#taylor swift critical

[reznors]

genuinely if i have to hear any more about miss private jet ozone layer burning nazi dating high schooler stalking swift i will

[helpimstuckinafandom]

I'M FUCKING CRYING LMAOOO

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

the issue with ttpd personally is that I love some of the songs but sadly I've been force-fed her personal life so much, these details keep coming and leaves a bad taste in my mouth

You can't say "1830s without the racist" after writing an album about matty healy

"So high school" is a cute love song, but it's about our xenophobic racist king tk

"I can fix him" and "daddy I love him" have some elements I like but it's about mh and her getting offended she's being held responsible for her problematic actions

"guilty as sin?" is one of my favs, but it reads very different when you know (unfortunately) the context

"so long, london" is amazing, but just like "renegade" she blames joe alwyn for having mental health issues, but also out them to the world which is the worst part of it all

wishing I didn't know the context, but it is practically impossible to engage in any taylor swift space without knowing

[khruschevshoe]

You know, it's rather interesting to me that Taylor Swift's parasocial relationship with her fans is honestly more akin to a YouTuber than a writer's. When I scroll through her tag on tumblr/Twitter, it's far more regarding the connection to her personal life/relationship developments than the actual metaphors/fictional story she might be telling. Everything comes back to how her songs reflect back on her relationships with Joe/Matty/Travis/Jake/insert ex-boyfriend here. And what fascinates me about it is that even though she complains about it, she leans into that very perception because it strengthens the parasocial bond.

The marketing for TTPD so clearly being about Joe Alwyn and the songs to Matty Healy. The marketing/video for Red TV so CLEARLY being about Jake Gyllenhaal, with so many of the new lines in All Too Well specifically being digs at him (I'll get older but your lovers stay my age, casting an actor that looks like him for the video, specific lines in I Bet You Think About Me). The fact that songs like Getaway Car and Bejeweled and Gorgeous and London Boy and Lavender Haze being picked apart at time of release and long after for signs of relationships crumbling. The way she uses surprise songs in relation to her relationship development with Joe/Matty/Travis. The damn TTPD "stages of grief" playlists where she deliberately undid/changed the meanings of old songs just to keep her audience speculating on her love life.

It's not sexist to point out that her wielding her love life is a marketing tool and that the strongest connection to her audience isn't the strength of her writing/the composition of her music- it's her deliberate crafting of a connection between her music and her personal life, leaving the audience invested in her music as an extension of Taylor the Person/Girlfriend rather than Taylor the Artist.

[mama-imperator]

I just discovered a video on Tiktok about a woman who's planning on divorcing her husband because he booed at Taylor Swift during the Super Bowl. Taylor, being at the Super Bowl to support Travis, isn't the issue as she's simply being a supportive girlfriend. But wanting to divorce your husband because you've developed a parasocial relationship to someone who doesn't know you exist is so stupid. It's one thing if the woman wanted to divorce her husband because he voted for Trump and supports people like Elon Musk (which is valid for many reasons). But you want to divorce your husband because he doesn't like Taylor Swift. Clearly, this woman needs therapy because she's willing to end her marriage due to her weird ass obsession with Taylor Swift. Not liking Taylor Swift is not worth divorcing your partner over. Swifties need to get a grip

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Taylor Swift is a Female Rage icon? Get a Grip.

I’ve just received word that Taylor Swift is calling her show “Female Rage: The Musical.” Here is my very much pissed off response to that nonsense:  

The phrase, Female Rage has an intimately rich history:  

Some of the first accounts of female rage dates to the Italian renaissance. To be clear, women in those days were not allowed to become painters- the arts were seen as the domain of men. They did not believe that women have rich inner lives capable of delivering the type of artistic innovation with which renaissance men were obsessed.  

However, rebels abounded, through the might of their fucking rage. Several women created some of the most compellingly emotional paintings I’ve ever fucking seen. They did it without permission, without financial support, and often under the threat of punishment. They did it as a protest. In paintings like “Timoclea Killing Her Rapist” by Elisabetta Sirani (1659), and another by Artemisia Gentileschi “Slaying of Holofernes” (1612) as it depicts the bravery of Judith as she slayed a traveling warlord out to rape Judith and enslave her city. The painting often is referred to as a way Artemisia was envisioning herself as slaying her rapist. These paintings were used against these women as proof that they were unfeminine- and far too angry.  Both these women suffered immensely for their audacity to call attention to the violation men perpetrated on them. Female Rage bleeds off these paintings- bleeds right through to the bone-deep acknowledgement of the injustice women faced being barred from the arts and having their humanity violated in such a sick way. Both women were hated- and considered far too angry.

In philosophy, also as early as the 15th century, an example of female rage is a philosophical text, often hailed as one of the first feminists works in the western world, written by Christine de Pizan titled The City of Ladies (1405). She wrote in protest on the state of women- writing that “men who have slandered the opposite sex out of envy have usually know women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are” (“The City of Ladies”). People mocked her all her life- but she stood fast to her convictions. She was widowed at a young age with children to feed and the men wouldn’t let women have jobs! She wrote this book and sold it so that she could feed her family- and to protest the treatment of women as lesser than men. Her work was called aggressive and unkempt- they said she was far too angry. 

In the 18th century, a young Mary Wollstonecraft wrote, A Vindication of the Right of Women ( 1792) upon learning that the civil rights won in the French Revolution did not extend to women! She wrote in protest of the unjust ways other philosophers (like Rousseau) spoke about the state of women- as if they were lesser. She wrote to advocate for women’s right to education, which they did not yet have the right to! She wrote to advocate for the advancement of women’s ability to have their own property and their own lives! The reception of this text, by the general public, lead to a campaign against Wollstonecraft- calling her “aggressive” and far too angry.  

Moving into modernity, the 1960’s, and into literary examples, Maya Angelou publishes I know why the caged Bird Sings (1969) in which she discusses the fraught youth of a girl unprotected in the world. It beautifully, and heart-wrenchingly, described growing up in the American South during the 1930’s as it subjected her to the intersection of racism and sexism. The story is an autobiographical account of her own childhood, which explains how patriarchal social standards nearly destroyed her life. Upon the reception of her book, men mostly called it “overly emotional” and far too angry. Maya Angelou persisted. She did not back down from the honesty with which she shared her life- the raw, painful truth. With Literature, she regained a voice in the world.  

Interwoven into each of the examples I have pulled out here, is the underlying rage of women who want to be seen as human beings, with souls, dreams and hopes, yet are not seen as full members of society at the behest of men. They take all that rage, building up in their souls, and shift it to create something beautiful: positive change. Each of these cases, I have outlined above, made remarkable strides for the women as a whole- we still feel the impact of their work today. They were so god-damn passionate, so full of righteous anger, it burst out into heart-stopping, culture-shifting art. Feminine rage is therefore grounded in experiences of injustice and abuse- yet marked too by its ability to advocate for women's rights. It cannot be historically transmogrified away from these issues- though Taylor Swift is doing her best to assert female rage as pitifully dull, full of self-deprecation, and sadness over simply being single or losing money. She trivializes the seriousness with which women have pled their cases of real, painful injustice and suffering to the masses time and time again. The examples above deal with subjects of rape, governmental tyranny, and issues of patriarchally inspired social conditioning to accept women as less human than men. It is a deadly serious topic, one in which women have raised their goddamn voices for centuries to decry- and say instead, “I am human, I matter, and men have no right to violate my mind, body, or soul.”  

The depictions of female rage over the last few centuries, crossing through many cultures, is an array of outright anger, fearsome rage, and into utter despair. The one unyielding, solid underpinning, however, is that the texts are depicting the complete agency of the women in question. The one uniting aspect of female rage is that it must be a reaction to injustice; instead of how male depictions of female rage function, (think Ophelia), the women are the agents of their art with female made- female rage. They push forth the meaning through their own will- not as subjects of male desires or abuses, but as their own selves. That is what makes the phrase so empowering. They are showing their souls as a form of protest to the men who treat women like we have no soul to speak of.  

Taylor Swift’s so-called female rage is a farce in comparison. Let’s look at an example: “Mad Woman” (2020). I pull this example, and not something from her TTPD set, because this is one of the earliest examples of her using the phrase female rage to describe her dumb music. (Taylor Swift talking about "mad woman" | folklore : the long pond studio sessions (youtube.com)  

The lyrics from “Mad Woman” read “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/... And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry”  

How exactly is agreeing with someone that you are “crazy” a type of female rage in which she’s protesting the patriarchy. The patriarchy has a long history of calling women “insane” if they do not behave according to the will of men. So, how is her agreeing with the people calling her crazy- at all subversive in the way that artworks, typically associated with concept of female rage, are subversive. What is she protesting? NOTHING.  

Then later, she agrees, again, that she's “angry.” The issue I draw here is that she’s not actually explicating anything within the music itself that she’s angry about- she just keeps saying she's angry over and over, thus the line falls flat. The only thing this anger connects to is the idea of someone calling her angry- which then makes her agree that she is... angry. So, despite it being convoluted, it’s also just not actually making any kind of identifiable point about society or the patriarchy- so again, I beg, what on Earth makes this count as Female Rage?  

In essence, she is doing the opposite of what the examples above showcase. In letting an outside, presumably male, figure tell Taylor Swift what she is feeling, and her explicit acceptance of feeling “crazy” and “angry,” she is ultimately corroborating the patriarchy not protesting it. Her center of agency comes from assignment of feelings outside of herself and her intrinsic agreement with that assignment; whereas female rage is truly contingent on the internal state, required as within our own selves, of female agency. As I stated above, the women making female rage art must have an explicit agency throughout the work. Taylor Swift’s song simply does not measure up to this standard.  

Her finishing remarks corroborates the fact that she's agreeing with this patriarchal standard of a "mad" or crazy woman:

"No one likes a mad woman/ You made her like that"

Again, this line outsources agency through saying "you made her like that" thus removing any possibility of this song being legitimate female rage. There is simply no agency assigned to the woman in the song- nor does the song ever explicitly comment on a social issue or protestation of some grievous injury to women's personhood.

She honestly not even being clever- she's just rhyming the word “crazy” with “crazy.” Then later rhyming “angry” with “angry.” Groundbreaking stuff here.  

Perhaps Taylor Swift is angry, in “Mad Woman,” but it is not the same type of rage established in the philosophical concept of female rage of which art historians, philosophers, and literary critics speak. Instead, it is the rage of a businesswoman that got a bad deal- but it is not Female Rage as scholars would identify it. In “Mad Woman” I fear her anger is shallow, and only centered on material loss- through damaging business deals or bad business partners. She is not, however, discussing what someone like Christine de Pizan was discussing by making a case for the concept that woman also have souls like men do. In her book, she had to argue that women have souls, because men were unconvinced of that. Do you see the difference? I am saying that Swift’s concerns are purely monetary and material, whereas true examples of female rage center on injustice done against their personhood- as affront to human rights. Clearly, both things can make someone mad- but I’d argue the violation of human rights is more serious- thus more deserving of the title “Female Rage.”  

Simply put, Taylor Swift is not talking about anything serious, or specific, enough to launch her into the halls of fame for "Female Rage" art. She's mad, sure, but she's mad the way a CEO gets mad about losing a million dollars. She's not mad about women's position in society- or even just in the music industry.

She does this a lot. The album of “Reputation” was described as female rage. Songs in “Folklore” were described as female rage. Now, she’s using the term to describe TTPD, which is the most self-centered, ego-driven music I’ve heard in a long time.

Comparing the injustice, and complete subjugation, of women’s lives- to being dumped by a man or getting a bad deal- wherein she is still one of the most powerful women of the planet- is not only laughable, but offensive. 

[art-making-grat]

how is taylor swift going to have that whole thing with joe and how she couldn’t deal with the fact he had mental health issues so she cheated on him and has basically done everything she can to make his life worse since breaking up with him (her fan base also going after him) but then go and romanticize asylums and mental illness and stuff like that with her new depressed poet persona. like am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that she would act like she’s struggling with her mental health while also making songs outing joes struggles with depression and how he should have gotten over it so they could marry

[princessofanimationblr]

I’m starting to think some of the lyrics to “Lavender Haze” is also a jab at Swifties, especially nowadays when those fans are so desperate to see Taylor Swift marry Travis Kelce.

Am I the only Taylor Swift fan who dislikes Kelce? I know for a fact that once Swift and Kelce break up, Swifties are going to bash Kelce way harder than they did with any of Swift’s exes.

[queerbauten]

somehow, I didn't have "Taylor Swift romanticizes electroshock therapy" on my 2024 bingo sheet, but here we are

[heyftinally]

DO NOT DO THIS

I swear to fuck, swifites will happily plunge us into a fascist dictatorship because they're incapable of thinking about LITERALLY ANYTHING except Taylor fucking Swift, the rapist bigot lover.

YOU ARE GOING TO GET PEOPLE KILLED DOING THIS. I'm dead fucking serious - if trump wins, people will die. And every single fucker who wrote in this blonde billionaire bitch is getting added to my "personally fucking responsible" list, because you can't shut the fuck up about Taylor Swift long enough to be serious about something that has a GLOBAL FUCKING IMPACT.

Yes, I'm pissed. I'm not sorry. Fucking shut the fuck up about this over hyped piece of shit talentless bitch and live in reality for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES.

@shitswiftiessay I need you to see this, this might be one of your best examples yet. Holy fucking hell.

[thebellekeys]

I think America's obsession with high school is so fascinating. Like, it’s very interesting that high school is way more romanticized and valued than college, for example.

Like, okay, every culture and society has romanticized youth and all the things that come with it. We’ve always romanticized coming of age and adolescence, so that's nothing new. But I think with America, it's explicitly tied to the High School Experience. Part of why people from all over the world know words like sophomore and prom and pep rally. People have this hyper-specific idea of what high school is supposed to be like. And I mean, yeah, obviously, Disney and Nickelodeon played a great part in that.

But it’s also just like… We see the high school obsession persisting so hard that in the big year of 2024, we have a 34-year-old Taylor Swift singing about being “so high school.” High school angst created Olivia Rodrigo’s mainstream career in 2021. Euphoria, an MA-rated show about heroin and tits, is set in fucking high school for absolutely no good reason.

Like, so much of American pop culture revolves around the high school mythology. You know, from Mean Girls to Clueless to... Carrie. To dreaming of marrying your high school sweetheart. But realistically, a college-aged kid who’s 19 and a high schooler who’s 18 are not that different. One is in high school and the other is in college, and that’s really the main difference.

High school (as an Experience) is definitely a massive thing for Americans, and seemingly more so than in other Western countries? Maybe because most Americans can hardly afford college, lol, so there's that.

[reznors]

my favorite genre of post is when someone even vaguely makes fun of taylor swift’s r/im14andthisisdeep lyricism and there’s an immediate locust swarm of swifties in the comments going “clearly you never listened to the last piss drops of spring or ACRONYM OF A PHRASE just say you have no media literacy and go” and when you go to listen to the last piss drops of spring it’s yet another H&M melody with lyrics as deep as a teaspoon of dishwater and when you aren’t magically swayed into worshipping the ozone-burning billionaire teenager/nazi dater they just double down on how illiterate you are. it’s like the “but he made graduation” of swifties. lol

[thorsfavlesbian]

i think it’s really funny that swifties act like taylor swift has like the hardest life and has gone through the greatest struggles known to humankind as if she isn’t a white, cishet, neurotypical, able-bodied billionaire who grew up fortunate and has specifically said before that her mental health has never been bad enough to the point where she needed therapy.

edit: i am aware of her past struggles with an ed. i am currently struggling with an ed and have been for years. i am not any less privileged as a white person just because i have a difficult relationship with food. and neither is she. the ONLY way she could ever experience hardships when it comes to who she is is through her being a woman. which isn’t a special thing. there are literally billions of women around the world. taylor is a BILLIONAIRE who could buy her own island to go cry on if she’s upset over a sexist joke. meanwhile, there are women out there who would do anything to have even a sliver of the privilege that taylor swift has. being a BILLIONAIRE trumps nearly EVERYTHING. you all need to understand that. billionaires are THE most privileged people in the entire world because they could get anything and everything they want. that trumps sexism, that trumps an ed, and this is coming from someone who experiences both.

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

Stop. Stop defending taylor swift for things she did. Stop defending her for associating herself with a racist, sexist, antisemitic piece of shit, and CONTINUING to surround herself with people like that. Stop trying to make excuses and put down the feelings of poc fans during that time. Stop blaming people for holding her accountable to the words SHE said.

If you sit at a table with 10 racists, there are 11 racists at that table.

[declanisms]

oh what the hell do you mean she copied olivia rodrigo for one of her songs and to like a super obvious extent. if olivia sues I better not hear swifties complaining bc what you all did to her for cruel summer/deja vu was diabolical and olivia would have every right

[natgoodmans]

“In light of everything that’s happened in the past three months alone, here’s some incredibly valid reasons to be pissed off at Taylor Swift, or simply not like her — as someone who loved her, and loved her music. First and foremost, Taylor Swift is personally burning a hole through the ozone with the amount of CO2 she uses. That’s not even the main point of this video; but this is a graph from 2022 of how much CO2 she produced of her 170 private jet flights, versus the average person. She has spent 70 grand on jet fuel alone. Taylor Swift, alone has used 170 tons of CO2 in the past 3 months. The average person only burns like, 16 tons. That’s not even the main part of this video. The main point of the video is the fact that she has not spoken up about Palestine. And the reason that is so fundamentally frustrating is that Taylor Swift has influence. Quote Brittany Broski, when she also didn’t speak up about Palestine — “if you have a platform, and you have people listening, you have to use it.” It’s criminal to not use it, and Taylor Swift uses it. This is from September 2023. Record-breaking registration numbers from one Instagram post. Literally stating, saying “I’ve been so lucky to see so many of you guys at my US shows recently. I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” They had a 72(%) increase in 18-year-old registrations. When it comes to Palestine, she’s completely silent. And now that it’s somewhat more socially acceptable to attend Pro-Palestine events, she’s been quietly going with Selena Gomez, but I for one, think that your Instagram is perhaps the best asset you have. If not, money. And I’m sure in a couple months, we’ll learn about how Taylor Swift was quietly setting up foundations for pro-Palestine, and that she was always for the cause and she’s always supported them, but all it takes is one fucking Instagram post. Especially when Israel Palestine is fundamentally a war of narratives. It’s whose story do you believe, despite the mounting evidence that proves that Israel has continuously been doing ethnic cleansing and genocide. They are still maintaining this narrative that they are not doing that. And all Taylor Swift has to do is say “hey, 22 thousand deaths in 3 months? The most in any modern war? This doesn’t seem right.” I don’t even want her to be that leftist or radical, but literally just to ask the question to her largely American audience, when US has bypassed Congress twice to sell millions in arms aid to Israel.  Just for her to be like “Should that many kids be dying, perhaps?” The bar is on the floor, but she still refuses to do it. And the reason why Taylor Swift in particular, not because of the influence that she has and not because of the platform that she has, but why her in particular, is because the IDF continues to use her songs. I know it was a public trend, but the fact that so many occupation forces felt comfortable and confident  to make like, dance edits to Taylor Swift’s music. I think it’s so important how an artist’s music is used because when the republicans wanted to use Eminem’s 8 mile track, he was like “absolutely fucking not, I do not give you consent to do that, and I do not associate with your politics. Don’t do that.” I feel like she should know that her music is being used as the anthem of the occupation forces as they go and bomb civilians. Her, and other artists like her, like Beyonce, who showed her film in Israel, and they’re all like dancing and singing, and saying “you’re not going to break my soul”, whilst they continue to bomb the shit out of civilians have said nothing. And I hope, as I’ve demonstrated in the video, for the people who are going to be like “What’s Taylor swift going to do? She’s not a politician.” Be serious. Be serious. She has a fucking chokehold on at least a billion people. She could’ve said and done way more than what she’s done, and also the CO2 levels." (from: this tiktok*)

* i tried to transcribe the tiktok since tiktok wasn't showing the captions for me but if i misheard anything please let me know!