Achi news desk-
I don’t get Taylor Swift. There, I said. (Disclaimer: I DON’T FORGET HIMSELF. I JUST WISH HER ALL THE HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS IN THE WORLD. PLEASE, I HAVE A FAMILY.)
It’s free to … not worry about something, isn’t it? When friends start waxing poetic about the Eras Tour or their favorite Taylor Swift song, I listen politely as if they were talking about professional darts or French cinema, and a feeling of peace washes over me.
I don’t need to love things, I think to myself. I don’t need to hate them, either. I can watch them go by like a leaf being carried along a river current and say, “Well, that sure is something!”
Granted, it’s a lot harder when that thing is, by all accounts, made specifically for you to enjoy.
While Taylor Swift can appeal to anyone, real data shows what a single glance at an Eras Tour crowd or a simple walk outside can tell you: Swifties are most likely white suburban millennial women like me . Far more competent minds than mine have written about the tension between Swift’s position as the “voice of a generation” and how much that voice does or does not speak for listeners of color. That’s a different conversation worth having, but it’s not the one I’m having here.
Taylor Swift performs as part of the ‘Eras Tour’ at the Tokyo Dome, Wednesday, February 7, 2024, in Tokyo. (Toru Hanai / AP Photo)
What irks me is the constant framing of Taylor Swift’s music among my peers (or at least my census-designated demographic) as intolerable girl-and-feminine communion: Favorable review of “The Tortured Poets Department” in The Spectator calls Swift “the tortured voice of the millennials.” In a recent episode of BBC NewsNight, author Kat McKenna said that “the uniqueness of Taylor Swift is that she speaks for an audience that is not always spoken for.”
Although I don’t beg people for that kind of connection, there’s only so many times you can hear lyrics from “Cardigan” or “Cruel Summer” chanted like prayers before you start to feel like something’s wrong with you.
You kept me as a secret, but I kept you as an oath.
You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else.
Great lines! Beautiful lines. For many fans, such verses are life-affirming poetry or, at the very least, quotable enough to adorn shirts and throw pillows and Stanley cups as crystals of their own identity.
But are they really that unique? I have never gotten something out of a Taylor Swift song about love, loss, heartbreak, revenge, shame or self-actualization that I couldn’t have gotten from dozens of other artists. It honestly feels like I missed a day in the White woman class when they explained, in detail, all the lines we carry of female kinship that are supposed to connect our paths with her.
Again, I respect Taylor Swift lovers. I’ve seen, with my own eyes, thousands of women at the starting gate of a novelty 10k race belting out “You Belong With Me” at the top of their lungs at 4:15 a.m. From inside the cocoon of my noise canceling headphones he looked happy and fun, and who in the world could be blamed for that?
Maybe that’s why the whole Not-Caring-About-Taylor-Swift thing stings. It feels like I’m missing out on something. It feels like the cogs of my life, and maybe even my identity, would be a little more lubricated if I could independently think of Taylor Swift that wasn’t “She seems like a suitable role model!” or “I really admire her commitment to good songs!”
(If you think this indifference comes from a place of snobbery, ha, you’re wrong! I don’t have good taste in music. My most listened Spotify tracks are Spanish gospel hymns and stuff with names like “soothing 438 mHz tone therapy for very fragile people.”)
Taylor Swift performs at the opening night of the worldwide Eras Tour on March 17, 2023, in Arizona. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
Until recently, admitting that you didn’t enjoy Taylor Swift’s music was a strange political statement. Said in the wrong circles, even such a mild admission could make you a hater, a misogynist, a contrarian borer or one of those grown women who still play the “I’m not like other women”.
That is not an overstatement. The Cut recently published a piece from a woman who ended a relationship with a friend who didn’t like Taylor Swift. More alarmingly, Paste Magazine chose not to retract his critical review of “Poets” because, according to the publication’s editor’s note posted on X, a review of his 2019 album “Lover” resulted in the author receiving “threats of violence from readers and disagreement with the work.” Although these are extremes, there is always some trepidation in admitting that you don’t care about something that you are expected to care deeply about.
However, Taylor Swift’s days as the ultimate cultural barometer may be dwindling. While Swift’s fans were thrilled with the release of her new double-length album (again, good for them!), the critical reception was more mixed. Following the heated media whirlwind of “The Eras Tour” and its impact on the NFL season as she supported her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, people seem ready to talk about Swift in more tempered tones nor ardor slavery or hard, pointless hatred. .
If you don’t love Taylor Swift, if you don’t hate her; if it’s not something that affects your life at all, it’s probably safe to come out now. Go, take your indifference, and be free.
