Now that Folklore is out and Taylor has gotten acclaim from all corners of the internet, I think it’s time I properly expressed how infuriating and unfair her treatment by the media and the public was for almost the entirety of her career. And how, ultimately, it was all such bullshit.
First, it was the misogyny that has aged terribly - “she dates too many men; she’s a maneater; don’t let her write a song about you!” - despite dating a pretty normal amount for a woman in her twenties.
Then the entire Kimye affair, where she was accused of being a snake and a manipulative liar. And then, years later, we find out she was telling the truth the entire time! Meanwhile, Kanye has fully gone off the rails and Kim continues to enable his worst impulses.
For years, she was the butt of one joke or another, whether it was her singing or her alleged victimhood status or for being a snake or a bad feminist. And not only was it all in such bad faith, it all turned out to be complete and utter bullshit in hindsight.
What did Taylor even do to deserve so much animosity?
Well, we all know what she did: she dared to be a teenage girl writing songs about her experiences for teenage girls. She dared to be a woman who took control of her own career. She dared to have unabashed femininity be a focal point of her work and image. And that put her under a microscope where every gaffe she made (and yes, of course there were gaffes) would be hyper-criticized with everyone leaping at the chance to knock her down a peg.
And it wasn’t only Taylor who had to put up with this; all of her fans have had to put up with this to some degree. People would mock me to my face online and in my personal life for liking Taylor Swift as if it made me stupid or uncultured. I’ve had value judgements placed on me simply because of an artist whose music has meant a lot to me.
Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big a deal, and clearly us Swifties won out in the end (thank you, Folklore!). But the fact that we even had to deal with this to begin with is absurd.
And the fact that Taylor had to deal with as much public scrutiny as she did, for years, sine the age of 16, is not only absurd; it’s frankly despicable (and yeah yeah boohoo poor multi-millionaire I know I know but that doesn’t justify the harassment; for a moment, imagine dealing with that sort of social pressure throughout your entire adult life).
Anyway, in conclusion, thank you @taylorswift for giving us such a spellbinding album and for soldiering on throughout all these years. I know you’ll likely never see this, but you comforted this gay boy through some of his darkest nights and for that I will forever be grateful to you.
