Beatles, Elvis, Barbra Streisand, Madonna, and Brittney forever. The position she holds in culture is interesting because she’s one of a handful to hold it. It’s a car accident and I can’t look away. To be deterred someone needs to tell me why I should look away and I need a reason other than “it’s a car accident”.