Why Taylor Swift makes us uncomfortable
Blog
It’s been approximately 4 months since I’ve written a blog post.
It’s not that I don’t have things to talk about. I could find something to say about drywall and rocks if it came down to it.
My friends have been telling me to just “write about something you’re passionate about”. Well, I’m passionate about a lot. Some things that are pretty meaningful: God, community, love. And some things that maybe aren’t so meaningful: iced coffee, crocheting, Taylor Swift.
But when Taylor Swift was named the 2023 Time Person of the Year last month, and I cried while reading the article written about her, I had to take a step back and ask myself some serious questions:
Am I okay?
What makes Taylor Swift so meaningful to me?
Is this the “thing I’m passionate about” that I was meant to write about? (Hint: yes)
The best way I can explain what Taylor Swift means to me is by saying this: she reminds me of myself.
Not in the way where I’m actually some super secret songwriter or I’ve had more than one relationship or I’m a country girl turned city girl. In the way that her music is able to articulate what it’s like to be a girl, grow up, have your heart broken, have rumors spread about you, fall in love, move to a new city, feel like you’re everything, feel like you’re nothing, and do it all over again.
Simply put, I grew up with her. And so did millions of other young girls. Not “grew up” as in I grew up and she was there, but “grew up” as in she experienced her life and processed it in the only way she knew how (songwriting), and I experienced my life and was able to process it better in the only way my teenage self knew how (listening to her music).
Listening to Love Story at age 10 helped me understand what love was supposed to be like. Something I fully understood at age 17 when my best friend took the long way home when dropping me off, so we could finish screaming to the song.
Listening to The Man at age 16 helped me process that my classmate saying “I didn’t deserve to win that much” in debate had nothing to do with my skill and everything to do with his lack of it.
Listening to Nothing New at age 19 helped me understand what growing up is like and listening to 22 at not age 22 helped me realize that it isn’t that serious anyway!
This is girlhood! Taylor Swift is the epitome of girlhood!
It’s not about literally being a girl. It’s about singing and dancing and laughing and making mistakes and loving and learning and feeling everything that is so impossible to articulate into words until Taylor Swift comes along and articulates them for you in a 3 minute song.
I recently saw a TikTok of someone explaining how the #GirlBoss + women in pantsuits movement of about 10 years ago is dead and now being replaced with the girl-math + ribbons + stay-at-home-girlfriend movement, which is somehow related to the patriarchal society. Is it wrong of me to say, what does any of this actually mean and who cares? Like, just do what you want!
Not everything needs to be categorized as a movement/trend/thing that tells young girls this is the hot, new wave! It just makes us even more confused and even more pitted against one another.
Women are taught not to be like other girls. Young girls are shamed for wearing makeup and expressing their femininity, yet they’re also shamed for doing the opposite… So, when young girls see that a lot of their peers love Swift, they may hate her for the sole reason that they think they’ll be picked and valued more by boys or others if they don’t like her. It’s similar to the color pink, which many TikTok users recount hating as children but then loving after growing up because they realized it’s okay to like things that other girls also like.
America Fererra says it best in the Barbie movie: “I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.”
Taylor Swift is hated so much simply because she is proud of herself. She embodies her outrageous success in a way that just isn’t culturally acceptable for a woman to do. She knows she’s ‘the man’ and she absolutely delights in it. She has a ‘fuck you haters’ energy that she carries like a big flag behind her. We love that quality in men but HATE it in a woman.
A lot of us were raised in those environments where breathing is a competition. Speaking of our successes are taboo and accomplishments are meant to be followed up with an apology for doing well. Why does knowing your worth diminish it? Would Taylor Swift be less hated if she was successful but had more problems?
Things we need to stop saying:
“We did well in this competition, but there weren’t too many people competing so that’s why”
“I got this position, but it was just luck”
“This thing happened in my life, but it’s not a big deal”
Sam Lanksy writes in her Time feature that this is what the Taylor Swift Effect is about.
That she gives people, many of them women, particularly girls, who have been conditioned to accept dismissal, gaslighting, and mistreatment from a society that treats their emotions as inconsequential, permission to believe that their interior lives matter. That for your heart to break, whether it’s from being kicked off a tour or by the memory of a scarf still sitting in a drawer somewhere or because somebody else controls your life’s work, is a valid wound, and no, you’re not crazy for being upset about it, or for wanting your story to be told.
Taylor Swift vocalizes her pain, she controls her narrative, and most importantly, she knows her worth. We’re conditioned to hate this about people, in both men and women.
This entire post seems to be about Taylor Swift, yet at the same time, none of it is truly about her. I’ve re-read what I’ve written more times than usual now, debating whether any of this is even understandable, or if I just sound like another crazed fan-girl. Love her or hate her, it doesn’t matter. If you still think she’s just some boy-crazy artist who exploits her relationships or that her fans are too crazy and annoying, you’ve missed the point.
There’s just one question that she asks: Are you not entertained?
I’ll end this with a lyric of hers that serves as a reminder to brag about what you want to brag about, feel sad about what you want to feel sad about, and be who you want to be, unapologetically. The poetic part is that it’s from one of her most hated songs:
I’m the only one of me;
Baby, that’s the fun of me!
Steller comeback. Fantastic, really.
MAKE LIKING TAYLOR SWIFT PRETENTIOUS AGAIN!!!!!!