#if you are a parasocially over the top fan who feels you own what Taylor does and doesn't do

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I don’t think JA is evil or anything but it is odd to me that even ignoring the cheating lines in the peripheral of the album, everyone’s reaction to “he didn’t want to marry her and kept her in quiet stasis for years” is “ oh he’s not bad”.

Not even from a talking about celebrities perspective. The numerous references to wanting children and lost youth on the album just hits so badly in your 30s. And it’s odd to me that wasting someone’s time to that extent while resenting their success is looked at as being a good guy. It just seems like trivializing an issue women have

Anon, I don’t mean this directed at you specifically, just a blanket reminder for myself that I don’t really care to discuss these men generally because I don’t think they’re worth the time or space and frankly, I don’t know enough about them or care to to devote space to them on my little fan blog.

That being said, I think the reason my take on it is more… subdued is because, well, unfortunately I think the situation inferred from Taylor’s music is so, so common. I have several friends (two in particular I can think of) who went through situations so eerily similar to the one Taylor and Joe presumably went through. Which is not so much to say that I’m being parasocial, but more that all breakups are the same to quote @taylortruther. It’s not to condone the men’s behaviour, but more to say that even amongst “dull normals,” most of us have firsthand or at least secondhand experience in it and have had to navigate the same conflicts.

I have no opinion on whether Joe is good or bad because I don’t know anything about him beyond Taylor’s music and I have zero interest to learn anything further. I have my own guesses as to what went down, which are probably similar to what most people around here are assuming, and it’s again so painfully pedestrian, especially for people in their 30s. Which is obviously so painful as a woman of childbearing age who is hoping to have those things.

I do agree that there is a lot of trivializing of these issues for women in general, and especially for Taylor in general in TTPD. Not to be all “I/we understand Taylor better” about it all, but there’s soooooooo much in TTPD that I think *a lot* of people are not picking up, which is why i say over and over again that it really is the thirtysomething album. (Which is not to be ageist lol, it’s more a state of mind.) Like, while I am not someone who foresees having children or even getting married myself, most of my close friends are and have, and so much of what Taylor sings about literally and subtextually is so painfully obvious to me and palpable that I’ve been shocked at how it’s been glossed over. (Maybe you don’t fully understand it until you’re sitting on your friend’s bathroom floor consoling her as her entire life crumbles before her eyes? Or is that just me?) But, many of us here on tumblr dot com have picked up what she’s put down.

I think it comes down to: even with “good” guys (and particularly with those who aren’t), the whole family thing does *not* mean the same thing to them, because the time constraints just don’t apply to them. You’d hope your partner would feel why it was pressing to you, but unfortunately I can think of a lot of people even in my own life who’ve experienced this same conflict with their partners. Because men can drag their feet until they think it’s the “right” time in a way women simply can’t. I had a friend who had a very Joever-like breakup over that very issue and it’s so, so painful and can also drive them to make questionable choices in the immediate aftermath.

Then when you add the whole resentment/whatever issue on top of it… it’s… a lot.

[miladythewinter]

i listened to the anthology tracks and yep these are overall better than the standard album. somehow not surprising.

"peter" really surprised me cause it's a lovely, simple song and it shows what she can do. that is, that she could be writing good songs in her own corner instead of constantly talking about her real life scandals in the most overt way possible. cause there's no subtlety, no "this inspired me", it's more like "here's everything i think about this with names and dates and everything". and that's what holds her back as an artist, namely one who can create earnest, timeless songs and reach many people; she can't do that if her songs are just gossip articles about her own life in music form. that stereogum review was right on the money when it said that the Lore is starting to overwhelm the music and also that it's self-made (to feed the stans, the obsession, the money-making machine).

i always wonder why she doesn't just stop. like take a break, don't bring up the same things over and over, you can be free taylor and release yourself from the hell of fame. but at the same time i think she can't because it's all she knows and by now it's like her identity (so what else would she write about?). that's why i think she feels so "threatened" by younger artists, cause it's like someone is stealing her life. but this is why people have less and less sympathy for her: cause on one hand it's understandable fame is terrible and would do this to her but on the other it's something so obviously maintained and craved by her? she always has the upper hand, she has won everything, she is at the top, why keep doing this dance of woe is me? but these are just my layman's thoughts

last night i read tavi gevinson's essays on taylor and it was fascinating because gevinson was also famous at a young age - and knows fame from the inside unlike me - and knew taylor personally.

2 things stood out to me: the part where gevinson mentions that parasocial relationships go both ways in that famous people also become attached to their fans and begin to forget that those fans are not their friends but just a mass of consumers of their art, while the haters crystallise into a real, very serious entity you feel you can fight and win over.

second, when gevinson recalls a late night hours-long conversation with swift in which the spell was broken when gevinson suddenly mentioned how much she liked and related to "wildest dreams". and it's because in that moment they went from 2 friends talking to The Artist and The Fan. taylor went from a person to a celebrity. the closeness immediately turned into a great distance. and this made me wonder really how Taylor can never forget she's a celebrity, that there's always a perpetual audience around her, which again just makes me realize Fame is Hell

and gevinson kinda says and appeals to taylor the same as i did above. to let go and recognize the reality of her situation. anyway i wonder if taylor has read the essays