[text ID: promises made by june / had rotten / by the time august came. / iâve mistaken silence with nothingness / and unlearning it asks for courage / i know not how to muster. / this half-empty glass of orange juice, / ever-present on its throne of dust, / on this wooden table, / holds more promise than i ever will. / i, a personified you, for this is not a wall but a mirror / [personified] / i, i mean you, i mean [redacted] / you eat the sun and with your burnt tongue / try to sing songs / not about pain. / donât you? / in july / [i] you tried to stretch the rare / moments of happiness but our feet / always seemed to stay out of the / blanket / uncovered. / how do i love something without / fully succumbing to it? / you thought you had to die for you to live, didnât you? / you thought thereâs always a spring after a winter / you didnât think that / this vivaldian symphony hadnât been written for bodies like ours, . did you? / in july / you didnât know that loneliness is a crowded town / yet /Â itâs always been bestowed upon you / to lock the gates / and turn off the lights / every night, / did you? / june made promises it knew it couldnât keep. / but i shall be wiser / in august.]
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.
[I'm Your Man - Mitski // Hound with a Joint of Meat and a Cat Looking on - Jan Baptist Weenix // House of Wolves - My Chemical Romance // The Boar Hunt - Frans Snyders]
awards shows are ridiculous and asinine and are everything wrong with the entertainment industry. that is unless my favorites win in which case awards shows are wonderful and objective and are arbiters of merit and justice in a world devoid of true talent recognition
2087
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
gracieabrams
