In the future, if Taylor Swift is ever asked to name her year to forget, I strongly suspect she will say it is 2016.
Yet things began so promisingly. She was in love, coming off a hugely successful tour and, of course, firmly ensconced in the bosom of her ever loyal and loving girl squad. Along with a Grammy win, we witnessed her romantic pre-honeymoon holiday with Calvin Harris—the pair embracing on a beach in a picture-perfect pose made for Instagram.
Things suddenly things began to deteriorate, and the fairytale has quickly disintegrated into a car crash that is becoming increasingly impossible to look away from. A messy, ugly breakup that played out on social media; the revelation that Taylor had, in fact, secretly written Calvin’s hit summer song This Is What You Came For; confirmation that she and Katy Perry really do hate each other; a new relationship with actor Tom Hiddleston that some people believe is a sham; and finally a public and bloody battle with Kim Kardashian and her army of rabid Snapchatters armed with a plethora of angry snake emojis.
There have been miles of column inches devoted to Taylor’s supposed mendacity following the release of Kanye West’s now infamous song Famous. Her objections to the lyrics and immediate PR protestation that she had not given permission for the offensive lines were seemingly shown to be false when Mrs. West released a secret recording of a phone call.
That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet. pic.twitter.com/4GJqdyykQu
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 18, 2016
To recap: her husband calls up Swift and asks permission to write that they might have sex. An uncomfortable sounding Swift is gracious and nice about this strange request and suggests it might even be considered a compliment.
Taylor’s current defense—that it was not that line she objected to but the rather more offensive “I made that bitch famous,” which was never, in fact, run past her—seems to have been largely ignored by the press and the legions of fans who have declared her guilty of lying by omission and who are now baying for her public execution.
For Kimye the motivation is fairly easy to suss out. Kanye has demonstrated repeatedly his inflated sense of self, proving time and again that he will do anything to draw attention to himself and his artistry. Kim is obviously beleaguered by the constant barrage of bad press her erratic and apparently verbally incontinent husband generates with his Twitter rants, concert ravings and insane declarations.
This was about Kim defending Kanye’s ‘honor’—he did get permission for this song lyric, he’s not a bully. But in doing so, she became a bully of the highest order herself.
Ultimately, a 35-year-old mother of two with a sex tape looks silly at best, and pathetic at worse, when she strategically tries to take down a 26-year-old princess, armed with secret recordings and inflammatory emojis.
What is most disturbing is how the world’s media, along with a host of disgruntled teens with far too much time to kill, is now wringing its hands with glee over the takedown of America’s pop princess. And as a host of celebrity experts step forward to passionately condemn Swift on cable news, and angry trolls spend hours sending snarky messages riddled with their snake emojis (referencing Kim Kardashian basically calling her a snake), it begs the question: What is her crime exactly?
In a nutshell, it’s that Taylor Swift portrays herself more often than not as a victim in both her song lyrics and public persona despite evidence that she is, in fact, rather shrewd and more than capable of protecting herself. That and the fact that all the glorious, sea-frolicking, onesie-packed, bake-off moments are highlighted in Technicolor on her occasionally nauseating Instagram feed.
But Swift would not be subject to this kind of bullying if she were not the massive and indisputable success that she is. She is one of the country’s most successful and popular artists, she is currently dating one of the world’s hottest actors, who is clearly besotted with her, she has a gym-honed body most of us would kill for, and a circle of friends that includes Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Gigi Hadid and Gwyneth Paltrow. Not to mention the water slide.
Go Taymerica!!
There is a huge amount of jealousy and schadenfreude happening here. People resent that this pretty blonde girl has it all. She is no longer the lonely, weird girl the guy left for the cheerleader. That girl you can relate to and sympathize with. She has evolved into the class president, four-years running homecoming queen and captain of the cheer squad in one. That and a Powerball winner to boot.
But just because Taylor chooses to maintain a ‘nice’ sticky sweet reputation—and there’s been some invariable mud wrestling in private during her quest for fame—is that really all that bad ?
Is her desire to control her own ‘messaging’ any different than Beyonce’s? Is she not entitled to put out whatever image she wants?
Does every young female performer have to be hyper-sexual and wax poetical about one night stands in a night club toilet whilst gyrating in a g-string on a pole?
Swift is attracting the haters because she embodies the lifestyle, the fame, the friendships, the wealth and the wardrobe that most of us only dream of. She is an easy target and it’s time to give this girl a break. In Melbourne this week a mural went up where the artist commemorates 2016 as the year of Taylor Swift’s death.
With it, he implies that with all the current controversy, Taylor is not just over, she is dead. It reads simply “In loving memory, Taylor SMITH, 1989-2016.”
If this, along with the Kardashian brain trust, is representative of the level of intellectual prowess of Taylor’s enemies—then girl, truly, you can totally shake this off.
Er, so this RIP Taylor Swift mural in Melbourne’s a bit much https://t.co/PNHSYbzIr0 pic.twitter.com/AryMbBOFy6
— Sugarscape (@sugarscape) July 21, 2016
