#and i'm not handwaving the bad stuff she has done outside of this

[colorisbyshe]

Taylor Swift by far is not the worst celebrity in terms of like... being bad. Her music isn't the worst--it is the definition of radio friendly. Her behaviour, in terms of celebrity bullshit, isn't the worst either (though we really shouldn't understate the ecological harm from her private jet which gets handwaved but is... truly horrific). She isn't particularly unfashionable, she definitely isn't provocative or boundary pushing.

But all of this middle-of-the-roadness is just... the embodiment of capitalism, especially White Girl Boss capitalism, and... more than that, it represents the sanitation that brings to art. The calculation. The risk aversion. And the laundering of any real feeling--that I'm not even sure she's fully capable of--into something somehow less than the sum of its parts.

It's so egregious it feels brain-numbing. It feels like a mockery of the craft. It feels like every board room decision that has excluded marginalized voices in art and every experimental song from the soundwaves embodied in one person. Everything is PR, nothing is organic. Even when she does awful things (like dating a massive racist or using her moment in Time Magazine to bring up years old beef with the fucking Kardashians instead of speaking on the GENOCIDE happening right now), it's a choice to distract from a worse thing or get another burst of attention. She can't even be awful in a way that feels authentic. There isn't a controversy that isn't also a chance to pivot her public image into something New and Fun.

She feels like a vessel for every breaking down of music as an art form happening in our capitalistic world. She's the tiktok algorithm, the pushed paid promotion on every social media feed, the pay-to-win Grammy awards all in one little bundle. She's hollow and business opportunities are what's filled inside her to keep her from floating away into the blandest possible season of the real housewives of ___ anyone has ever seen.

To me, she's a step above AI art in terms of like... human passion.

To me, she feels like the second she experiences a real human emotion, she writes down five different ways she can profit off of that or spin it into a new victim complex (which she profits from).

To me, the rare tolerable-to-good song she has is just... entirely tainted by the brand around it. Her career isn't a musical exploration. It's a brand. Her music is a plain white t shirt with a logo printed dead center, nothing else to offer.

It can't have anything else on it, no statements, no daring, because then the logo, the brand might get obscured.