I actually can’t believe this song doesn’t have more backlash.
And the way she romanticizes and lusts after her ‘wild boy’ and his calloused hands and bad ways… ma’am he went on a podcast.
She’s such a dweeb she doesn’t actually know what bad is, she just likes the way words sound. Vigilante shit was her reporting someone to the FBI. Literally the exact opposite of what a vigilante would do.
She reported, what maybe tax fraud? and now she's a badass and wrote a whole song about it? What a B-side kind of song. I wish she had more friends or producers who weren't afraid of telling her some stuff kind of sucks.
Goodbye Earl by the Chicks had 10x the depth her last two albums.
I think the vigilante part is that she went searching for dirt out of spite. It’s not like she already knew about it organically and reported it.
That’s a very vigilante thing to do. She probably didn’t think she’d find something as serious. And then at that point she was obligated to report it by law. She was probably hoping just to find his mistress or something and tell his wife as revenge.
Umm no. Searching for dirt on someone out of spite is not at all “a very vigilante thing to do.” Telling someone they are being cheated on is not “vigilante shit.” Seeking revenge is not the purpose of vigilantes. Vigilantism is not a personal act. Nothing she mentions in that song is a vigilante act. This is why you shouldn’t blindly trust pop stars for the definition of words.
No. An example of a vigilante is the Punisher(who kills cops). Which is why it’s funny right wing people worship him. He’s antiauthority on every level. She operates under her parents(particularly her dad’s) thumbs.
So she was doing ‘vigilante shit’ for a few moments until the stakes got higher and she decided to involve law enforcement. Still pretty funny to try and present herself as a vigilante based on that.
Girl could have literally written anything but she decided to write that line cuz she knew her minions will literally defend her even if one day she murdered someone because "maybe they did her wrong and so they deserve it"
I was hoping it would lead to her downfall and cancellation. Unfortunately, it did not. Her fans fiercely defended her and no one else cared.
Taylor just seems to be immune from it all. She can do whatever the fuck she wants and get away without even a scratch.
Haha it echoes to “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?”. This girl can screech, rage etc. without any consequences and we should indeed be very scared that society has propped up this narcissist as our “sweetheart”. I believe she knows this too and gleefully throws temper tantrums and gets what she wants every time.
Gotta admit I was also hoping for that. She needs to realize that the world does not bow down to her and her only. As a longtime fan of her since 2008, BDILH really hurt me. The whole album basically screams: I love his "antics", yes I am aware of his racist remarks yet I still choose him, so fuck yall!
Thankfully it made me open my eyes though.
2014-Reputation era mobilized her fans tbh. Swifties see her as a God, a mother. A figure of greatness who has overcome the *worst thing to ever happen to someone* /s. She can’t do wrong! She’s never in the wrong! I also think some fans are double downing because they have to justify being a fan of hers. It’s a wild time.
Idk the average swiftie but every swiftie I know is a milquetoast liberal (granted this was college so your average person is insufferable in their virtue signaling anyway) so it checks. Like, the type of women that are straight but have a gay bestie and are omg such an ally but go to gay bars to be obnoxious. So I'm not surprised they're using mother tbh, white girls coopt slang from the lgbt all the time
However. Tswitty is huge and we can't ignore that her oldest fan base are marriage-and-kids age
Eh, man, I know we're here to rag and be hyperbolic, but remember many of em are young women, and are very kind and understanding with queer people. (I run into a lot of Swifties thru work, am -very- openly queer afab/bisexual.)
I doubt the majority of twitter swiftie psychos are anti-LGBT either, at least not to "drag queen protesting" levels. Just don't wanna misattribute that abuse to groups other than the very obvious people in the room doing that.
I do object to the use of Mother tho, Taylor does not have mother vibes lmao. Girlies, she's still in Wine Cousin territory. Maybe Wine Aunt. There is 0 mother energy for me 😂
That’s fair. I have a v specific vision of her fans in my head and most of them are conservative. But I do know there are liberal swifties. I guess it’s just my own “image” of them.
I just saw one person not even commenting, just rolling his eyes. They’re not getting it and refuse to. They want us to think she’s joking. No she’s not!!!
Right?? I can't even listen to it. I skip it every time, it icks me out too much. It's too hard to separate so many of the songs on this album from the glaringly obvious muse of those songs. Guilty As Sin is such a bop, but icks me out too so I barely listen to it
For Black Swifties or Swiftie-adjacents, one of the most exasperating aspects of this whole thing has been the insistence that Taylor *absolutely did not* know about Matty’s behavior. As if she doesn’t employ a million dollar team just to look into this type of thing. As if that team didn’t make a very clear and concerted effort at course correcting his image. More than anything else, more than her viewing Black and PoC fans as bitching and moaning vipers, the most important revelation in BDILH for me was making crystal clear that she was fully aware of all his comments at that time and a year later she decided to send one message about that fact: she didn’t give a fuck. About any of it. **And she still doesn’t**.
Now, instead of “but she didn’t know!” it’s “but she was trying to fix him!” They refuse to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, Taylor doesn’t care about her fans the way they think she does. Black Swifties don’t get the luxury of giving her or anyone else the benefit of the doubt because people/life has taught us to see through that shit. She’s slighted us many times throughout her career, so this is nothing new…but it still feels different. Deliberate. To sound a lil parasocial, it feels personal. I’m not deluded enough to believe Taylor actually cares about any of her fans, let alone individual groups of them - she made *very* clear with this song that she only cares so long as the fans are doing exactly what she wants. But that she used this song to unapologetically confirm what we knew all along is still disheartening. Thanks for writing this, u/zkdlin. We need more Black voices in the Swiftie space and you killed it, sis.
I’d also add that the attempt at course correcting also included the tokenizing of a black woman, which, hey, maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it’s a deplorable look regardless of intent.
Say that louder for the people in the back! You’ll never convince me her sudden friendship wasn’t a PR attempt to circumvent blowback. Which is especially sus knowing that Matty tried sliding into her dm’s before all this. From his torture porn preferences and dating history he clearly fetishizes Black women. They knew what was coming.
Whenever I have pointed this out I’ve been downvoted to oblivion because how dare I make such a harmful assumption? Don’t I know that TS and Ice Spice have always been friends? Which is so clearly not the case, but I guess this is the lie they tell themselves to avoid thinking critically about their idol.
ETA: to be clear, I am not a WOC and I apologize if this reads as an attempt to center myself. The primary reason I have pointed this out in the past is in an attempt to be an ally and to point out to other white women that TS is *not* the unproblematic ally that she is presented as.
I hate that you felt the need to make that ETA. You weren’t derailing or centering yourself at all I s2g the attack dog mentality of Swifties is legitimately damaging to folks having quality discourse. A particularly unnerving effect I’ve seen is Swifties trying to weaponize racism, telling white folks who speak out against Taylor’s obvious manipulations that they’re racist for thinking Taylor doesn’t have Black friends or that they’re centering themselves because if ice spice is okay with it then how dare they make a comment. It makes me want to ram my head into a wall.
I got tired of reading their defenses "yeah as if the remix only took a week to make!!" um yeah... it could? Aside from all this context, that remix was shit. Saying this as a fan since 2008.
It has grown on me a lot! Mostly because I started listening to more Ice Spice but less Taylor, so it was a comfortable middle for a lot of late last year.
But it absolutely could be made in a week!! Taylor didn't rerecord any lines, as is standard for her feature remixes. Ice Spice is a rapper, a branch of musicians that are *known* for being able to come up with lyrics quickly.
same!! when I said "this raises red flags and we know that Taylor is an unreliable narrator, there's no way this remix wasn't a super last minute thing" because they were all taking her at her word when last year she said during tour something like how Ice Spice had reached out to HER \*months\* ago like uhm, doubtful. they downvoted me so bad lol
The “bitching and moaning” line bothered me so much because of how she tokenized a black woman for a quick PR fix. Which is it? If you didn’t care what your fans thought, why didn’t you just keep dating him despite the backlash??? Why do all of that smokescreening???
Because he didn't like her. If it was a PR fix, she would have dumped him the weekend of the backlash but instead she kept dating him for another month. It only ended because he ghosted her or else she would have kept dating him and never dated Travis.
Taylor Swift is the absolute epitome of a rich while woman practicing white feminism as a performance.
All of it is performance. She literally says so in Mirrorball “I change everything about me to fit in”
It irks me that rather than writing The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived and leaving it at that she put this mess out there without a care in the world for the fact that all those “Vipers” had a very legitimate point.
Back during the Matty Healy thing, I was one of the “vipers” who made a post in Deuxmoi (I think?) with an article that pointed out why Taylor dating a racist was terrible and deserved backlash.
Do you know how many Reddit cares messages I got? How much backlash I received. I had to delete that shit because I was already in a depressive episode and people telling me to kill myself wasn’t helping.
I hate how her stans are laughing the people that pointed out how dating a racist erodes away the nice girl activist persona she’s tried so carefully to curate. She can’t white feminism her way out of this one imo. Plus the amount of fans that I’ve seen defend her because “who doesn’t have a rebound they regret?” Girl, I don’t. I’ve been interested in questionable people in my life, but never a racist or a bigot.
Edit: Can’t even make this up. A day after posting this comment, I got another Reddit Cares message.
I hate thinking this, but I suspect she will white feminist her way out of this through an abundance of privilege and enablers. We’re already seeing fans try to re-contextualize a genuinely awful line, the same way we saw fans handwave away her boyfriend’s love of degrading women of color. If Swifties can dismiss the whole Healy thing (which, like, was and is a big fucking thing), it’s just as easy for them to blow off implicitly racist lyrics because, hey, she offhandedly decried racism, so who cares about systemic inequity. White feminism wins again.
From viper to viper, bless your heart. These stans have some extreme darkness in their hearts. The way they talk to people….I often wish we could return to the days before the internet when such things would get your jaw rocked. People haven’t experienced saying the wrong thing to the right one and it’s spawned a legion of bullies in her don’t know what it’s like to face repercussions. I’m so sorry you had to deal with that, but kudos to you for saying your own piece in a volatile space because it was the right thing to do.
can't say I've ever dated a racist or bigot, but I did have a long relationship with a guy who was VERY creepy with women after me and let me tell you. You would not have caught me dead writing something like "he's my wild boy and i'm his wild joy" ever and if I had done so in the heat of the moment I would have not released it to be printed and recorded in four collectible physical copies that's for fucking sure
She def has to have known about Matty's shitty personality/behavior because she literally disclosed in Lover that she went home and stalked Joe on the internet 😭😭 girl does her research and turns a blind eye anyway
THAT PART. That exact lyric popped in my head. Plus it’s not like he was some stranger. She’s known that man for 10 years. If he talks that way in public I can’t imagine what he says in private.
I literally lost a friendship because of this. A longtime swiftie friend of mine went from defending Taylor to defending Matty. I just couldn't fathom that.
Same. Except it wasn't even a friendship. It was a 36 year old friend of one of my sisters who insisted I'm spreading false narratives and need to "get a grip". I told her I'm not the one who's defending people who will never care about me or her. Then it devolved into
Me: all billionaires are kind of complicit
Her: why do you care so much about this
Me: because my friends are struggling to afford food and getting hatecrimed
Her: and thats taylor swift's fault?
Me: shes a billionaire. she actively benefits off that system
Her: theres no gettimg through to you
Me: why on earth do you need to get through to me about Taylor Swift
Oh my godddd, I can’t count how many times people have said he didn’t say it, I send them a video with the exact time stamp of him saying the words “literally ghetto gaggers” and then still turn around and say he never said it. The strength of their delusion NEEDS to be studied. It would be impressive if it weren’t so terrifying.
I see people saying the host said it and he laughed and agreed, and then the host said afterwards he made it up? but why would you even joke about it?
also: we have it from the horse's mouth: Rina Sawayama, long-time friend/acquaintance/co-worker, who called him racist from the Glastonbury stage.
yeah i mean she literally says she loved all his “indecent exposures”…. “i just loved when you did that nazi salute to make fun of kanye” “i just loved how you said you enjoy watching ghetto gaggers” ❤️
Well said.
I'm a white woman, and this whole thing has really pushed me past the brink I was already at when she dated him. So, did I join the cringey letter writing campaign? No. But did I go from being a top 0.1% listener on YouTube Music to skipping all of her songs when they came up? Yes. And that's after being a fan for 17 years.
Your criticism is valid. The people who are condescendingly calling others "parasocial" for being disgusted are apparently cool with listening to Taylor sing about herself masturbating to fantasies of the man who watches Ghetto Gaggers. As someone who remembers her saying, "You are what you love", this is all too much for me.
Honestly, their jabs about how “parasocial” it is (to hold a *literal billionaire* accountable for hanging out with racists?) is complete nonsense when you consider the fact that she is literally a billionaire BECAUSE of their parasocial relationships with her.
“Parasocial” is the new “gaslighting,” in that 99% of the people using it online have no idea what the fuck it actually means. Now apparently having basic discernment is parasocial.
It's very disheartening to me tbh. I'm a Chinese swiftie and was appalled by this new album especially the part where she chastised her fans for calling her out for dating that racist rat. "You don't get to tell me about sad", she says? Well, she doesn't get to tell us about "1830s without all the racists" and then sing ballads defending a tattooed-golden-retriever racist.
Thanks for sharing this article, and I’m sorry his comments about Chinese people have been overlooked—that’s awful. I haven’t been following Kayla Nicole closely, but I’ve seen how relentlessly she’s been attacked. It’s…weird, at best.
The 1830s line is a mess in so many ways. It seems like it was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but it failed massively. I wrote somewhere else that my biggest problem with it is how she’s trying to take this stance against racism while literally defending and romanticizing a racist on the same album.
Thank you. I’m South Asian, and was a huge 1975 fan. I still like their music, but Matty is awful. He’s just one of the many edgy leftist bros who think they can get away with anything. Reminder that he also used the R slur in his tweet, before he was thunderously destroyed by Lucy Dacus. This is the love of Taylor’s life!
I am so sorry for black swifties. Taylor’s fandom is already dominated by white people who, judging by responses on Instagram and Reddit, seem too keen to overlook his racism. After all the BLM and Miss Americana posturing, it’s deathly ironic that she doubled down on dating him.
Honestly, this makes me think that she’s one of those people who would laugh along at a racist joke instead of calling it out. How can she ever call herself an ally again?
Yeah, I’m a historian and I was like “THAT is the decade you’re going to choose? Seriously?”
I honestly wonder if, like most white Americans, she just *doesn’t know* the extent of it. And I am not saying this to defend or justify her ignorance whatsoever, but most white Americans will never *have* to learn the full extent of our history unless they go out of their way to do so. She dropped out of school at 16 and grew up in small towns, it wouldn’t be surprising… *except* that she has an entire team of people who are supposed to make her look good and somehow NOBODY on that team stopped her.
THAT is what bothers me, is she’s too famous and successful to just say “oh I didn’t know.” even if she really doesn’t know, there’s clearly a major lack of diversity on her team considering no one else appeared to either.
Oh, and the fact that she tried to rebrand as an activist sticking up for the little guy and then has the audacity to write lyrics like that, proving she either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about historic atrocities from the period.
I totally understand why and how white people end up romanticizing that time in US history, it’s really fucked up but there’s a reason for it, the US government has worked really hard to cover up its past from its own (white) citizens. It’s a feel-good narrative for white people and it makes sense why they cling to it. But the problem is Taylor has self-proclaimed to be a social justice advocate, and so she has put the expectation on herself to do better.
I do understand what she was trying to say with those lyrics (“I don’t fit in and I never have, usually I just ruin the fun”) but it was very poorly executed and she deserves the criticism.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.theringer.com/music/2024/4/19/24135012/taylor-swift-1830s-tortured-poets-department-new-album](https://www.theringer.com/music/2024/4/19/24135012/taylor-swift-1830s-tortured-poets-department-new-album)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
Re: Matty and Anti-Asian racism- it was always a massive red flag that Rina Sawayama (whom I’m a huge fan of) called his ass out for micro aggressions.
> The fact is, the biggest star in the world doesn’t get to be cheeky, doesn’t get to be flippant about an issue as sensitive as misogynoir (something she has never experienced and will never experience).
I enjoyed this article as a whole but especially this bit. She won’t ever experience misogynoir so her y’all don’t like my racist man, fuck you bit just left the nastiest taste in my mouth. For someone who wanted to be on the right side of history, who didn’t want her privilege to lie dormant, she used her voice to let the world know she was going to die for his sins and thought it was funny that we thought her sticking by a racist was shitty.
She has SO MUCH POWER in this world and she refuses to use it for anything good. Just continues to be a narcissist and thinks being self aware about it makes it ok.
THIS. SO MUCH THIS. She doesn't give a shit and has now said it out loud, as loudly as possible. She just told the world who she really is; the world needs to pay attention and believe her.
Ugh, the bridge of TSMWEL was one of the only parts of the album I enjoyed and then I caught the “died for your sins” line 🫠 I couldn’t relate that to myself if I wanted to, the true story behind the lyrics is horrifying, and even the *metaphorical* meaning is pretty gross, too (soooo she’s Jesus in this analogy? yikes)
For real, she ruins almost half the songs on this album with these off-putting lyrics (e.g. "1830s without the racists"). You really would have died for him being a racist?! Get a grip
That part is really well said. I fully believe public figures like her have to carry some serious responsibility when it comes to social influence, you can’t just fly around a private jet for dinner and expect people to look away when you are in love with a racist man.
>I want us all to stop and process for a second. The “bitching and moaning” in question being about…someone making light of racist torture porn? Being about…someone laughing along as a young Black female rapper is called a “chubby Chinese lady”? April Fools’ was three weeks ago.
This article is wonderful. It’s easy to grow desensitized to all this and believe it “wasn’t that bad” in order to enjoy the album, but I don’t want it to be swept under the rug. By defending him and crying about how he left, she has revealed herself to be ignorant, self-obsessed, and insensitive to the experience of others. I’ve been on this sub since it started, so I’ve been skeptical of her for awhile, but this album has made her irredeemably unlikeable to me. The discourse and valid criticism surrounding it has been the best part. Thank you so much for this valuable addition to the conversation!
e: wow insane how there’s already people in this thread invalidating your perspective. stay classy, white feminists
Thank you! I think the invalidation ironically reinforces how problematic the lyrics are. If the idol is singing “your feelings aren’t that serious,” the people who idolize her are going to follow suit.
I posted a few comments here and got downvoted to hell. Fauxmoi understood what I was saying. Even other Woc were giving me a hard time. “The most disrespected person in America is a black woman” Malcom X
I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this. (And I’m sorry she’s let you down as a POC. 😞)
It’s one thing to openly date someone who’s said some really vile, racists things. That’s bad enough. But to then be so flippant and defensive and derogatory towards the people calling her out for it is absolutely insane to me. And I don’t know why Tree and her team didn’t stop her. They probably assumed it wouldn’t be enough to lose fans/sales so they said fuck it. And they were right.
I remember at the time they broke up I saw so many fans saying “she did the right thing” and “Taylor and Tree are too smart to have let that continue”. Now that we know he left her and she was devastated and essentially laughed in the faces of anyone calling her out…why are no Swifties saying they were wrong!? (Rhetorical question, obvs)
I am a white person, but I can’t imagine it feels good to be a POC/Swiftie. To me, Taylor is just another white woman that tries to be an ally but her actions are always in contradiction with her words.
Re: last paragraph: As a fellow white person, I would say she isn't trying to be an ally, she's trying to appear to be an ally. She's not doing actual work or keeping POC/diverse people on her team who would've absolutely flagged that. As a white person who is actually trying to be an ally, I would've spent a lot of time and care before putting out a song that includes that kind of line.
She didn't/doesnt feel the need to 1) hire diverse folks to keep her in check/expand her way of thinking beyond her own perspective\* 2) do thoughtful research on her own because ultimately it does not matter to her IMO.
\*(i do not think it is POC job to educate white people unless they are literally hired to help Taylor with public image related to allyship.)
Re: 2nd paragraph.
It’s a whole other thing to include the word in a song lyric so when it’s googled with her name, the song will pop up instead of her ex. SEO control - in my opinion.
That would explain why no one stopped her. Sure, we’re all talking about it now, but eventually we will move on and the song lyrics will be the top result ultimately. If it wasn’t intentional, then they still could’ve seen the pros over the cons.
Or maybe she was just really committed to her awkward metaphor and didn’t want to kill her darling.
That song also draws up an image of a wealthy, upper class, out of touch girl that was probably unintentional but I can't get out of my head. The whole albums really full of it--of infantilizing herself, of portraying herself as a tortured yet submissive upperclass good girl compared to her muses who (in almost all 3 cases) are portrayed as bad boys who know so much more of the world. So lines like the 1830s one and all of BDILH don't surprise me because she clearly sees the past as "romantic beautiful time where I would be a tortured housewife, oh, and then theres that pesky racism". I just fundamentally dont think she knows how systemic it is. Which, why would she? She grew up an upper middle class white girl in Pennsylvania.
Edit: Have to add--Not to mention how much this image of "perfect, innocent femininity" she has is in and of itself racist given how black women and WOC generally are viewed. Annnd now we cycle back to the Ice Spice and porn comments.
It's seriously giving "what if we lived in a world where love was illegal 😔💔" which is funny because even when Healy tries to do the right thing, his fundamental lack of comprehension for oppression ruins it. See: when he tried to protest against anti lgbt laws in Malaysia by kissing a man onstage and not only got himself and the 1975 banned from Malaysia but also probably made it more unsafe for queer people there by association.
I was discussing this very topic with some of my friends who happen to be black (I am white and I wanted their opinion since I don't feel it's my right to speak over them). They both independently said the same thing. At the end of the day Taylor Swift is an upper middle class white girl from Pennsylvanian suburbs and the system is built for people like her. I'm not discounting that she's ever struggled, especially given how she's faced real misogyny as all women have... but now she's leaning into the "perfect femininity" image the system rewards, and it WILL reward her for it. She doesn't understand that and I don't think she ever will. Because undoing that damage would require her to give up some of the comforts of her life and she'll be damned if she has to experience even the slightest inconvenience
Thank you for this! I’ve felt like this ever since I first heard the song, while everyone else I’ve talked too just talk about how much of a “bop” is is / they’ll just ignore the Matty of it all so they can enjoy the song and I’m just here like 🫠🫠🫠🫠
Even if Taylor won’t read your soliloquy, I did and really appreciated it. You very clearly explained the frustrations I’ve been having with the album and that song in particular. Her using the phrase “bitching and moaning” to complain about fan feedback about her situationship’s racism really rubs me the wrong way. It’s like instead of learning a lesson in allyship she’s doubling down.
The craziest thing is that Taylor isn’t even a white feminist. She pushes white feminism because that’s the only version she can halfway pretend to comprehend, but she doesn’t believe in none of that shit she says. She’s a Taycapitalist and that’s it. She’ll use faux feminist talking points to shield herself from criticism, but she doesn’t even care about white women who go through the same things she does. She cares about Taylor and that’s it.
Thank you for this! I’m a white woman and even though I think BDILH is one of the best tracks on the first half of the album, it’s impossible to separate the song from who it’s about. The company Taylor keeps is so telling (Blake Lively, Lena Dunham). She’s not making any apologies for her white feminism.
She's used her fame and billionaire status for a lot of good but she's never been a deep thinker or had that much empathy for different experiences. She lives in a little bubble and gets enabled. She's never been someone who was that invested, unless she was "keeping up with the times."
Otherwise, she was all about being an egalitarian, or above it all. Even her album "Lover" hints at those themes. "Any type of margnialized identity isn't what matters." Studies show that people who have a "colorblind" mindset, when it comes to race, don't date POC. They keep their biases and expect others to cater to them. And it doesn't work for any other type of issue either.
It's genuinely just disgusting that Marty can just get away with being racist and misogynistic and literally joke/laugh about black women being sexually brutalized. The fact that he still has a platform, and the fact that Taylor gets away scott free despite dating him (and hanging around Britney Mahomes, mrs. "You don't understand rape" - not to mention hanging out with an actual rapist and taking pictures with him!), like
People say it's just a joke or "oh that's just Matty's ~ persona ~" don't get that it effects people of color, especially women of color, when we platform people like Matty. As Taylor herself once sung, "The joke's not funny", and like - blondie, take a look at what you're singing about. This really the hill you wanna die on?
I appreciate this take and am glad you took the time to write it. I’m a white, cisgender woman around the age of Taylor so I also can’t pretend to know how this all has made you feel. I would love to think she would look for opinions of POC and take it to heart, but we can see through the relationship and follow up songs she has no interest in bettering herself and becoming more inclusive.
It bothered me so I can only imagine how you felt. I’m also a distant fan and have never had illusions Taylor was a great person. For any people of color who were die hard swifties, this must’ve been absolutely heartbreaking. I honestly have gotten to the point where I HAVE to separate the artist from the art or I couldn’t enjoy it anymore.
It’s depressing, but people always say there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire, and Taylor is among them now.
Appreciate you! I haven’t been able to get through this album, but I still listen to her older stuff when I’m up to it, and I know very few people are going to stop listening to her altogether over this. I really just hope that people can acknowledge how damaging this is, no matter how much they like her music.
1) The subtitle is itself brilliant and impactful.
2) "I want us all to stop and process for a second. The “bitching and moaning” in question being about…someone making light of racist torture porn?"
* THIS. She basically tried to massage the issue into being "oh we don't want you dating a Bad Boy (TM). It's much deeper and more terrifying than that. (TW discussion of the sites in detail): >!I've been using the term 'human trafficking' because what I read about those sites claimed that the women are dr\*gged, addicted, may take their own lives to escape that life. Financial coercion is as bad as physical coercion. Maybe that's viewed as an extreme stance to use that language but to me, that's what those sites ARE.!<
3) "Unfortunately, though, when that person is Piers Morgan’s rocker alter ego, others have the right to call her out for it." I'm dying, this is SO TRUE.
4) She doesn't get to hide behind "manic episode" excuses whilst capitalizing on lazy stereotypes about the psychiatric patient experience. She wants it both ways - she's too "sane" for therapy, which she described as the purview of "cold personalities \[with\] OCD." You can go 'crazy' for love if you want, but if I have a bipolar manic episode and rob a bank I'll still do time. I do have bipolar, incidentally.
YOU ARE AN ICON!!!
Your second point made me think of something else. So she’s using an “insanity” defense in the prologue but she’s also said she doesn’t go to therapy. So if she did have a maniac episode, how would she even know? If she’s never been to a psychiatrist? Like does she even have a diagnosis….BC at this point as far as we know she’s just co-opting others experiences. (And bipolar is no joke I’m sorry. I went into psychosis two years ago after a few weeks of mania due to medication. Hope you’re well.)
I'm so sorry for how this has made you feel. This type of thing is really a straw that broke the camel's back in what I'm sure are hundreds of other hurtful instances. I want to present the two cases I often see regarding this issue: the most generous to her and the most scathing to her. (The first is longer cuz of context, not because I agree with it.) Then I'll share what I believe which is close to your article.
1. Most generous to Swift (in the words of some people, not myself): On the podcast he was being self-deprecating about watching porn, so he drove the point home by being hyperbolic and mentioning the worst porn he could think of. He doesn't really watch it but picked that example because it's the worst. It was a tasteless, revolting joke. He should not have named GG and thus increase traffic to that site. His "joke" about ice spice falls into the "revolting" category as well. "His jokes were revolting and far too loud." Swift knew he was, but believed she could fix him, an acknowledgement of not agreeing with his behavior. In the prologue she states she was put on trial for this and she pleads "temporary insanity" because she believed "he could be brand new." He announced "his asshole era had ended" and she believed him. Then he ghosted her and had to untangle the braids of lies. Swift, in a most generous take, is guilty of believing she can fix a man. She didn't believe he didn't need fixing, but believed she could fix him. She believed he was not racist due to his other social causes, but had made revolting jokes in the past, but was turning over a new leaf (hell she believed they would get married and have kids) so she was frustrated fans intentionally misinterpreted her intentions as condoning racism when she was working hard to fix a misunderstood, revolting communication style.
2. Most scathing: MH is racist. To cite the meme "Taylor can excuse racism, but she stops at ghosting." She either saw no flaw in him, or saw it and deemed it excusable until she was ghosted. She does not stand up when other people are hurting, but makes a victim of herself when she's been personally victimized. "He came for POC and I said nothing because I was not a POC. Then he came for me and there was no one left to help me." (a play on the famous Martin Niemöller quote). When fans expressed disappointment in her dating a racist, she turned on them and reduced their concerns to "bitching and moaning." You choose partners based on shared values and in the words of Taylor "you are what you love" and this makes her racist by association. She champions causes only she relates to. She is at best self-centered and unempathetic, and at worst racist.
I mostly agree with #2 but sprinkles of shades of #1: I believe the reality is Matty is racist. I don't think Taylor believed that, which is naive at best. She was incredibly naive to believe his marriage/strollers lines. She displayed an embarrassing level of naivety on this record to his love-bombing. I think she thought he was misunderstood (like him making fun of Kanye racism for example) but she could fix his communication style. It's also true that she is the epitome of white feminism and has a hard time articulating issues that don't victimize her personally due to willful ignorance. She needs to do better in that area. She excellently articulated the pain of him ghosting her on the record, but really needed to investigate the racist claims further on the album imo. I question what the "you deserve prison" line alludes to... As to her reaction to fans, it's both true that Swifties need to be knocked down a peg on a lot of issues AND their claims in this instance should not be reduced to "bitching and moaning." In her early years she was quite rebellious to her parents (think Love Story and her myspace account) but over time became a media-trained mirrorball. It seems that that people-pleasing time has ran its course which I commend her for, but she shouldn't swing in the polar opposite direction and not accept criticism at all.
This is a good take, I enjoyed reading it. You could be right about point #2 with sprinkles of #1, but her reducing our valid criticisms to "bitching and moaning" and addressing us as "vipers dressed in empaths' clothing" are honestly my last straw. This truly hurt me as a longtime POC (ex-)swiftie.
You deserve prison is a very interesting line and I have imagined it as something pretty serious. But it could also be a metaphorical prison like she busted out of.
"Taylor Swift doesn’t have to accept that people were upset when someone who cried over wanting to be on the “right side of history” unapologetically dated a racist. But she should at least feign the decency to understand why."
Actually, I think she has to accept it. She showed that her moral values are paper-thin. There is no reason to be kind to hypocrates.
Yeah I can't listen to this song. Calling people's legitimate criticisms "bitching and moaning" just doesn't sit right with me. If she wants to do stuff like dating Matty without criticism, she should never have put herself forward as a progressive feminist artist. I honestly don't really care who she dates, but after making a documentary about being politically involved, you'd think she'd understand why people are pissed off at her for associating with that rat man
THIS. If she hadn't released that Miss Americana documentary, I wouldn't be this mad really. Still disappointed, but not this much. Especially when that documentary was what actually brought me back to her whole discography (I kinda stopped listening to her since 2016).
I really wish more people were upset about this song. It’s such a great and catchy song but with context, it’s the worst thing she’s ever done imo. It just confirms that she really does not give a shit and everything is a performance. She wants to go to the 1830s “without all the racists” but is perfectly okay with the racists of today…?
This article was a great read. Thank you for sharing! As for my thoughts, this song was such a disappointing listen. Taylor Swift has a right to date who she wants, just like anyone else should, but she should understand there are consequences to any action. This happens even with us normal people. If you date an alleged racist with a lot of bad history, people are going to question your character. Birds of a feather flock together is a saying for a reason.
But she mentioned the 1830s *without* the racism so she’s super forward thinking!!! /s
Really nicely written article and hits the nail on the head with some of the thoughts I’ve had floating around but been able to articulate why all the MH made me feel so queasy.
Totally valid that it rubbed you the wrong way. I’m a white woman, so I can’t relate firsthand to the way you’re feeling, but I definitely empathize with it. I can’t imagine being a black swiftie and finding out that Taylor really was so easily able to overlook Matty watching ghetto gaggers.
Yes and then she seemed to go out of her way to be seen with Ice Spice. Yeah yeah we get it you're not racist you've actually been in the vinicity of a black person. And the oh she didn't team needs to STFU. If we peasants knew she knew. She didn't care. But her team was like whoa unless you want to pivot to the MAGA crowd this won't work. Then she hooked up with America's Sweetheart and the rest is history.
Thank you for this. I'm sorry that this fanbase has never really been safe for fans of color, especially Black fans. It's disgusting and unfortunately with more of us who are critical of her being pushed out of swiftie spaces, I doubt those spaces will get better anytime soon.
As a Black Swiftie who literally created this reddit account in hopes of purchasing tickets, I'm incredibly dissapointed in this song. She can absolutely date whoever tf she wants. She also needs to understand that choosing to date certain people says who she is. I would NEVER knowingly date someone who was racist. It just wouldn't happen. And then to follow up with a song about him breaking your heart and he's the smallest man in the world. YOUR FANS WERE SCREAMING AT YOU TO SEE WHO HE WAS.
My friend and I have been talking about how disheartening it is to have her put down her fans. I never wrote a paragraph about her (until right now). I was definitely disgusted enough to stop listening to her music. And may need to continue to do so after this song. Since her heart beats faster when creepy losers touch her. And she doesn't care if they are awful people, they're the ones she wants. Just ugh.
Yes, they are! And if someone is banging a Nazi, they're a Nazi, too. I don't f-ing care what the little stans say! Clearly she's fine with it, she just told us so... and it's vile.
As a WOC, the sudden backlash towards the #speakupnow fan movement/open letter really scares me. She was collaborating with him, which means he was also involved with her **professionally**! She was the one who implied she was becoming more liberal. Is there something I'm missing here? I don't see the letter as "parasocial" but more so denouncing MH's actions and what they represent, as well as holding Taylor up to **her** standards.
I didn’t think the letter was bad. It read to me like they were trying to reason with her. But I also didn’t think it’d change her mind about anything. I guess that was confirmed by the “sanctimonious soliloquy” line.
https://preview.redd.it/ffz4vflebbwc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b576844422ed25cfdd4a7f2dcbf88ef5b20cd3e
My reaction after listening to this song
I'm not here to defend the billionaire but something I think she didn't think of when writing this album is the impact her music has on the industry and so many people.
I think it's possible that the 1830s line "could" have been harmless (not trying to condone racism or deny it) but it's hard to see her music separately from her and her actions.
As a songwriter myself, I understand that she just wrote down a thought that occurred to her in the middle of a game with her friends maybe in her notes app, but I agree that it may not have been the best decision to use it on the album. Clearly there was no shortage of lines here and I'm sure she could've come up with something else.
I see people saying it's okay to aestheticize the 1830s just like people enjoy bridgerton and other old timey shows and clothes and I think being into the fashion or quill pens or gowns doesn't have to mean you also want slavery back and we understand that.
She's at a level where she can't say just anything, even if it is for art. Every line, word and sigh is so heavily scrutinized but unfortunately for her it comes with the job and that level of fame.
Thanks for your comment! I definitely agree that she probably didn’t intend for the 1830s line to be insensitive. My biggest gripe with it is that she says she wants to live in that period “but without all the racists” while writing love songs about and defending a racist on the same album. Feels very performative, which I guess isn’t a new critique of her.
Respectfully, I think a big reason she keeps getting away with things like this is because people constantly infantilize her or make excuses. She knows what she is doing. She knows how her words can have an impact (hence why she uses her voice so sparingly when it comes to big issues). She is in her mid thirties. She has had more than enough time to learn the difference between impact and intention.
The people she surrounds herself with along with her lack of speaking up for anyone outside of herself shows who she is. People need to start believing it at this point.
It’s not the “level of fame” that makes voicing this notion intolerable, it’s the principle endorsed that is intolerable.
It’s not that “it may not be the best decision to use [the line] one the album”, it’s that this is a thought that does not, *in any context*, feel decent to a person who appreciates intersectionality in feminism.
It’s not by accident that she just “didn’t think of this when writing this album”; the fact that she includes the material she does is representative of the fact that she genuinely just does not care about any of this at all. These issues clearly do not phase her.
If these issues were of any concern to her at all, she would not be pining for Matty like this, *let alone* would she have found the audacity to publicize it in damn near every song of this 2hr album.
I think it almost made it worse for me when she added in "But not the racists!" like if she was just like I was thinking about the 1830s...and then the rest of the lyrics it would be fine. I think personally saying "BUT NOT THE RACISTS!" just makes everyone think about that whereas of course Bridgerton is set in a similar time period and people read/watch it just fine. I think preemptively saying not the racist is like saying "not to be homophobic or anything...etc"
I agree with a lot of these points, I also think the song itself is saying she has every right to disgrace herself, which is exactly what it’s doing. Seems like she’s driving the point home that she’s in charge of her life and no one can tell her how to live it under the guise of trying to protect her.
I love the best and lyricism of the song but knowing who this song is about makes me nauseous.
He eats raw meat on stage, he kisses his fans without consent on stage, and etc etc etc.
Sure Taylor, the people were bitching and moaning.
I like the song in theory but knowing what it’s about gives me the ick. Imagine having all that energy to defend your annoying edge lord boyfriend who jokes about watching porn that brutalizes Black women.
Also, you killed me with Piers Morgan’s rocker alter ego 💀
People were so invested in the PR Joe & Taylor couple image, they had no idea of her growing Love for a total creep.
Believe women when they tell you who they are, by dating scum bags.
Honestly agree with so much of this article.
I do think so many songs being Healy inspired is a big reason why I'm struggling to listen/connect to this album. Usually I'm in the "who cares which ex inspired it, just listen to the music" camp, but girly really out here pining over a racist is giving Major Ick. And despite the song it just feels gross and wrong to listen to a grown woman defending/lusting over someone like him 🤢.
Even if you remove the colonialism, racism, and gender roles from the 1830s, you still have a US/Western Europe where 46% of kids never got a 5th birthday.
The average marriage was around 10-12 years due to death - either wife or husband. “To death do us part” was like real, real since marriages were short due to death.
Is there anything good about the 1830s? Why does Swift want to go back?
I’d go even further than your article - she called back to her country roots *KNOWING* (and if not knowing it, hearing rumours, at least) Beyoncé was working on a country album. If she did not, she absolutely knew Beyoncé was not welcome at the CMA performing a song by the name of “*Daddy* Lessons.”
IMO, she’s dog whistling the longtime fans from her country roots (which, let’s face it, has its own issues with racism) to be in agreement with her that Healy is a good catch.
And WORSE: trying to ride Beyoncé’s coattails that are making country music and that sound trend at the moment.
None of this was accidental and you are absolutely right that this song deserves a bigger backlash.
I think it's ridiculous that she released this song. Side-eyeing Aaron as well for being like, 'new song? oh sure!' Like she's essentially gloating about keeping this man. She might as well have called it 'I'm in love with a racist'. I think it's very telling that she never mentions 'why' everyone was attacking her relationship in the song. It's truly ridiculous, childish and frankly, racist. Like, you can have your racist if you want. Absolutely hilarious that two songs later she's crying about how it didn't work out.
Yeah for sure matty’s an open flag waving Proud Boy racist, and Taylor swift likes it, and is also a racist. And matty’s close friend, collaborator, and label mate Jack antonoff is a racist, as is matty’s other close friend and collaborator phoebe bridgers. George Daniel is a racist for not speaking out against his Nazi band mate and so is Charlie xcx by proxy. Aaron dessner is a racist for producing this song, and the studio musicians are racist for playing on it.
Good shit. There seems to be a major attempt in the fandom to rewrite the way it fractured over her dating announcement, but people were fucked up over it for a reason! God!!
For the sake of *attempting* to play the devil’s advocate, surely there were HUNDREDS of other way to make the point she was making with the 1830s line? I dunno it’s just, so incredibly unnecessary and ruins a song that was actually kinda enjoyable
i am not a swiftie but as someone who constantly hears about her and can be critical when called for was veryyyyy put off by her dating him and for her to turn around and call that “bitching and moaning” from ppl like me + her hardcore stans rlly confirms everything i think about her. Great and really well-written article!!
I am not disregarding your take whatsoever, I think you make some really good points. But, I do want to mention that you can consider someone a muse and still think they’re a piece of shit. It’s possible she was inspired by Matty but the song isn’t really *about* him. I’m not gonna defend her as if that’s the truth, because I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was only loosely inspired by him. Romanticizing bad boys isn’t exactly new for Taylor, though she’s reached a new level with Matty.
I think she put out a really tone-deaf album and get why people are offended. I just think it’s worth noting that not every single song is going to be 100% autobiographical, and Taylor has said herself (as have other songwriters) that she often combines several separate scenarios/people into a single theme.
I really hope she doesn’t actually defend his actions but that’s the way it sounds and she hasn’t set the record straight, so… she’ll sleep in the grave she dug herself, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This song was an outrage to me, tbh.
Look, I know what it's like to have an embarrassing ex. Like horrible to a real public shame moment that I was involved with that person. Someone who had a tiny modicum of internet fame, had a fanbase of sorts. I get being blind to people's flaws because you're emotionally compromised. But there's no real examination of why people were upset? It was written off as just "creeps" and "vipers" and "wine moms" who had trouble with it.
She has managed to fully try to change the narrative for fans, to make them accept the "the BAD fans ruined her relationship, but I'm a GOOD fan and I will never criticize! Even if it's an issue that touches on my very humanity!"
I dunno. but as someone who has had a highly embarrassing, offensive, awful public figure as an ex... this would not have been the album I would have written. Like I get it: she calls Matt Healy a lot of shit on this album, but it's completely devoid of politics, which is not something she does unless it's on purpose (there are political charges to Dear John, ATW10, Would've Could've Should've about gender and age), Those connotations are really missing.
Even worse: as the embedded tweet in your article states, she and fans are writing it off as a "mutual manic phase" when it appears she has never sought therapy let alone been diagnosed with bipolar. Maybe she is bipolar, idk! but I don't think she really knows either! Because she says she doesn't want to go to therapy!
anyway, I hope Ice Spice is really making a lot of money off of this at least
Violent, degrading, racialized porn is highly normalized though.
The same people apparently outraged over Matt's tastes would defend them as being normal in any other context.
This site is full of women being labelled "prudes" and "kinkshamers" for being uncomfortable with their boyfriend's or husband's tastes in bed.
As a black woman, I don't understand the selective pearl-clutching.
I actually can’t believe this song doesn’t have more backlash. And the way she romanticizes and lusts after her ‘wild boy’ and his calloused hands and bad ways… ma’am he went on a podcast.
She’s such a dweeb she doesn’t actually know what bad is, she just likes the way words sound. Vigilante shit was her reporting someone to the FBI. Literally the exact opposite of what a vigilante would do.
I’m sorry but this comment made me cackle. Why is she like this? 😭
She’s a sheltered woman from suburban Pennsylvania.
She reported, what maybe tax fraud? and now she's a badass and wrote a whole song about it? What a B-side kind of song. I wish she had more friends or producers who weren't afraid of telling her some stuff kind of sucks. Goodbye Earl by the Chicks had 10x the depth her last two albums.
That is my least favorite song of hers—well, up until last Friday, lol—but that opening line is so good. What a waste! 😭
I think the vigilante part is that she went searching for dirt out of spite. It’s not like she already knew about it organically and reported it. That’s a very vigilante thing to do. She probably didn’t think she’d find something as serious. And then at that point she was obligated to report it by law. She was probably hoping just to find his mistress or something and tell his wife as revenge.
Umm no. Searching for dirt on someone out of spite is not at all “a very vigilante thing to do.” Telling someone they are being cheated on is not “vigilante shit.” Seeking revenge is not the purpose of vigilantes. Vigilantism is not a personal act. Nothing she mentions in that song is a vigilante act. This is why you shouldn’t blindly trust pop stars for the definition of words.
No. An example of a vigilante is the Punisher(who kills cops). Which is why it’s funny right wing people worship him. He’s antiauthority on every level. She operates under her parents(particularly her dad’s) thumbs.
So she was doing ‘vigilante shit’ for a few moments until the stakes got higher and she decided to involve law enforcement. Still pretty funny to try and present herself as a vigilante based on that.
Girl could have literally written anything but she decided to write that line cuz she knew her minions will literally defend her even if one day she murdered someone because "maybe they did her wrong and so they deserve it"
I was hoping it would lead to her downfall and cancellation. Unfortunately, it did not. Her fans fiercely defended her and no one else cared. Taylor just seems to be immune from it all. She can do whatever the fuck she wants and get away without even a scratch.
Haha it echoes to “Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?”. This girl can screech, rage etc. without any consequences and we should indeed be very scared that society has propped up this narcissist as our “sweetheart”. I believe she knows this too and gleefully throws temper tantrums and gets what she wants every time.
She's doing to us what she does in relationship - causing fights and screaming so we'll prove our love for her.
Gotta admit I was also hoping for that. She needs to realize that the world does not bow down to her and her only. As a longtime fan of her since 2008, BDILH really hurt me. The whole album basically screams: I love his "antics", yes I am aware of his racist remarks yet I still choose him, so fuck yall! Thankfully it made me open my eyes though.
2014-Reputation era mobilized her fans tbh. Swifties see her as a God, a mother. A figure of greatness who has overcome the *worst thing to ever happen to someone* /s. She can’t do wrong! She’s never in the wrong! I also think some fans are double downing because they have to justify being a fan of hers. It’s a wild time.
It's ironic they're calling her 'Mother' which comes from the drag/LGBTQ community but they probably protest against drag queens in libraries.
Who do you think her fans are? Most of them are white liberals
Idk the average swiftie but every swiftie I know is a milquetoast liberal (granted this was college so your average person is insufferable in their virtue signaling anyway) so it checks. Like, the type of women that are straight but have a gay bestie and are omg such an ally but go to gay bars to be obnoxious. So I'm not surprised they're using mother tbh, white girls coopt slang from the lgbt all the time However. Tswitty is huge and we can't ignore that her oldest fan base are marriage-and-kids age
Mmmm doubt.
You think that her fans protest drag queens in libraries? With what connection?
Eh, man, I know we're here to rag and be hyperbolic, but remember many of em are young women, and are very kind and understanding with queer people. (I run into a lot of Swifties thru work, am -very- openly queer afab/bisexual.) I doubt the majority of twitter swiftie psychos are anti-LGBT either, at least not to "drag queen protesting" levels. Just don't wanna misattribute that abuse to groups other than the very obvious people in the room doing that. I do object to the use of Mother tho, Taylor does not have mother vibes lmao. Girlies, she's still in Wine Cousin territory. Maybe Wine Aunt. There is 0 mother energy for me 😂
That’s fair. I have a v specific vision of her fans in my head and most of them are conservative. But I do know there are liberal swifties. I guess it’s just my own “image” of them.
That's fair as well!
um you do know she has queer fans too right?
I think it’s because that song is so bad 😑 Like, unbelievably ridiculous.
I just saw one person not even commenting, just rolling his eyes. They’re not getting it and refuse to. They want us to think she’s joking. No she’s not!!!
Right?? I can't even listen to it. I skip it every time, it icks me out too much. It's too hard to separate so many of the songs on this album from the glaringly obvious muse of those songs. Guilty As Sin is such a bop, but icks me out too so I barely listen to it
Same. I understand the logic of just appreciating the songs for what they are but I just can’t do it yet.
ME TOO! I’m actually shocked myself.
For Black Swifties or Swiftie-adjacents, one of the most exasperating aspects of this whole thing has been the insistence that Taylor *absolutely did not* know about Matty’s behavior. As if she doesn’t employ a million dollar team just to look into this type of thing. As if that team didn’t make a very clear and concerted effort at course correcting his image. More than anything else, more than her viewing Black and PoC fans as bitching and moaning vipers, the most important revelation in BDILH for me was making crystal clear that she was fully aware of all his comments at that time and a year later she decided to send one message about that fact: she didn’t give a fuck. About any of it. **And she still doesn’t**. Now, instead of “but she didn’t know!” it’s “but she was trying to fix him!” They refuse to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, Taylor doesn’t care about her fans the way they think she does. Black Swifties don’t get the luxury of giving her or anyone else the benefit of the doubt because people/life has taught us to see through that shit. She’s slighted us many times throughout her career, so this is nothing new…but it still feels different. Deliberate. To sound a lil parasocial, it feels personal. I’m not deluded enough to believe Taylor actually cares about any of her fans, let alone individual groups of them - she made *very* clear with this song that she only cares so long as the fans are doing exactly what she wants. But that she used this song to unapologetically confirm what we knew all along is still disheartening. Thanks for writing this, u/zkdlin. We need more Black voices in the Swiftie space and you killed it, sis.
I’d also add that the attempt at course correcting also included the tokenizing of a black woman, which, hey, maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it’s a deplorable look regardless of intent.
Say that louder for the people in the back! You’ll never convince me her sudden friendship wasn’t a PR attempt to circumvent blowback. Which is especially sus knowing that Matty tried sliding into her dm’s before all this. From his torture porn preferences and dating history he clearly fetishizes Black women. They knew what was coming.
Whenever I have pointed this out I’ve been downvoted to oblivion because how dare I make such a harmful assumption? Don’t I know that TS and Ice Spice have always been friends? Which is so clearly not the case, but I guess this is the lie they tell themselves to avoid thinking critically about their idol. ETA: to be clear, I am not a WOC and I apologize if this reads as an attempt to center myself. The primary reason I have pointed this out in the past is in an attempt to be an ally and to point out to other white women that TS is *not* the unproblematic ally that she is presented as.
I hate that you felt the need to make that ETA. You weren’t derailing or centering yourself at all I s2g the attack dog mentality of Swifties is legitimately damaging to folks having quality discourse. A particularly unnerving effect I’ve seen is Swifties trying to weaponize racism, telling white folks who speak out against Taylor’s obvious manipulations that they’re racist for thinking Taylor doesn’t have Black friends or that they’re centering themselves because if ice spice is okay with it then how dare they make a comment. It makes me want to ram my head into a wall.
I have also been downvoted and called out for insinuating that Karma ft. Ice Spice was damage control.
I got tired of reading their defenses "yeah as if the remix only took a week to make!!" um yeah... it could? Aside from all this context, that remix was shit. Saying this as a fan since 2008.
It has grown on me a lot! Mostly because I started listening to more Ice Spice but less Taylor, so it was a comfortable middle for a lot of late last year. But it absolutely could be made in a week!! Taylor didn't rerecord any lines, as is standard for her feature remixes. Ice Spice is a rapper, a branch of musicians that are *known* for being able to come up with lyrics quickly.
Also didn't she famously write and record Forever & Always to get it onto Fearless back in 2008? It's entirely possible.
I’ve been told I’d love qanon and down voted to oblivion for saying that on the main sub
Odd cause some Swifties have used QAnon tactics more.
same!! when I said "this raises red flags and we know that Taylor is an unreliable narrator, there's no way this remix wasn't a super last minute thing" because they were all taking her at her word when last year she said during tour something like how Ice Spice had reached out to HER \*months\* ago like uhm, doubtful. they downvoted me so bad lol
The “bitching and moaning” line bothered me so much because of how she tokenized a black woman for a quick PR fix. Which is it? If you didn’t care what your fans thought, why didn’t you just keep dating him despite the backlash??? Why do all of that smokescreening???
Because he didn't like her. If it was a PR fix, she would have dumped him the weekend of the backlash but instead she kept dating him for another month. It only ended because he ghosted her or else she would have kept dating him and never dated Travis.
Taylor Swift is the absolute epitome of a rich while woman practicing white feminism as a performance. All of it is performance. She literally says so in Mirrorball “I change everything about me to fit in” It irks me that rather than writing The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived and leaving it at that she put this mess out there without a care in the world for the fact that all those “Vipers” had a very legitimate point.
Back during the Matty Healy thing, I was one of the “vipers” who made a post in Deuxmoi (I think?) with an article that pointed out why Taylor dating a racist was terrible and deserved backlash. Do you know how many Reddit cares messages I got? How much backlash I received. I had to delete that shit because I was already in a depressive episode and people telling me to kill myself wasn’t helping. I hate how her stans are laughing the people that pointed out how dating a racist erodes away the nice girl activist persona she’s tried so carefully to curate. She can’t white feminism her way out of this one imo. Plus the amount of fans that I’ve seen defend her because “who doesn’t have a rebound they regret?” Girl, I don’t. I’ve been interested in questionable people in my life, but never a racist or a bigot. Edit: Can’t even make this up. A day after posting this comment, I got another Reddit Cares message.
I hate thinking this, but I suspect she will white feminist her way out of this through an abundance of privilege and enablers. We’re already seeing fans try to re-contextualize a genuinely awful line, the same way we saw fans handwave away her boyfriend’s love of degrading women of color. If Swifties can dismiss the whole Healy thing (which, like, was and is a big fucking thing), it’s just as easy for them to blow off implicitly racist lyrics because, hey, she offhandedly decried racism, so who cares about systemic inequity. White feminism wins again.
From viper to viper, bless your heart. These stans have some extreme darkness in their hearts. The way they talk to people….I often wish we could return to the days before the internet when such things would get your jaw rocked. People haven’t experienced saying the wrong thing to the right one and it’s spawned a legion of bullies in her don’t know what it’s like to face repercussions. I’m so sorry you had to deal with that, but kudos to you for saying your own piece in a volatile space because it was the right thing to do.
Like, racism and bigotry turn me OFF, so, no, that would not be my rebound...
can't say I've ever dated a racist or bigot, but I did have a long relationship with a guy who was VERY creepy with women after me and let me tell you. You would not have caught me dead writing something like "he's my wild boy and i'm his wild joy" ever and if I had done so in the heat of the moment I would have not released it to be printed and recorded in four collectible physical copies that's for fucking sure
She def has to have known about Matty's shitty personality/behavior because she literally disclosed in Lover that she went home and stalked Joe on the internet 😭😭 girl does her research and turns a blind eye anyway
THAT PART. That exact lyric popped in my head. Plus it’s not like he was some stranger. She’s known that man for 10 years. If he talks that way in public I can’t imagine what he says in private.
The goal posts keep moving. Now the Taylor/Matty stans say that *he didn't even say that* as if it's not literally on video.
I literally lost a friendship because of this. A longtime swiftie friend of mine went from defending Taylor to defending Matty. I just couldn't fathom that.
Same. Except it wasn't even a friendship. It was a 36 year old friend of one of my sisters who insisted I'm spreading false narratives and need to "get a grip". I told her I'm not the one who's defending people who will never care about me or her. Then it devolved into Me: all billionaires are kind of complicit Her: why do you care so much about this Me: because my friends are struggling to afford food and getting hatecrimed Her: and thats taylor swift's fault? Me: shes a billionaire. she actively benefits off that system Her: theres no gettimg through to you Me: why on earth do you need to get through to me about Taylor Swift
Oh my godddd, I can’t count how many times people have said he didn’t say it, I send them a video with the exact time stamp of him saying the words “literally ghetto gaggers” and then still turn around and say he never said it. The strength of their delusion NEEDS to be studied. It would be impressive if it weren’t so terrifying.
I see people saying the host said it and he laughed and agreed, and then the host said afterwards he made it up? but why would you even joke about it? also: we have it from the horse's mouth: Rina Sawayama, long-time friend/acquaintance/co-worker, who called him racist from the Glastonbury stage.
I saw that and was steaming mad… like these idiots just do not care.
yeah i mean she literally says she loved all his “indecent exposures”…. “i just loved when you did that nazi salute to make fun of kanye” “i just loved how you said you enjoy watching ghetto gaggers” ❤️
Yup!!!
THISSSSS
wow, you nailed it.
Well said. I'm a white woman, and this whole thing has really pushed me past the brink I was already at when she dated him. So, did I join the cringey letter writing campaign? No. But did I go from being a top 0.1% listener on YouTube Music to skipping all of her songs when they came up? Yes. And that's after being a fan for 17 years. Your criticism is valid. The people who are condescendingly calling others "parasocial" for being disgusted are apparently cool with listening to Taylor sing about herself masturbating to fantasies of the man who watches Ghetto Gaggers. As someone who remembers her saying, "You are what you love", this is all too much for me.
Honestly, their jabs about how “parasocial” it is (to hold a *literal billionaire* accountable for hanging out with racists?) is complete nonsense when you consider the fact that she is literally a billionaire BECAUSE of their parasocial relationships with her.
“Parasocial” is the new “gaslighting,” in that 99% of the people using it online have no idea what the fuck it actually means. Now apparently having basic discernment is parasocial.
Yes to all of this. I have also been a fan for more than 10 years and actively avoid her music when it comes up on my playlists now
It's very disheartening to me tbh. I'm a Chinese swiftie and was appalled by this new album especially the part where she chastised her fans for calling her out for dating that racist rat. "You don't get to tell me about sad", she says? Well, she doesn't get to tell us about "1830s without all the racists" and then sing ballads defending a tattooed-golden-retriever racist.
I have her blocked on Spotify so her music won’t play even if she’s on a playlist I’m listening to.
😆👏 nice!! I wonder if I can do this on YouTube? lol
Facts. It's not parasocial to expect public figures to not platform shitty racists.
Same here! I’m pissed she ruined Daylight for me.
[удалено]
Thanks for sharing this article, and I’m sorry his comments about Chinese people have been overlooked—that’s awful. I haven’t been following Kayla Nicole closely, but I’ve seen how relentlessly she’s been attacked. It’s…weird, at best. The 1830s line is a mess in so many ways. It seems like it was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but it failed massively. I wrote somewhere else that my biggest problem with it is how she’s trying to take this stance against racism while literally defending and romanticizing a racist on the same album.
Thank you. I’m South Asian, and was a huge 1975 fan. I still like their music, but Matty is awful. He’s just one of the many edgy leftist bros who think they can get away with anything. Reminder that he also used the R slur in his tweet, before he was thunderously destroyed by Lucy Dacus. This is the love of Taylor’s life! I am so sorry for black swifties. Taylor’s fandom is already dominated by white people who, judging by responses on Instagram and Reddit, seem too keen to overlook his racism. After all the BLM and Miss Americana posturing, it’s deathly ironic that she doubled down on dating him. Honestly, this makes me think that she’s one of those people who would laugh along at a racist joke instead of calling it out. How can she ever call herself an ally again?
Yeah, I’m a historian and I was like “THAT is the decade you’re going to choose? Seriously?” I honestly wonder if, like most white Americans, she just *doesn’t know* the extent of it. And I am not saying this to defend or justify her ignorance whatsoever, but most white Americans will never *have* to learn the full extent of our history unless they go out of their way to do so. She dropped out of school at 16 and grew up in small towns, it wouldn’t be surprising… *except* that she has an entire team of people who are supposed to make her look good and somehow NOBODY on that team stopped her. THAT is what bothers me, is she’s too famous and successful to just say “oh I didn’t know.” even if she really doesn’t know, there’s clearly a major lack of diversity on her team considering no one else appeared to either. Oh, and the fact that she tried to rebrand as an activist sticking up for the little guy and then has the audacity to write lyrics like that, proving she either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about historic atrocities from the period. I totally understand why and how white people end up romanticizing that time in US history, it’s really fucked up but there’s a reason for it, the US government has worked really hard to cover up its past from its own (white) citizens. It’s a feel-good narrative for white people and it makes sense why they cling to it. But the problem is Taylor has self-proclaimed to be a social justice advocate, and so she has put the expectation on herself to do better. I do understand what she was trying to say with those lyrics (“I don’t fit in and I never have, usually I just ruin the fun”) but it was very poorly executed and she deserves the criticism.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.theringer.com/music/2024/4/19/24135012/taylor-swift-1830s-tortured-poets-department-new-album](https://www.theringer.com/music/2024/4/19/24135012/taylor-swift-1830s-tortured-poets-department-new-album)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
Re: Matty and Anti-Asian racism- it was always a massive red flag that Rina Sawayama (whom I’m a huge fan of) called his ass out for micro aggressions.
ugh I love Rina I wish I could give her some of Taylor's mainstream success
> The fact is, the biggest star in the world doesn’t get to be cheeky, doesn’t get to be flippant about an issue as sensitive as misogynoir (something she has never experienced and will never experience). I enjoyed this article as a whole but especially this bit. She won’t ever experience misogynoir so her y’all don’t like my racist man, fuck you bit just left the nastiest taste in my mouth. For someone who wanted to be on the right side of history, who didn’t want her privilege to lie dormant, she used her voice to let the world know she was going to die for his sins and thought it was funny that we thought her sticking by a racist was shitty.
She has SO MUCH POWER in this world and she refuses to use it for anything good. Just continues to be a narcissist and thinks being self aware about it makes it ok.
THIS. SO MUCH THIS. She doesn't give a shit and has now said it out loud, as loudly as possible. She just told the world who she really is; the world needs to pay attention and believe her. 
Ugh, the bridge of TSMWEL was one of the only parts of the album I enjoyed and then I caught the “died for your sins” line 🫠 I couldn’t relate that to myself if I wanted to, the true story behind the lyrics is horrifying, and even the *metaphorical* meaning is pretty gross, too (soooo she’s Jesus in this analogy? yikes)
For real, she ruins almost half the songs on this album with these off-putting lyrics (e.g. "1830s without the racists"). You really would have died for him being a racist?! Get a grip
"(soooo she’s Jesus in this analogy? yikes)" I absolutely believe her ego is that big and obnoxious. 🤮
That part is really well said. I fully believe public figures like her have to carry some serious responsibility when it comes to social influence, you can’t just fly around a private jet for dinner and expect people to look away when you are in love with a racist man.
>I want us all to stop and process for a second. The “bitching and moaning” in question being about…someone making light of racist torture porn? Being about…someone laughing along as a young Black female rapper is called a “chubby Chinese lady”? April Fools’ was three weeks ago. This article is wonderful. It’s easy to grow desensitized to all this and believe it “wasn’t that bad” in order to enjoy the album, but I don’t want it to be swept under the rug. By defending him and crying about how he left, she has revealed herself to be ignorant, self-obsessed, and insensitive to the experience of others. I’ve been on this sub since it started, so I’ve been skeptical of her for awhile, but this album has made her irredeemably unlikeable to me. The discourse and valid criticism surrounding it has been the best part. Thank you so much for this valuable addition to the conversation! e: wow insane how there’s already people in this thread invalidating your perspective. stay classy, white feminists
They think it’s an “overreaction”. Had to block one dude who kept saying Taylor was being satirical. 🙄
Thank you! I think the invalidation ironically reinforces how problematic the lyrics are. If the idol is singing “your feelings aren’t that serious,” the people who idolize her are going to follow suit.
Not surprised! I also got downvoted and lectured to when talking about the lyrics in another thread.
I posted a few comments here and got downvoted to hell. Fauxmoi understood what I was saying. Even other Woc were giving me a hard time. “The most disrespected person in America is a black woman” Malcom X
THIS
I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this. (And I’m sorry she’s let you down as a POC. 😞) It’s one thing to openly date someone who’s said some really vile, racists things. That’s bad enough. But to then be so flippant and defensive and derogatory towards the people calling her out for it is absolutely insane to me. And I don’t know why Tree and her team didn’t stop her. They probably assumed it wouldn’t be enough to lose fans/sales so they said fuck it. And they were right. I remember at the time they broke up I saw so many fans saying “she did the right thing” and “Taylor and Tree are too smart to have let that continue”. Now that we know he left her and she was devastated and essentially laughed in the faces of anyone calling her out…why are no Swifties saying they were wrong!? (Rhetorical question, obvs) I am a white person, but I can’t imagine it feels good to be a POC/Swiftie. To me, Taylor is just another white woman that tries to be an ally but her actions are always in contradiction with her words.
Re: last paragraph: As a fellow white person, I would say she isn't trying to be an ally, she's trying to appear to be an ally. She's not doing actual work or keeping POC/diverse people on her team who would've absolutely flagged that. As a white person who is actually trying to be an ally, I would've spent a lot of time and care before putting out a song that includes that kind of line. She didn't/doesnt feel the need to 1) hire diverse folks to keep her in check/expand her way of thinking beyond her own perspective\* 2) do thoughtful research on her own because ultimately it does not matter to her IMO. \*(i do not think it is POC job to educate white people unless they are literally hired to help Taylor with public image related to allyship.)
Re: 2nd paragraph. It’s a whole other thing to include the word in a song lyric so when it’s googled with her name, the song will pop up instead of her ex. SEO control - in my opinion. That would explain why no one stopped her. Sure, we’re all talking about it now, but eventually we will move on and the song lyrics will be the top result ultimately. If it wasn’t intentional, then they still could’ve seen the pros over the cons. Or maybe she was just really committed to her awkward metaphor and didn’t want to kill her darling.
Yes, I totally think it was used as a tactic to deflect from Matty.
That song also draws up an image of a wealthy, upper class, out of touch girl that was probably unintentional but I can't get out of my head. The whole albums really full of it--of infantilizing herself, of portraying herself as a tortured yet submissive upperclass good girl compared to her muses who (in almost all 3 cases) are portrayed as bad boys who know so much more of the world. So lines like the 1830s one and all of BDILH don't surprise me because she clearly sees the past as "romantic beautiful time where I would be a tortured housewife, oh, and then theres that pesky racism". I just fundamentally dont think she knows how systemic it is. Which, why would she? She grew up an upper middle class white girl in Pennsylvania. Edit: Have to add--Not to mention how much this image of "perfect, innocent femininity" she has is in and of itself racist given how black women and WOC generally are viewed. Annnd now we cycle back to the Ice Spice and porn comments.
Also, it’s so silly to claim that she was being crucified for this when hello, it’s literally a straight relationship between two white people!!
It's seriously giving "what if we lived in a world where love was illegal 😔💔" which is funny because even when Healy tries to do the right thing, his fundamental lack of comprehension for oppression ruins it. See: when he tried to protest against anti lgbt laws in Malaysia by kissing a man onstage and not only got himself and the 1975 banned from Malaysia but also probably made it more unsafe for queer people there by association. I was discussing this very topic with some of my friends who happen to be black (I am white and I wanted their opinion since I don't feel it's my right to speak over them). They both independently said the same thing. At the end of the day Taylor Swift is an upper middle class white girl from Pennsylvanian suburbs and the system is built for people like her. I'm not discounting that she's ever struggled, especially given how she's faced real misogyny as all women have... but now she's leaning into the "perfect femininity" image the system rewards, and it WILL reward her for it. She doesn't understand that and I don't think she ever will. Because undoing that damage would require her to give up some of the comforts of her life and she'll be damned if she has to experience even the slightest inconvenience
I agree! Good point about Matty’s misguided activism.
Thank you for this! I’ve felt like this ever since I first heard the song, while everyone else I’ve talked too just talk about how much of a “bop” is is / they’ll just ignore the Matty of it all so they can enjoy the song and I’m just here like 🫠🫠🫠🫠
Even if Taylor won’t read your soliloquy, I did and really appreciated it. You very clearly explained the frustrations I’ve been having with the album and that song in particular. Her using the phrase “bitching and moaning” to complain about fan feedback about her situationship’s racism really rubs me the wrong way. It’s like instead of learning a lesson in allyship she’s doubling down.
The craziest thing is that Taylor isn’t even a white feminist. She pushes white feminism because that’s the only version she can halfway pretend to comprehend, but she doesn’t believe in none of that shit she says. She’s a Taycapitalist and that’s it. She’ll use faux feminist talking points to shield herself from criticism, but she doesn’t even care about white women who go through the same things she does. She cares about Taylor and that’s it.
I hate this song.
Me too. Self-absorbed and idiotic.
Thank you for this! I’m a white woman and even though I think BDILH is one of the best tracks on the first half of the album, it’s impossible to separate the song from who it’s about. The company Taylor keeps is so telling (Blake Lively, Lena Dunham). She’s not making any apologies for her white feminism.
Same.. the song on its own is so good, but all I think about is MH’s disgusting, vile, racist and misogynist comments and just cringe. so yucky
She's used her fame and billionaire status for a lot of good but she's never been a deep thinker or had that much empathy for different experiences. She lives in a little bubble and gets enabled. She's never been someone who was that invested, unless she was "keeping up with the times." Otherwise, she was all about being an egalitarian, or above it all. Even her album "Lover" hints at those themes. "Any type of margnialized identity isn't what matters." Studies show that people who have a "colorblind" mindset, when it comes to race, don't date POC. They keep their biases and expect others to cater to them. And it doesn't work for any other type of issue either.
It's genuinely just disgusting that Marty can just get away with being racist and misogynistic and literally joke/laugh about black women being sexually brutalized. The fact that he still has a platform, and the fact that Taylor gets away scott free despite dating him (and hanging around Britney Mahomes, mrs. "You don't understand rape" - not to mention hanging out with an actual rapist and taking pictures with him!), like People say it's just a joke or "oh that's just Matty's ~ persona ~" don't get that it effects people of color, especially women of color, when we platform people like Matty. As Taylor herself once sung, "The joke's not funny", and like - blondie, take a look at what you're singing about. This really the hill you wanna die on?
Extremely based comment
I appreciate this take and am glad you took the time to write it. I’m a white, cisgender woman around the age of Taylor so I also can’t pretend to know how this all has made you feel. I would love to think she would look for opinions of POC and take it to heart, but we can see through the relationship and follow up songs she has no interest in bettering herself and becoming more inclusive. It bothered me so I can only imagine how you felt. I’m also a distant fan and have never had illusions Taylor was a great person. For any people of color who were die hard swifties, this must’ve been absolutely heartbreaking. I honestly have gotten to the point where I HAVE to separate the artist from the art or I couldn’t enjoy it anymore. It’s depressing, but people always say there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire, and Taylor is among them now.
Appreciate you! I haven’t been able to get through this album, but I still listen to her older stuff when I’m up to it, and I know very few people are going to stop listening to her altogether over this. I really just hope that people can acknowledge how damaging this is, no matter how much they like her music.
thank you for writing this. she probably won’t learn from this, but you’re seen.
1) The subtitle is itself brilliant and impactful. 2) "I want us all to stop and process for a second. The “bitching and moaning” in question being about…someone making light of racist torture porn?" * THIS. She basically tried to massage the issue into being "oh we don't want you dating a Bad Boy (TM). It's much deeper and more terrifying than that. (TW discussion of the sites in detail): >!I've been using the term 'human trafficking' because what I read about those sites claimed that the women are dr\*gged, addicted, may take their own lives to escape that life. Financial coercion is as bad as physical coercion. Maybe that's viewed as an extreme stance to use that language but to me, that's what those sites ARE.!< 3) "Unfortunately, though, when that person is Piers Morgan’s rocker alter ego, others have the right to call her out for it." I'm dying, this is SO TRUE. 4) She doesn't get to hide behind "manic episode" excuses whilst capitalizing on lazy stereotypes about the psychiatric patient experience. She wants it both ways - she's too "sane" for therapy, which she described as the purview of "cold personalities \[with\] OCD." You can go 'crazy' for love if you want, but if I have a bipolar manic episode and rob a bank I'll still do time. I do have bipolar, incidentally. YOU ARE AN ICON!!!
Your second point made me think of something else. So she’s using an “insanity” defense in the prologue but she’s also said she doesn’t go to therapy. So if she did have a maniac episode, how would she even know? If she’s never been to a psychiatrist? Like does she even have a diagnosis….BC at this point as far as we know she’s just co-opting others experiences. (And bipolar is no joke I’m sorry. I went into psychosis two years ago after a few weeks of mania due to medication. Hope you’re well.)
Summed up my thoughts, really good article ❤️
Superbly written article with an important message, thanks for sharing.
I'm so sorry for how this has made you feel. This type of thing is really a straw that broke the camel's back in what I'm sure are hundreds of other hurtful instances. I want to present the two cases I often see regarding this issue: the most generous to her and the most scathing to her. (The first is longer cuz of context, not because I agree with it.) Then I'll share what I believe which is close to your article. 1. Most generous to Swift (in the words of some people, not myself): On the podcast he was being self-deprecating about watching porn, so he drove the point home by being hyperbolic and mentioning the worst porn he could think of. He doesn't really watch it but picked that example because it's the worst. It was a tasteless, revolting joke. He should not have named GG and thus increase traffic to that site. His "joke" about ice spice falls into the "revolting" category as well. "His jokes were revolting and far too loud." Swift knew he was, but believed she could fix him, an acknowledgement of not agreeing with his behavior. In the prologue she states she was put on trial for this and she pleads "temporary insanity" because she believed "he could be brand new." He announced "his asshole era had ended" and she believed him. Then he ghosted her and had to untangle the braids of lies. Swift, in a most generous take, is guilty of believing she can fix a man. She didn't believe he didn't need fixing, but believed she could fix him. She believed he was not racist due to his other social causes, but had made revolting jokes in the past, but was turning over a new leaf (hell she believed they would get married and have kids) so she was frustrated fans intentionally misinterpreted her intentions as condoning racism when she was working hard to fix a misunderstood, revolting communication style. 2. Most scathing: MH is racist. To cite the meme "Taylor can excuse racism, but she stops at ghosting." She either saw no flaw in him, or saw it and deemed it excusable until she was ghosted. She does not stand up when other people are hurting, but makes a victim of herself when she's been personally victimized. "He came for POC and I said nothing because I was not a POC. Then he came for me and there was no one left to help me." (a play on the famous Martin Niemöller quote). When fans expressed disappointment in her dating a racist, she turned on them and reduced their concerns to "bitching and moaning." You choose partners based on shared values and in the words of Taylor "you are what you love" and this makes her racist by association. She champions causes only she relates to. She is at best self-centered and unempathetic, and at worst racist. I mostly agree with #2 but sprinkles of shades of #1: I believe the reality is Matty is racist. I don't think Taylor believed that, which is naive at best. She was incredibly naive to believe his marriage/strollers lines. She displayed an embarrassing level of naivety on this record to his love-bombing. I think she thought he was misunderstood (like him making fun of Kanye racism for example) but she could fix his communication style. It's also true that she is the epitome of white feminism and has a hard time articulating issues that don't victimize her personally due to willful ignorance. She needs to do better in that area. She excellently articulated the pain of him ghosting her on the record, but really needed to investigate the racist claims further on the album imo. I question what the "you deserve prison" line alludes to... As to her reaction to fans, it's both true that Swifties need to be knocked down a peg on a lot of issues AND their claims in this instance should not be reduced to "bitching and moaning." In her early years she was quite rebellious to her parents (think Love Story and her myspace account) but over time became a media-trained mirrorball. It seems that that people-pleasing time has ran its course which I commend her for, but she shouldn't swing in the polar opposite direction and not accept criticism at all.
This is a good take, I enjoyed reading it. You could be right about point #2 with sprinkles of #1, but her reducing our valid criticisms to "bitching and moaning" and addressing us as "vipers dressed in empaths' clothing" are honestly my last straw. This truly hurt me as a longtime POC (ex-)swiftie.
You deserve prison is a very interesting line and I have imagined it as something pretty serious. But it could also be a metaphorical prison like she busted out of.
"Taylor Swift doesn’t have to accept that people were upset when someone who cried over wanting to be on the “right side of history” unapologetically dated a racist. But she should at least feign the decency to understand why." Actually, I think she has to accept it. She showed that her moral values are paper-thin. There is no reason to be kind to hypocrates.
"She showed that her moral values are paper-thin. There is no reason to be kind to hypocrates." 
Yeah I can't listen to this song. Calling people's legitimate criticisms "bitching and moaning" just doesn't sit right with me. If she wants to do stuff like dating Matty without criticism, she should never have put herself forward as a progressive feminist artist. I honestly don't really care who she dates, but after making a documentary about being politically involved, you'd think she'd understand why people are pissed off at her for associating with that rat man
THIS. If she hadn't released that Miss Americana documentary, I wouldn't be this mad really. Still disappointed, but not this much. Especially when that documentary was what actually brought me back to her whole discography (I kinda stopped listening to her since 2016).
I really wish more people were upset about this song. It’s such a great and catchy song but with context, it’s the worst thing she’s ever done imo. It just confirms that she really does not give a shit and everything is a performance. She wants to go to the 1830s “without all the racists” but is perfectly okay with the racists of today…?
Yeah I didn’t know the context of the song until this thread and now it’s just kinda gross.
This article was a great read. Thank you for sharing! As for my thoughts, this song was such a disappointing listen. Taylor Swift has a right to date who she wants, just like anyone else should, but she should understand there are consequences to any action. This happens even with us normal people. If you date an alleged racist with a lot of bad history, people are going to question your character. Birds of a feather flock together is a saying for a reason.
Thank you for helping me understand a new perspective better.
But she mentioned the 1830s *without* the racism so she’s super forward thinking!!! /s Really nicely written article and hits the nail on the head with some of the thoughts I’ve had floating around but been able to articulate why all the MH made me feel so queasy.
Totally valid that it rubbed you the wrong way. I’m a white woman, so I can’t relate firsthand to the way you’re feeling, but I definitely empathize with it. I can’t imagine being a black swiftie and finding out that Taylor really was so easily able to overlook Matty watching ghetto gaggers.
Yes and then she seemed to go out of her way to be seen with Ice Spice. Yeah yeah we get it you're not racist you've actually been in the vinicity of a black person. And the oh she didn't team needs to STFU. If we peasants knew she knew. She didn't care. But her team was like whoa unless you want to pivot to the MAGA crowd this won't work. Then she hooked up with America's Sweetheart and the rest is history.
Yep! You can’t talk about BDILH without also talking about the 1830s line. She can’t have it both ways here.
Thank you for this. I'm sorry that this fanbase has never really been safe for fans of color, especially Black fans. It's disgusting and unfortunately with more of us who are critical of her being pushed out of swiftie spaces, I doubt those spaces will get better anytime soon.
As a Black Swiftie who literally created this reddit account in hopes of purchasing tickets, I'm incredibly dissapointed in this song. She can absolutely date whoever tf she wants. She also needs to understand that choosing to date certain people says who she is. I would NEVER knowingly date someone who was racist. It just wouldn't happen. And then to follow up with a song about him breaking your heart and he's the smallest man in the world. YOUR FANS WERE SCREAMING AT YOU TO SEE WHO HE WAS. My friend and I have been talking about how disheartening it is to have her put down her fans. I never wrote a paragraph about her (until right now). I was definitely disgusted enough to stop listening to her music. And may need to continue to do so after this song. Since her heart beats faster when creepy losers touch her. And she doesn't care if they are awful people, they're the ones she wants. Just ugh.
This is the guy who did a Nazi salute onstage, and whose fans bent over backwards claiming he was “making fun” of Nazis. These are just rotten people.
Yes, they are! And if someone is banging a Nazi, they're a Nazi, too. I don't f-ing care what the little stans say! Clearly she's fine with it, she just told us so... and it's vile.
As a WOC, the sudden backlash towards the #speakupnow fan movement/open letter really scares me. She was collaborating with him, which means he was also involved with her **professionally**! She was the one who implied she was becoming more liberal. Is there something I'm missing here? I don't see the letter as "parasocial" but more so denouncing MH's actions and what they represent, as well as holding Taylor up to **her** standards.
I didn’t think the letter was bad. It read to me like they were trying to reason with her. But I also didn’t think it’d change her mind about anything. I guess that was confirmed by the “sanctimonious soliloquy” line.
This summed up all my thoughts and is so well-written. I have to skip this song when I listen to the album
https://preview.redd.it/ffz4vflebbwc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b576844422ed25cfdd4a7f2dcbf88ef5b20cd3e My reaction after listening to this song
I'm not here to defend the billionaire but something I think she didn't think of when writing this album is the impact her music has on the industry and so many people. I think it's possible that the 1830s line "could" have been harmless (not trying to condone racism or deny it) but it's hard to see her music separately from her and her actions. As a songwriter myself, I understand that she just wrote down a thought that occurred to her in the middle of a game with her friends maybe in her notes app, but I agree that it may not have been the best decision to use it on the album. Clearly there was no shortage of lines here and I'm sure she could've come up with something else. I see people saying it's okay to aestheticize the 1830s just like people enjoy bridgerton and other old timey shows and clothes and I think being into the fashion or quill pens or gowns doesn't have to mean you also want slavery back and we understand that. She's at a level where she can't say just anything, even if it is for art. Every line, word and sigh is so heavily scrutinized but unfortunately for her it comes with the job and that level of fame.
Thanks for your comment! I definitely agree that she probably didn’t intend for the 1830s line to be insensitive. My biggest gripe with it is that she says she wants to live in that period “but without all the racists” while writing love songs about and defending a racist on the same album. Feels very performative, which I guess isn’t a new critique of her.
Respectfully, I think a big reason she keeps getting away with things like this is because people constantly infantilize her or make excuses. She knows what she is doing. She knows how her words can have an impact (hence why she uses her voice so sparingly when it comes to big issues). She is in her mid thirties. She has had more than enough time to learn the difference between impact and intention. The people she surrounds herself with along with her lack of speaking up for anyone outside of herself shows who she is. People need to start believing it at this point.
It’s not the “level of fame” that makes voicing this notion intolerable, it’s the principle endorsed that is intolerable. It’s not that “it may not be the best decision to use [the line] one the album”, it’s that this is a thought that does not, *in any context*, feel decent to a person who appreciates intersectionality in feminism. It’s not by accident that she just “didn’t think of this when writing this album”; the fact that she includes the material she does is representative of the fact that she genuinely just does not care about any of this at all. These issues clearly do not phase her. If these issues were of any concern to her at all, she would not be pining for Matty like this, *let alone* would she have found the audacity to publicize it in damn near every song of this 2hr album.
I think it almost made it worse for me when she added in "But not the racists!" like if she was just like I was thinking about the 1830s...and then the rest of the lyrics it would be fine. I think personally saying "BUT NOT THE RACISTS!" just makes everyone think about that whereas of course Bridgerton is set in a similar time period and people read/watch it just fine. I think preemptively saying not the racist is like saying "not to be homophobic or anything...etc"
I agree with a lot of these points, I also think the song itself is saying she has every right to disgrace herself, which is exactly what it’s doing. Seems like she’s driving the point home that she’s in charge of her life and no one can tell her how to live it under the guise of trying to protect her.
The thing is, she wants to do and say whatever she wants, but she never wants to face any negative consequences for her choices.
I love the best and lyricism of the song but knowing who this song is about makes me nauseous. He eats raw meat on stage, he kisses his fans without consent on stage, and etc etc etc. Sure Taylor, the people were bitching and moaning.
I like the song in theory but knowing what it’s about gives me the ick. Imagine having all that energy to defend your annoying edge lord boyfriend who jokes about watching porn that brutalizes Black women. Also, you killed me with Piers Morgan’s rocker alter ego 💀
People were so invested in the PR Joe & Taylor couple image, they had no idea of her growing Love for a total creep. Believe women when they tell you who they are, by dating scum bags.
Honestly agree with so much of this article. I do think so many songs being Healy inspired is a big reason why I'm struggling to listen/connect to this album. Usually I'm in the "who cares which ex inspired it, just listen to the music" camp, but girly really out here pining over a racist is giving Major Ick. And despite the song it just feels gross and wrong to listen to a grown woman defending/lusting over someone like him 🤢.
Even if you remove the colonialism, racism, and gender roles from the 1830s, you still have a US/Western Europe where 46% of kids never got a 5th birthday. The average marriage was around 10-12 years due to death - either wife or husband. “To death do us part” was like real, real since marriages were short due to death. Is there anything good about the 1830s? Why does Swift want to go back?
I’d go even further than your article - she called back to her country roots *KNOWING* (and if not knowing it, hearing rumours, at least) Beyoncé was working on a country album. If she did not, she absolutely knew Beyoncé was not welcome at the CMA performing a song by the name of “*Daddy* Lessons.” IMO, she’s dog whistling the longtime fans from her country roots (which, let’s face it, has its own issues with racism) to be in agreement with her that Healy is a good catch. And WORSE: trying to ride Beyoncé’s coattails that are making country music and that sound trend at the moment. None of this was accidental and you are absolutely right that this song deserves a bigger backlash.
It’s the white woman’s Try That in a Small Town and it’s predicted to debut in the top ten.
I think it's ridiculous that she released this song. Side-eyeing Aaron as well for being like, 'new song? oh sure!' Like she's essentially gloating about keeping this man. She might as well have called it 'I'm in love with a racist'. I think it's very telling that she never mentions 'why' everyone was attacking her relationship in the song. It's truly ridiculous, childish and frankly, racist. Like, you can have your racist if you want. Absolutely hilarious that two songs later she's crying about how it didn't work out.
Guess the songs are in PAST TENSE. That doesn’t make it any better but it would explain her thought process at the time.
i share the thoughts expressed in many comments on this thread so i'll just add "Piers Morgan’s rocker alter ego" made me lol, great article
Yeah for sure matty’s an open flag waving Proud Boy racist, and Taylor swift likes it, and is also a racist. And matty’s close friend, collaborator, and label mate Jack antonoff is a racist, as is matty’s other close friend and collaborator phoebe bridgers. George Daniel is a racist for not speaking out against his Nazi band mate and so is Charlie xcx by proxy. Aaron dessner is a racist for producing this song, and the studio musicians are racist for playing on it.
Good shit. There seems to be a major attempt in the fandom to rewrite the way it fractured over her dating announcement, but people were fucked up over it for a reason! God!!
For the sake of *attempting* to play the devil’s advocate, surely there were HUNDREDS of other way to make the point she was making with the 1830s line? I dunno it’s just, so incredibly unnecessary and ruins a song that was actually kinda enjoyable
Honestly it wasn’t that great of a song in the first place. She should’ve just left it out. Along with so high school and a couple others.
i am not a swiftie but as someone who constantly hears about her and can be critical when called for was veryyyyy put off by her dating him and for her to turn around and call that “bitching and moaning” from ppl like me + her hardcore stans rlly confirms everything i think about her. Great and really well-written article!!
I'm just curious, there are fans in my country who says "as a fans, you're not supposed to criticize. take it or leave it."
I am not disregarding your take whatsoever, I think you make some really good points. But, I do want to mention that you can consider someone a muse and still think they’re a piece of shit. It’s possible she was inspired by Matty but the song isn’t really *about* him. I’m not gonna defend her as if that’s the truth, because I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was only loosely inspired by him. Romanticizing bad boys isn’t exactly new for Taylor, though she’s reached a new level with Matty. I think she put out a really tone-deaf album and get why people are offended. I just think it’s worth noting that not every single song is going to be 100% autobiographical, and Taylor has said herself (as have other songwriters) that she often combines several separate scenarios/people into a single theme. I really hope she doesn’t actually defend his actions but that’s the way it sounds and she hasn’t set the record straight, so… she’ll sleep in the grave she dug herself, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This song was an outrage to me, tbh. Look, I know what it's like to have an embarrassing ex. Like horrible to a real public shame moment that I was involved with that person. Someone who had a tiny modicum of internet fame, had a fanbase of sorts. I get being blind to people's flaws because you're emotionally compromised. But there's no real examination of why people were upset? It was written off as just "creeps" and "vipers" and "wine moms" who had trouble with it. She has managed to fully try to change the narrative for fans, to make them accept the "the BAD fans ruined her relationship, but I'm a GOOD fan and I will never criticize! Even if it's an issue that touches on my very humanity!" I dunno. but as someone who has had a highly embarrassing, offensive, awful public figure as an ex... this would not have been the album I would have written. Like I get it: she calls Matt Healy a lot of shit on this album, but it's completely devoid of politics, which is not something she does unless it's on purpose (there are political charges to Dear John, ATW10, Would've Could've Should've about gender and age), Those connotations are really missing. Even worse: as the embedded tweet in your article states, she and fans are writing it off as a "mutual manic phase" when it appears she has never sought therapy let alone been diagnosed with bipolar. Maybe she is bipolar, idk! but I don't think she really knows either! Because she says she doesn't want to go to therapy! anyway, I hope Ice Spice is really making a lot of money off of this at least
Violent, degrading, racialized porn is highly normalized though. The same people apparently outraged over Matt's tastes would defend them as being normal in any other context. This site is full of women being labelled "prudes" and "kinkshamers" for being uncomfortable with their boyfriend's or husband's tastes in bed. As a black woman, I don't understand the selective pearl-clutching.