We are entering the 72 hour mark of Red (Taylor’s Version). By now most people have been exposed to a lot of women crying, Jake Gyllenhaal hate, and of course, numerology based theories. The best and worst part of Taylor Swift is that she inspires theories. It is not enough for her to be a pop star, she has to be some kind of secret genius in ten thousand different ways. This used to manifest in extremely detailed tumblr posts with the title EVIDENCE but now we have TikTok, where people can give us anything from a quick burst of a half formed theory to a three minute explainer with pictures and quotes compiled from years of research.
SwiftTok, as it is known, is usually pretty contained to one side of the internet but right now it’s all the algorithm can give me. Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with her music is being inundated with walls of text about her skill as a songwriter and who exactly certain songs are about. We’re given timelines that are then deconstructed. Her word choices are analyzed with a shocking close reading. All of this analysis in unending and impossible to escape from. They constantly contradict themselves and facts are omitted or changed to better fit the narrative but the one thing all of it has in common: It’s positive.
Now Taylor is talented and interesting but even she cannot support the weight of all her fans trying to crack the Taylor case, whatever they decide it might be. SwiftTok is a fight for content. All the Swiftties have started making their videos right as the album became available to them. Waiting even an hour means a content creator is behind. Each swiftie is fighting for an original thought to go viral with that the others haven’t come up with yet. This leaves us, the unsuspecting audience, to be inundated with facts and analysis we don’t really want. The longer this goes on the more we are exposed to half baked theories which don’t stand up to inspection but help to bolster the image of Taylor as a perpetually heartbroken genius.
Taylor Swift is one of our most sensitive artists. Both because she is attuned to her own and others emotions and because she is easily affected by negative comments and criticism. This has led to a difficult relationship with the press and culture at large. She was unfairly maligned in the early days and now all negative commentary is treated like an attack, which it's not. Her fans are protective of her in a way they are not of other artists. She is not to be lightly mocked or even critically understood, she is to be praised above all else.
I believe that this what happens when energy that would normally go into being critical or discussing your favorite artist in frank terms must be diverted. They can’t be mean so they have to spend crafting big brain theories about all the ways she moves through the world. We have to create elaborate theories about her because we can’t just say “Taylor that looks stupid.” If a fan were to say this they would not be able to exist on the internet for at least a few days without being harassed and called a misogynist.
This echo chamber around her leads to certain beliefs that are not representative of the real world, my least favorite of which being that if you don’t like Taylor swift, you’re a misogynist. Now sure, people have hated her for unfair reasons and she draws a lot of ire from many people for kind of no reason but she is one of the most famous women in the world. She is representative of popular culture. She is by no means an underground or underappreciated artist. As I’ve said before we cannot use the pop culture one consumes as a litmus test for their morals. It seems bizarre to me that the most recent iteration of feminism is buying into hyper femininity whole hog and casting out anyone who deviates from that norm as pick me and therefore bad for women as a whole. We find new ways every generation to make women buy into the idea that they have to wear make up and drink wine and participate in traditionally feminine activities, and paint that as a new interesting choice rather than what is expected of us and has been for generations. No one seems to understand that it's actually good to not buy into everything the culture sells you, especially when you’re a woman.
Leaving that out, let’s say the swifties are correct and that to not listen to Taylor Swift is misogynist, how should one go about that? It’s not exactly a welcoming community. Fandom is a rabbit hole of competition especially when it comes to Taylor Swift. So once you start you’re not allowed to stop or you have to keep your thoughts to yourself. My somewhat negative takes are not allowed on Swfitok. This turns me and others off from participating in the world of Taylor Swift, which is not allowed and antifeminist. The only acceptable level of participation is buying in fully and never admitting any criticism. Anything else is misogyny of the highest order.
This is not to say that I don’t enjoy and participate in the world of Taylor Swift craziness. I think it’s fun to talk about her as a cultural figure. Her place in the world fascinates me and she is undeniably talented. I love conspiracy theories and trying to delve deep into her psyche based on her public persona. However I know that the way I talk about her with my friends is not the way other people talk about her publicly. Other swifties are less accepting of her faults and it is therefore less fun to talk about all the ways she is calculating and, for lack of a better word, crazy. The flattening of her sometimes sharp edges to make her perfect, makes her less interesting. To me, she is not fascinating without her bad parts.
The idol worship she receives from her fans and her general persona leads to a cycle that every celebrity must participate in but with Taylor we feel it more. I can feel the public turning on her because she’s been in the public eye too long. I cannot say why she specifically becomes so grating to everyone. The fandom, something fully out of her control at this point, obviously contributes. There’s also the rate at which she pumps out content when she is in the public eye, which try as I might cannot be avoided. There’s also the fact of the matter that she’s just intrinsically annoying, as anyone in her position would be. She’s just the kind of person we need a break from occasionally. Her breaks are dependent on how much exposure she gets at the time and how much vitriol she generates. I think we’re in for a long break, which while good for her and her tolerability later is bad for swifties and SwiftTok as a whole. Their view of her becomes more and more warped as it is based on collective memory. How it felt and how it was become more and more separated as time goes on without word from her. The fiction becomes further separated from fact. The longer this goes on on a larger scale we will have fully lost the thread. Hopefully the upcoming silence brings some people to their senses and gives them some distance from her. It has in the past but you never know the new ways the internet has ruined our brains.