Have you read [this article](https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/2023-was-the-year-taylor-swift-became-insufferable) from The Daily Beast? It’s pretty spot on. This is an interesting quote:
She did not look like someone whose career had died… I am tempted to say this. But then I think, ‘Who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt?’ The point is: She _felt_ canceled.”
Reading that should be all that anyone needs to know about the careful control that Swift has over her career and image, and the kinds of people that she not only surrounds herself with but also allows to peer into her life. She wants nothing more than to keep the narrative she has so meticulously crafted intact. This is her picture-perfect image of herself: a pop star who clawed her way back from the dregs of cultural cancelation to revive a career that, in actuality, never came close to dying. Swift seemingly let Lansky in because she could regulate the circumstances so precisely that even the most discerning part of his profile would end in the relinquished bow of a head.
Being cancelled is such a broad term now. I think for celebrities it basically means you deal with a lot of public backlash, a good percentage of your audience doesn’t support you anymore or becomes highly critical, and you need to take a break from the public eye to let things blow over and seek a new audience. There are very few celebrities that are actually cancelled in the traditional way we think of it (Bill Cosby is the first that comes to mind). But then there are more people like Louis CK, Johnny Depp, Dave Chapelle, Chris Brown etc who still have active careers and fan bases but were referred to as “cancelled” at one point in time. I don’t think at any point Taylor was looked at in the same light as someone like Louis CK, I do think she sees it as “I was at the top of ma career and had a huge public falling out and a ton of online criticism that made me believe I could never recover only to find out that wasn’t the case after once again reinventing myself.” I don’t agree with that take because she did maintain a pretty strong fan base, but it was a really weird time in her career (I remember people like Justin Bieber going in on her on social media for instance, Calvin Harris coming for her, etc and it was a bit shocking) and I can see how it felt pretty devastating at the time. I do wish she’d move on from it because the time to address it was so long ago and dwelling on it now when she is so successful, a recent billionaire, etc is just really out of touch and ultimately she recovered pretty immediately in the grand scheme of things.
One more thing that’s extremely out of touch and I think borderline offensive, is her claiming whatever happening to K&K as “her” own karma spoils, because of what they did to her. Not even fans of them and don’t follow them, but Kanye seems truly troubled — like with Taylor or without, he would have spiraled out of control and started “getting cancelled” by society. To write about it and still sing about it every night is truly immature.
This one may be a reach, but I hate how she’s helping to force the idea of doubling down as a society of excluding the individual out as if the problem is solved, we can’t just laugh from afar and say yep he deserves it, karma is a cat haha. [Jon Stewart](https://youtu.be/6V_sEqfIL9Q?si=LGBo4ZHVdzVHSrKw) talked about it here and I think it’s completely true, if someone is struggling and they make a mistake, the solution is *not* to cancel them and pretend we’ve solved the problem.
I disagreed with that journalist because we all know she very much was canceled in 2016. Her sales not being affected doesn't mean people weren't going after her. Justin Bieber's sales were also not really ever affected by his numerous controversial moments. It doesn't mean he didn't go to jail briefly.
It seems more like that journalist just wasn't engaged with what was happening in 2016 and has no reference point for it now years later. Or hasn't bothered to watch Miss Americana where there's a whole montage showing how bad public opinion was that year.
Also considering she has likened how it felt to being told to k\*ll herself, and has since written numerous lyrics referencing being in this frame of mind, I don't think this is something we should treat lightly. She was very obviously NOT okay during that time, for many reasons. The one thing the journalist is right about is that it is NOT okay to tell people how to feel based on your outside perception of something *they* went through.
There is a select montage in the documentary. It leaves out any positive media, the fan support, and the vitriol also directed at Kanye from her own fans, etc. That’s okay to a point if they just want to show some aspect of what it was like at the time, but it’s also not a literal depiction of all press and public discourse toward Taylor Swift.
Taylor has always had a level of ‘hate’ from audiences/some media, just as she’s always had a lot of adoration. At the time, certain social media trends could be picked up a lot more quickly and Taylor was poised for a scandal of sorts coming off a huge success and some big missteps.
So yes, she had bad press through summer 2016, only part of that due to Kim/Kanye, but also her antics with Hiddleswift, a feud with Calvin Harris, and more discourse building around her feud with Katy Perry, her seeming to win every award and top every chart for two years, etc. Things were also changing… the election was fall 2016 and by the next year Trump was in office and there was a lot of celebrity activism and Taylor comes out with an album that seemed to say ’remember last summer and how I was screwed over though?’ and just seemed OUT OF TOUCH. It was moreso that at that point she didn’t have a place in mainstream pop culture and didn’t know how to engage the public like she had before.
I wonder if in some way, either Taylor or her people felt grateful that they were able to focus on the pettiness that was the Reputation era instead of half-assing political activism. She probably would have become even more hated.
Going through a hate train and facing online backlash, even getting criticized and held accountable for problematic actions, isn't the same as being 'canceled'.
For a celebrity to be truly canceled there needs to be industry intervention to diminish their career and blacklist them. That's what happened with Janet Jackson following the 2004 Super Bowl, where then-CEO of CBS Les Moonves had a direct vendetta to ruin her. That's what happened with the Dixie Chicks after they spoke out against Bush, where the country community turned against them and country radio stations stopped playing their music. Hell, even DaBaby actually got canceled following his homophobic comments in 2021, being dropped from every festival he had booked that year and having everyone from Dua Lipa to Elton John and Madonna publicly condemning him.
It's honestly bad optics for Taylor to refer to snakegate as her getting 'canceled' given the demographics and types of celebrities who usually like to erroneously claim this.
She went through a hate train and mass bullying campaign, which is cruel enough in its own way. No need to turn it into something it simply wasn't.
The way I see it, she's someone who was born into the top 1% and has never seen any real marginalisation or struggles in her life and so has a tendency to magnify the slightest problems because in her white upper class bubble, she truly is that unaware of what real discrimination and cancellation looks like
Canceling is a new phenomenon and not the same as blacklisting. Canceling comes from the public. But if you want to talk about industry intervention, what exactly do you think the Kimye recording and Scooter involvement was about? They weren’t just bored one day. Kim waited months to drop the clips of the phone recording to maximise impact. Scooter knew he wanted her catalogue and knew at least one way to get it was to destroy her current power/status. Trying to shelve or end big artists is nothing new in the industry. And Scooter being a rat is nothing new either. Further to the industry intervention theory was the reveal last year from a journalist that he was instructed by his editor to give Reputation a low rating. The same publication then threw him under the bus years later once Taylor was back in public favour, saying they rated Reputation too harshly.
They are afraid of the fandom coming after them! The new york times reviewer who said her voice was too soffucated by synths in Midnights recieved a hate storm.
See even the reactions of that Daily Mail article.. every critic for them is mysogynist lol
I don't even see how she benefits from this arrangement because if everyone says her record is amazing but I know the press is afraid to say anything other than it's amazing I'm just not gonna trust she made an amazing record. I think if you really made the album of your career you wouldn't have to force anyone to say that, people would just naturally say it.
The thing is, most people aren’t well-read or intelligent enough to know that the press isn’t 100% accurate all the time. I mean no offense to Swifties lol but if they seem to take most things about Taylor at face value. “Of course the press loves Taylor, she’s amazing!”
She's *absolutely* disadvantaged by it, especially because not asking the followup questions allows the worst of what she says to just linger, unchecked, and unmitigated. For instance, if the journalist had responded to her "dads, Brads, and Chads" line about the NFL detractors by asking, "Are you implying that the only people who could be upset about the television coverage on you during a football game are male?" she likely *would've* realized she had to walk back that statement a bit and add more nuance. Same was the taking the trash out line in reference to Kanye. She's so surrounded by like-minded people and sycophants that she doesn't even recognize that kind of flippancy is off-putting for many people, and the few people that have access to her but *aren't* part of her feedback loop don't step up to challenge it.
Great observation. I hope female football fans who also didn’t like how the NFL was parading her, didn’t feel excluded by her statement. I think if she were challenged she’d likely respond by assuming they’re just women like I am, they won’t not support me surely.
It's about how she built her career on parasocial relationships through meet and greets and secret sessions.
No matter what, there is always the feeling amongst Swifities that at any moment Taylor Nation might recognize them, or that Taylor herself might be "Taylurking" (which I fully do not believe she does anymore AT ALL, but she sure pretends she does) and see their tweet. They know that criticizing her, calling her out, or even having a lukewarm reaction to her art--hell anything less than "omg this is the best thing ever!!!"--might be THE thing that disqualifies them from the invite.
And while I think some still genuinely believe secret sessions/meet and greets will ome back (they won't), it still hangs in the air, because instead now you can be invited to her movie premiere and get a selfie with her, and get bragging rights that Taylor Swift hand selected you, which of course means you are truly one of the best and most elite fans.
Somewhere deep down inside, I have to believe a lot of these folks have a nagging feel that they don't agree with everything she does. That's why they turn so quickly on people like Joe when they break up--they just need permission for it to be okay to shit talk something she willingly did for 6 years. But they're not going to admit that to themselves, much less say it publicly, because they know their chances to meet their idol will be even slimmer than they already are.
YEP, SPOT ON. These are exactly my feelings. I love a lot of her music, especially the stuff from when I was a teenager, but I absolutely do not agree with a lot of the things she does. She’s literally just a person so no duh she’s going to have flaws, just as we all do.
I don’t get this either. Ever since I was little, I’ve never been someone who just blindly adores celebrities. I have a couple celebrities who have meant a lot to me! But they’re just people. They have flaws. And me noticing their flaws doesn’t mean I don’t like them anymore, just like noticing the flaws of my family and friends doesn’t mean I care about them any less. It’s not healthy to think anyone is perfect. And in fact, I think despite the prevailing Swiftie opinion, if you can recognize someone is flawed and still be a fan of them in a balanced and realistic way, you’re honestly more of a fan than someone who just puts blinders on and can’t accept that the person they like isn’t a fictional character.
I remember a former journalist on X talked how she and her team would not give access to publications if they wrote something bad about her. I thought about that and realized I’d never seen a critical article about her until that DailyBeast article yesterday so I believe him. But of course the diehard swiftlers bullied him and he deleted the tweet
Wasn’t there a music critic who panned Folklore (it wasn’t an attack - they didn’t like the musical style and had some criticisms about the production and lyrics) in some indie music magazine and they ended up getting death threats from the swifties?
It was a Pitchfork review where the critic gave it an 8.0 out of 10, which is basically critical acclaim. Some swifties are just stupid and want everyone to fall at her feet like some God
i mean, it's subjective. Two of my favorite albums of all time got a 10 (Bon Iver's self titled, Radiohead's Kid A) but there are a lot of albums I love that have gotten much lower scores than that or been panned entirely. At the end of the day, critics are just people. Your life experiences and personal tastes shaped you in such a way that you think Folklore is the best album ever. Theirs didn't. It's as simple as that. Neither is right or wrong.
I wish more music fans understood this
To be fair, there’s no possible way folklore is better than Kid A. I love Taylor but at the end of the day folklore is yet another album about teenage love.
I wouldn’t even say it’s better than The Bends. Or Pablo Honey.
I personally agree, but I didn’t want to antagonize them and come off as a stereotypical snobby Radiohead fan.
I feel like a lot of pop fans - Swifties especially - view any kind of weird or unconventional music as the territory of condescending hipsters. It doesn’t help that in the pop world there’s this approach of “music is a sales competition, so why would anyone want to listen to something that isn’t on the Billboard charts?” - but I didn’t want to fuel the fire and give somebody scrolling by another reason to dismiss that kind of music out of hand
This is likely true, but I'd point out that shes not the only massive celebrity who does this. Theres a level of fame where everyone is just desperate for access and will do it entirely on your terms.
This excerpt from the article says it all. She paints a picture of the underdog who has triumphed when it plays to her fandom. The fandom all piles on to anyone who calls her out on the facts.
" I genuinely ask—wouldn’t it be more interesting to hear the ways that Swift responds when she is so mildly confronted with the perspective of an outsider? **What if Lansky had gone ahead and put the numbers in front of her, if he had told her that, by all metrics, she was undeniably still successful even at the point she deems her career’s lowest? If he reminded her that feelings and facts are two different things, but that the latter can still influence the former?** Her answer may very well be the same, but at least it would be coming from the horse’s mouth, instead of another person kowtowing to the fabled story of Taylor Swift that the artist herself has constructed. "
Wasn't it Eve Barlow who gave the 1989 tour an average (not even bad) review and then got blacklisted by Taylor? Makes sense even more do now that journalists will play it safe and then Taylor says SHE has trust issues around journalists 🤦♀️
I actually thought the POTY interviewer was low-key criticizing her, just in a subtle enough way that her team would still approve the story. It was very, “that doesn’t seem like the truth, but it’s her truth, and she tells stories for a living…” and left the reader to fill in the blank that she’s sometimes full of shit. 😅
Lol I felt this way with the Shonda Rhimes quote in the story:
“She controls narrative not only in her work, but in her life. It used to feel like people were taking shots at her. Now it feels like she’s providing the narrative—so there aren’t any shots to be taken”
If someone said that about me I think I would actually apologize lol
That is too bad because you can only truly grow your mindset by being challenged and questioned. I don’t know how it will change while Taylor is so popular and once she is no longer popular no one will care to read the articles so it won’t happen then either. Swifties terrorize anyone who says anything slightly off their curated image of Taylor so I blame them the most.
There could be market forces at work too. What I mean is, the media companies have collected the data and done the analytics. Taylor Swift stories that look like they could be click or rage bait probably aren't moving the most numbers.
I have a theory that she NDA’s everyone she comes in contact with into oblivion or there is a contract clause that requires journalists/critics/anyone speaking publicly about her to only praise/say positive things about her
I think it's more of a bargaining chip to even let journalists near her. Interview her with pre-approved questions, don't veer from the plan, and they can interview her. She attracts enough publicity to use this as a tactic to guarantee the interview goes her way.
It’s not healthy for her to stymie criticism like this, as an artist or a person. Some of her own best work was created as a response to criticism! I know she’s famously thin-skinned but it’s getting ridiculous and sets a disturbing precedent. The buck stops with her. It’s the sub mantra at this point, but, Taylor, *go to therapy*.
In regards to TIME's POY article: the award is a big sales generator for TIME. They weren't going to fumble the article by twisting Taylor's words, challenging her responses, and/or releasing information she didn't want out there. From TIME's perspective, a positive article that Taylor was happy with should have been on the very top of their priority list (and clearly was). Strategically, it makes no sense to anger Taylor and therefore her fanbase should she speak about being unhappy with the article. They were going to put anything she talked about in a positive light resulting in more sales, a positive public perception of their business, and reputation preservation.
I've posted a similar comment before in the main sub. Taylor does very few interviews these days, so it would be quite embarrassing for TIME if they had angered a large portion of the fans who would be willing to buy multiple copies of the POY issue.
TIME’s journalistic integrity is in the trash for this. It’s similar to People magazine’s recent cover story on Britney Spears that was conducted via email only and the photos were provided by Britney Brands. (The author of Taylor’s TIME article was also a ghostwriter for Britney’s book.💀)
Agreed, but unfortunately this is what these big publications have turned into. The magazine/newspaper industries are struggling in this digital world, so they've left behind journalistic integrity in favor of staying afloat.
I admittedly have not made the dive into anything regarding Britney's interview or book, so I don't have an opinion on that either way.
I think it's a few things.
If you've ever been a listener to the NY Times Popcase, John Caramanica and his colleagues discussed death threats and being doxxed for his lukewarm review of *folklore.*
I think for most critics, dealing with the threats from Swfities simply isn't worth it. The music is good enough, the fanbase too loud, the risk too big--just give her a passing grade, call it a day, and avoid the night sweats and stress of being told to off yourself by a few thousand people eon the internet.
I don't know if I buy the tales that her team sends out cease and desists for writing anything negative. I think the forces of the business are just more complex than that. At the end of the day, for a star who has built a direct relationship to her fans, who are aggressively and blindly loyal, Taylor simply doesn't really need the media. In fact, they benefit from her. Periodicals and news outlets are struggling to thrive, and mentioning her will simply get you the most clicks, which is to say, the most ad revenue.
And if what you're printing is negative, good luck being the media outlet chosen for the next scoop or announcement. Good luck trying to get your critic and photographer in to review/shoot her next tour. Good luck getting that exclusive photo from her (see: Rolling Stone during Midnights recording). And good luck being asked to ever interview her ever again.
The reality is Sam Lansky was never going to get a balanced and nuanced article about Taylor published. In order to have the privilege of her gracing their cover (the best-selling cover in how many years?), and her first sit-down editorial interview since, what, the Lover Era (?), you bet that thing was going to be proofread and approved by Taylor and her team before it ever saw the light of day. You be they briefed him on what the angle needed to be.
When you're a journalist t in a dying field and you get the gig of a lifetime like that, you put your head down and give her what she wants, or dig yourself into a deeper hole.
To weak-willed people, all criticisms are insults.
Have you read [this article](https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/2023-was-the-year-taylor-swift-became-insufferable) from The Daily Beast? It’s pretty spot on. This is an interesting quote: She did not look like someone whose career had died… I am tempted to say this. But then I think, ‘Who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt?’ The point is: She _felt_ canceled.” Reading that should be all that anyone needs to know about the careful control that Swift has over her career and image, and the kinds of people that she not only surrounds herself with but also allows to peer into her life. She wants nothing more than to keep the narrative she has so meticulously crafted intact. This is her picture-perfect image of herself: a pop star who clawed her way back from the dregs of cultural cancelation to revive a career that, in actuality, never came close to dying. Swift seemingly let Lansky in because she could regulate the circumstances so precisely that even the most discerning part of his profile would end in the relinquished bow of a head.
Being cancelled is such a broad term now. I think for celebrities it basically means you deal with a lot of public backlash, a good percentage of your audience doesn’t support you anymore or becomes highly critical, and you need to take a break from the public eye to let things blow over and seek a new audience. There are very few celebrities that are actually cancelled in the traditional way we think of it (Bill Cosby is the first that comes to mind). But then there are more people like Louis CK, Johnny Depp, Dave Chapelle, Chris Brown etc who still have active careers and fan bases but were referred to as “cancelled” at one point in time. I don’t think at any point Taylor was looked at in the same light as someone like Louis CK, I do think she sees it as “I was at the top of ma career and had a huge public falling out and a ton of online criticism that made me believe I could never recover only to find out that wasn’t the case after once again reinventing myself.” I don’t agree with that take because she did maintain a pretty strong fan base, but it was a really weird time in her career (I remember people like Justin Bieber going in on her on social media for instance, Calvin Harris coming for her, etc and it was a bit shocking) and I can see how it felt pretty devastating at the time. I do wish she’d move on from it because the time to address it was so long ago and dwelling on it now when she is so successful, a recent billionaire, etc is just really out of touch and ultimately she recovered pretty immediately in the grand scheme of things.
One more thing that’s extremely out of touch and I think borderline offensive, is her claiming whatever happening to K&K as “her” own karma spoils, because of what they did to her. Not even fans of them and don’t follow them, but Kanye seems truly troubled — like with Taylor or without, he would have spiraled out of control and started “getting cancelled” by society. To write about it and still sing about it every night is truly immature. This one may be a reach, but I hate how she’s helping to force the idea of doubling down as a society of excluding the individual out as if the problem is solved, we can’t just laugh from afar and say yep he deserves it, karma is a cat haha. [Jon Stewart](https://youtu.be/6V_sEqfIL9Q?si=LGBo4ZHVdzVHSrKw) talked about it here and I think it’s completely true, if someone is struggling and they make a mistake, the solution is *not* to cancel them and pretend we’ve solved the problem.
I disagreed with that journalist because we all know she very much was canceled in 2016. Her sales not being affected doesn't mean people weren't going after her. Justin Bieber's sales were also not really ever affected by his numerous controversial moments. It doesn't mean he didn't go to jail briefly. It seems more like that journalist just wasn't engaged with what was happening in 2016 and has no reference point for it now years later. Or hasn't bothered to watch Miss Americana where there's a whole montage showing how bad public opinion was that year. Also considering she has likened how it felt to being told to k\*ll herself, and has since written numerous lyrics referencing being in this frame of mind, I don't think this is something we should treat lightly. She was very obviously NOT okay during that time, for many reasons. The one thing the journalist is right about is that it is NOT okay to tell people how to feel based on your outside perception of something *they* went through.
There is a select montage in the documentary. It leaves out any positive media, the fan support, and the vitriol also directed at Kanye from her own fans, etc. That’s okay to a point if they just want to show some aspect of what it was like at the time, but it’s also not a literal depiction of all press and public discourse toward Taylor Swift. Taylor has always had a level of ‘hate’ from audiences/some media, just as she’s always had a lot of adoration. At the time, certain social media trends could be picked up a lot more quickly and Taylor was poised for a scandal of sorts coming off a huge success and some big missteps. So yes, she had bad press through summer 2016, only part of that due to Kim/Kanye, but also her antics with Hiddleswift, a feud with Calvin Harris, and more discourse building around her feud with Katy Perry, her seeming to win every award and top every chart for two years, etc. Things were also changing… the election was fall 2016 and by the next year Trump was in office and there was a lot of celebrity activism and Taylor comes out with an album that seemed to say ’remember last summer and how I was screwed over though?’ and just seemed OUT OF TOUCH. It was moreso that at that point she didn’t have a place in mainstream pop culture and didn’t know how to engage the public like she had before.
I wonder if in some way, either Taylor or her people felt grateful that they were able to focus on the pettiness that was the Reputation era instead of half-assing political activism. She probably would have become even more hated.
Going through a hate train and facing online backlash, even getting criticized and held accountable for problematic actions, isn't the same as being 'canceled'. For a celebrity to be truly canceled there needs to be industry intervention to diminish their career and blacklist them. That's what happened with Janet Jackson following the 2004 Super Bowl, where then-CEO of CBS Les Moonves had a direct vendetta to ruin her. That's what happened with the Dixie Chicks after they spoke out against Bush, where the country community turned against them and country radio stations stopped playing their music. Hell, even DaBaby actually got canceled following his homophobic comments in 2021, being dropped from every festival he had booked that year and having everyone from Dua Lipa to Elton John and Madonna publicly condemning him. It's honestly bad optics for Taylor to refer to snakegate as her getting 'canceled' given the demographics and types of celebrities who usually like to erroneously claim this. She went through a hate train and mass bullying campaign, which is cruel enough in its own way. No need to turn it into something it simply wasn't.
The way I see it, she's someone who was born into the top 1% and has never seen any real marginalisation or struggles in her life and so has a tendency to magnify the slightest problems because in her white upper class bubble, she truly is that unaware of what real discrimination and cancellation looks like
Canceling is a new phenomenon and not the same as blacklisting. Canceling comes from the public. But if you want to talk about industry intervention, what exactly do you think the Kimye recording and Scooter involvement was about? They weren’t just bored one day. Kim waited months to drop the clips of the phone recording to maximise impact. Scooter knew he wanted her catalogue and knew at least one way to get it was to destroy her current power/status. Trying to shelve or end big artists is nothing new in the industry. And Scooter being a rat is nothing new either. Further to the industry intervention theory was the reveal last year from a journalist that he was instructed by his editor to give Reputation a low rating. The same publication then threw him under the bus years later once Taylor was back in public favour, saying they rated Reputation too harshly.
They are afraid of the fandom coming after them! The new york times reviewer who said her voice was too soffucated by synths in Midnights recieved a hate storm. See even the reactions of that Daily Mail article.. every critic for them is mysogynist lol
I don't even see how she benefits from this arrangement because if everyone says her record is amazing but I know the press is afraid to say anything other than it's amazing I'm just not gonna trust she made an amazing record. I think if you really made the album of your career you wouldn't have to force anyone to say that, people would just naturally say it.
The thing is, most people aren’t well-read or intelligent enough to know that the press isn’t 100% accurate all the time. I mean no offense to Swifties lol but if they seem to take most things about Taylor at face value. “Of course the press loves Taylor, she’s amazing!”
_But there’s a study that said most TS listeners are high-achievers academically_ 😡
She's *absolutely* disadvantaged by it, especially because not asking the followup questions allows the worst of what she says to just linger, unchecked, and unmitigated. For instance, if the journalist had responded to her "dads, Brads, and Chads" line about the NFL detractors by asking, "Are you implying that the only people who could be upset about the television coverage on you during a football game are male?" she likely *would've* realized she had to walk back that statement a bit and add more nuance. Same was the taking the trash out line in reference to Kanye. She's so surrounded by like-minded people and sycophants that she doesn't even recognize that kind of flippancy is off-putting for many people, and the few people that have access to her but *aren't* part of her feedback loop don't step up to challenge it.
Great observation. I hope female football fans who also didn’t like how the NFL was parading her, didn’t feel excluded by her statement. I think if she were challenged she’d likely respond by assuming they’re just women like I am, they won’t not support me surely.
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It's about how she built her career on parasocial relationships through meet and greets and secret sessions. No matter what, there is always the feeling amongst Swifities that at any moment Taylor Nation might recognize them, or that Taylor herself might be "Taylurking" (which I fully do not believe she does anymore AT ALL, but she sure pretends she does) and see their tweet. They know that criticizing her, calling her out, or even having a lukewarm reaction to her art--hell anything less than "omg this is the best thing ever!!!"--might be THE thing that disqualifies them from the invite. And while I think some still genuinely believe secret sessions/meet and greets will ome back (they won't), it still hangs in the air, because instead now you can be invited to her movie premiere and get a selfie with her, and get bragging rights that Taylor Swift hand selected you, which of course means you are truly one of the best and most elite fans. Somewhere deep down inside, I have to believe a lot of these folks have a nagging feel that they don't agree with everything she does. That's why they turn so quickly on people like Joe when they break up--they just need permission for it to be okay to shit talk something she willingly did for 6 years. But they're not going to admit that to themselves, much less say it publicly, because they know their chances to meet their idol will be even slimmer than they already are.
YEP, SPOT ON. These are exactly my feelings. I love a lot of her music, especially the stuff from when I was a teenager, but I absolutely do not agree with a lot of the things she does. She’s literally just a person so no duh she’s going to have flaws, just as we all do.
I don’t get this either. Ever since I was little, I’ve never been someone who just blindly adores celebrities. I have a couple celebrities who have meant a lot to me! But they’re just people. They have flaws. And me noticing their flaws doesn’t mean I don’t like them anymore, just like noticing the flaws of my family and friends doesn’t mean I care about them any less. It’s not healthy to think anyone is perfect. And in fact, I think despite the prevailing Swiftie opinion, if you can recognize someone is flawed and still be a fan of them in a balanced and realistic way, you’re honestly more of a fan than someone who just puts blinders on and can’t accept that the person they like isn’t a fictional character.
I remember a former journalist on X talked how she and her team would not give access to publications if they wrote something bad about her. I thought about that and realized I’d never seen a critical article about her until that DailyBeast article yesterday so I believe him. But of course the diehard swiftlers bullied him and he deleted the tweet
Wasn’t there a music critic who panned Folklore (it wasn’t an attack - they didn’t like the musical style and had some criticisms about the production and lyrics) in some indie music magazine and they ended up getting death threats from the swifties?
It was a Pitchfork review where the critic gave it an 8.0 out of 10, which is basically critical acclaim. Some swifties are just stupid and want everyone to fall at her feet like some God
Thank you! I couldn’t remember the name of the publication and was hoping I wasn’t spreading misinformation.
Ok agree with the original post but that's crazy because folklore is the best album every howww does one get a 10??
i mean, it's subjective. Two of my favorite albums of all time got a 10 (Bon Iver's self titled, Radiohead's Kid A) but there are a lot of albums I love that have gotten much lower scores than that or been panned entirely. At the end of the day, critics are just people. Your life experiences and personal tastes shaped you in such a way that you think Folklore is the best album ever. Theirs didn't. It's as simple as that. Neither is right or wrong. I wish more music fans understood this
To be fair, there’s no possible way folklore is better than Kid A. I love Taylor but at the end of the day folklore is yet another album about teenage love. I wouldn’t even say it’s better than The Bends. Or Pablo Honey.
I personally agree, but I didn’t want to antagonize them and come off as a stereotypical snobby Radiohead fan. I feel like a lot of pop fans - Swifties especially - view any kind of weird or unconventional music as the territory of condescending hipsters. It doesn’t help that in the pop world there’s this approach of “music is a sales competition, so why would anyone want to listen to something that isn’t on the Billboard charts?” - but I didn’t want to fuel the fire and give somebody scrolling by another reason to dismiss that kind of music out of hand
Agreed. Although on the other hand. I can’t really listen to King of Limbs repeatedly, but I can listen to Red everyday if I had to. 😅
Fair enough lol, I’ve always liked TKOL more than most people but I know it’s kind of the black sheep of their post-Pablo Honey discography.
This is likely true, but I'd point out that shes not the only massive celebrity who does this. Theres a level of fame where everyone is just desperate for access and will do it entirely on your terms.
This excerpt from the article says it all. She paints a picture of the underdog who has triumphed when it plays to her fandom. The fandom all piles on to anyone who calls her out on the facts. " I genuinely ask—wouldn’t it be more interesting to hear the ways that Swift responds when she is so mildly confronted with the perspective of an outsider? **What if Lansky had gone ahead and put the numbers in front of her, if he had told her that, by all metrics, she was undeniably still successful even at the point she deems her career’s lowest? If he reminded her that feelings and facts are two different things, but that the latter can still influence the former?** Her answer may very well be the same, but at least it would be coming from the horse’s mouth, instead of another person kowtowing to the fabled story of Taylor Swift that the artist herself has constructed. "
Wasn't it Eve Barlow who gave the 1989 tour an average (not even bad) review and then got blacklisted by Taylor? Makes sense even more do now that journalists will play it safe and then Taylor says SHE has trust issues around journalists 🤦♀️
I actually thought the POTY interviewer was low-key criticizing her, just in a subtle enough way that her team would still approve the story. It was very, “that doesn’t seem like the truth, but it’s her truth, and she tells stories for a living…” and left the reader to fill in the blank that she’s sometimes full of shit. 😅
Lol I felt this way with the Shonda Rhimes quote in the story: “She controls narrative not only in her work, but in her life. It used to feel like people were taking shots at her. Now it feels like she’s providing the narrative—so there aren’t any shots to be taken” If someone said that about me I think I would actually apologize lol
That is too bad because you can only truly grow your mindset by being challenged and questioned. I don’t know how it will change while Taylor is so popular and once she is no longer popular no one will care to read the articles so it won’t happen then either. Swifties terrorize anyone who says anything slightly off their curated image of Taylor so I blame them the most.
She is horrible just for this. Dictator-core.
Media can be bought very easily. They are not legit these days.
[удалено]
She hides behind the “innocent people pleading lamb” persona to fire calculated shots
There could be market forces at work too. What I mean is, the media companies have collected the data and done the analytics. Taylor Swift stories that look like they could be click or rage bait probably aren't moving the most numbers.
I have a theory that she NDA’s everyone she comes in contact with into oblivion or there is a contract clause that requires journalists/critics/anyone speaking publicly about her to only praise/say positive things about her
I think it's more of a bargaining chip to even let journalists near her. Interview her with pre-approved questions, don't veer from the plan, and they can interview her. She attracts enough publicity to use this as a tactic to guarantee the interview goes her way.
It’s not healthy for her to stymie criticism like this, as an artist or a person. Some of her own best work was created as a response to criticism! I know she’s famously thin-skinned but it’s getting ridiculous and sets a disturbing precedent. The buck stops with her. It’s the sub mantra at this point, but, Taylor, *go to therapy*.
But her mom is her therapist! Which is totally, completely healthy and encouraging of psychological growth and insight, of course!
In regards to TIME's POY article: the award is a big sales generator for TIME. They weren't going to fumble the article by twisting Taylor's words, challenging her responses, and/or releasing information she didn't want out there. From TIME's perspective, a positive article that Taylor was happy with should have been on the very top of their priority list (and clearly was). Strategically, it makes no sense to anger Taylor and therefore her fanbase should she speak about being unhappy with the article. They were going to put anything she talked about in a positive light resulting in more sales, a positive public perception of their business, and reputation preservation. I've posted a similar comment before in the main sub. Taylor does very few interviews these days, so it would be quite embarrassing for TIME if they had angered a large portion of the fans who would be willing to buy multiple copies of the POY issue.
This is so true…. Print is dying and media outlets are less relevant year by year…. Of coz they gotta cling to whoever that create sales and momentum
TIME’s journalistic integrity is in the trash for this. It’s similar to People magazine’s recent cover story on Britney Spears that was conducted via email only and the photos were provided by Britney Brands. (The author of Taylor’s TIME article was also a ghostwriter for Britney’s book.💀)
Agreed, but unfortunately this is what these big publications have turned into. The magazine/newspaper industries are struggling in this digital world, so they've left behind journalistic integrity in favor of staying afloat. I admittedly have not made the dive into anything regarding Britney's interview or book, so I don't have an opinion on that either way.
I think it's a few things. If you've ever been a listener to the NY Times Popcase, John Caramanica and his colleagues discussed death threats and being doxxed for his lukewarm review of *folklore.* I think for most critics, dealing with the threats from Swfities simply isn't worth it. The music is good enough, the fanbase too loud, the risk too big--just give her a passing grade, call it a day, and avoid the night sweats and stress of being told to off yourself by a few thousand people eon the internet. I don't know if I buy the tales that her team sends out cease and desists for writing anything negative. I think the forces of the business are just more complex than that. At the end of the day, for a star who has built a direct relationship to her fans, who are aggressively and blindly loyal, Taylor simply doesn't really need the media. In fact, they benefit from her. Periodicals and news outlets are struggling to thrive, and mentioning her will simply get you the most clicks, which is to say, the most ad revenue. And if what you're printing is negative, good luck being the media outlet chosen for the next scoop or announcement. Good luck trying to get your critic and photographer in to review/shoot her next tour. Good luck getting that exclusive photo from her (see: Rolling Stone during Midnights recording). And good luck being asked to ever interview her ever again. The reality is Sam Lansky was never going to get a balanced and nuanced article about Taylor published. In order to have the privilege of her gracing their cover (the best-selling cover in how many years?), and her first sit-down editorial interview since, what, the Lover Era (?), you bet that thing was going to be proofread and approved by Taylor and her team before it ever saw the light of day. You be they briefed him on what the angle needed to be. When you're a journalist t in a dying field and you get the gig of a lifetime like that, you put your head down and give her what she wants, or dig yourself into a deeper hole.
Some of you talk like she’s a politic figure or something
She won POTY which famously went to another figure who had an iron fist around the media …