#Amanda really likes Taylor Swift

[tallmadgeandtea]

Taylor Swift deciding to feed the period drama girlies AGAIN with Timeless was so kind of her. It also hurt but it was very kind.

[simp-ly-writes]

Spencer x reader where reader is in art department but loves entertainment and is really funny, so is always backstage with Spencer making jokes that end up making the rest of the cast and fans laugh. Bonus points if in videos where Amanda flirts with Spencer (for example, Krungle Darts video) she makes a comment abt not liking “that girl who’s just always hanging on your arm!” And it fuels shipping, maybe at the end the camera turns and they finally kiss and then giggle?? Also maybe partial social media au bc u know I eat that upppp

Hard-Launching

─────── · · A Smosh FanFic

Pairing: Spencer "Chosen" Agnew x gn!Reader

─ · · TAGS: gender-neutral pronouns, slight jealous! and protective!chosen, fluff, light swearing, confessions, cheesy, attempt at humour, social media au (near the end).

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | WORDCOUNT: 1,392

─ · · A/N: I switched a few things up but I hope you enjoy and thank you so much for the asks 🥰

─────── · ·

You were the newest edition to the art department at Smosh having been "stolen" from the Good Mythical Morning Team. It was a bittersweet placement, sure you love building the sets and props and seeing them used within the videos, especially the big production live streams. Yet you studied acting and improv in college, a part of you dying to return to work in front of camera rather than behind.

But you enjoyed the privacy it gave you and of course your relationship with Spencer. Not having to worry over crazy fans coming over and stalking you both yet still being able to share pictures with friends and family freely. But every now and then you would get tastes of being back in front of camera, making comments or faces during the "guess which employee" styled videos or specials yet those came few and far between what you had been craving. But luck would have you on a late Friday afternoon, it was the last production of the week to be filmed and it was a livestream. Your manager had been pulled away putting you in charge of handing the props and quick changes to the crew members.

There was nothing funnier than switching someone out of a poorly designed Taylor Swift outfit and into a gorilla costume the next. Or throwing literal banana peels at Mario and Peach. You smiled watching your boyfriend Spencer in his Chosen outfit threaten princess peach, chasing Shayne around the set as they hid their darts from one another before the filming crew called for intermission and long and behold, the inciting incident.

Spencer came off camera, albeit a little sweaty as you handed out small face cloths, the hospitality team throwing orange slices and water bottles, "its like a kids soccer sunday game, out here..." you mentioned in a dry tone to Spencer as he laughed in your ear, pulling you in for a side hug as you shrunk into yourself.

"Ew, what the hell, get your sweaty self away from me, basement dweller," you retorted, playfully shoving him off you as Spencer pouted in your face then you pulled him back into a hug, rocking back and forth, Spencer places a kiss on your forehead before another member of crew came running over, separating you both and searching for Spencers mic pack.

"Something wrong?" Spencer asked, looking around the set, his inner director coming out as he looked for Courtney who was producing this video to see if she was alright. Yet everything seemed rather chill on set as you both looked at one another in confusion and nodded along to the staff member, "your mic was just left on, chats going crazy over it."

You both walked over to where Courtney was seated, observing both the chat and set, now peering over her shoulder as hundreds of messages flooded up the screen, you barely managed to read a few before you attention was being caught by another...

USERNAME04 Who was that, bring them on they are funny as!!! USERNAME23 are you holding another spencer from us again??? How dare you! /pos

USERNAME27 I KNEW SPENCER WAS SEEING SOMEONE

USERNAME99 DRY HUMOR, IAN IS THAT YOU?

USERNAME02 Girlfriend reveal, please we are begging you!!!

USERNAME76 A new player has entered the arena??

USERNAME88 Nope you have teased us with new content, you have to show us NOW!!!

A sudden rush of a thousand emotions was coursing through you as Spencer pulled you in for one last hug before running back on set, his cheeks a bit pink as he tugged down his sunglasses and gave you a wink as you stood behind the camera and sent him a playful wave back before everyone got back into line and character.

Amanda leaned down, tapping Spencer on the shoulder as the Chosen slowly turned around, hand on katana. "What do you want Mario?"

"Whos-a that 'friend' on your arm? I think-a they would like-a me more than someone like you!" Amanda replied back in a horridly fake Italian accent as you choked back a laugh watching as Spencers shoulders tensed up to his chin and emitting a loud sigh of frustration and chat erupted once more, the computer struggling to keep up with the flood of messages.

USERNAME73 new lore new lore new lore USERNAME90 wtf did i miss???

USERNAME14 I SHIP IT

USERNAME16 Jealous!chosen? In what dimension have we entered? USERNAME40 fight! fight! fight! fight! USERNAME14 Anyone else ship this thruple? USERNAME30 You can't hide it anymore now!!

Your cheeks were now very much warm as you and Spencer looked at one another and then at Amanda, wondering how this should continue. Amanda waved you over wildly with her huge white-gloved covered hands as you looked at Courtney who gave you a wide smile in permission.

Taking a cautious step, then one and then two before Spencer- wait Chosen was dragging you beside him to stand in front of Mario. "So do you want to repeat what you just asked me?" The Chosen asked, looking intently at Mario with furrowed bros as you smiled brightly, land latched onto Spencers forearm.

"I say-a I like-a your 'friend' here, what do ya say? me and you?" Mario asks, leaning in closer to your face as Chosen pulls you back slightly, taking a step forwards as you slide your hand down his arm and link your hands together. "I think I'll stay with who I've got," you speak into Amandas microphone before she takes a dramatic huff and step back before crying into Peach's shoulder as you choke back a laugh.

You smile seeing Spencers ears go slightly pink before looking over at the cameras and crew as Courtney flails two thumbs up excitedly. You can feel your phone in your back pocket start to blow up as you continue to stare at Spencer as he turns to do the same as you, moving a hand to almost cup your cheek before letting you go as you walk back behind camera as if nothing happened.

Once safety off screen once again, you open your phone to see all your friends and family going wild and sending you encouraging texts alongside a sea of social media notifications as thousands flock to follow and stalk your posts. It's all there now, you think to yourself before forcing your phone to power off, not wanting to stress yourself out on all the what if's now.

─────── · ·

The stream was wrapping up yet the chat was still going insane, your heart warmed to see so much support toppling over the obviously jealous haters of you and Spencers relationship.

"How would you feel about hard launching?" Spencer sent through text, looking up from his phone as Shayne started outro-ing in front of him and Amanda. All you sent was a thumbs up in reply before you were being pulled back in front of camera, his sunglasses now raised as he smiled brightly at you.

"I love you," Spencer whispered, "I love you too, but maybe ditch the shark necklace next date night," you said with a laugh and the cast and crew joined you. Absolutely buzzing off of life, you partially didn't realize you and Spencer had pulled one another into a short kiss after that confession and the deafening sound of claps and cheers has you both pulling away and holding your hands up for the camera that fades to black.

─────── · ·

🔔 Spennser just posted, check it out!

─────── · ·

Liked by your_username, ianhecox, shaynetopp and others

Spennser I've loved you for three years and how i get to share how lucky i am to have you for all the rest and then some ❤️

View all 1,577 comments

your_username i love you 😘

↳ spennser i love you too 😘

co_mill Obsessed with you, I smell a Smosh Wedding Season 2 on the horizon!

olivia_sui happy for you both!!

username71 I KNEW YOU WERE SEEING ONE ANOTHER, PATRICK YOU OWE ME $10!!!!

ianhecox took you both long enough...

↳ anthonypadilla now ian, we don't share our jealous online, we just hide it and take it personally next time

username88 happy but sad at the same time- congrats I guess 😭

shaynetopp lets gooooo man! can't wait to post all those double date pictures now! 😆

─────── · ·

─ · · A/N: hope you all are not getting sick of these

─ · · SPENCER AGNEW TAGLIST: @lisiliely @missflufffanfics @little-stitious-studios @thejourneyneverendsx @sibsteria @lizzylynch1

[spence-whore]

You are in love

Spencer Agnew x reader

A/N this was inspired by you are in love by Taylor Swift. Yes, I’m a big swiftie lmao. This isn’t so focused on the lyrics or anything specifically in the song. I just thought the idea of him realizing he was in love with his partner was really cute. This is gonna be a really short one but it’s cute. Simple but sweet:) also, forewarning. I do not get to heavily edit this, so you will have to overlook the typos. I have to go study for my exam tomorrow now. Hope you all have had/are having a good day<3

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Spencer realized he is falling harder and harder each day. It was so cliche but he felt like a teenager falling in love for the first time. He honestly felt like there was no time or use for things like this during this period of his life but then he met you. You were new two years ago to the cast. You were hired on in the art department and had to help Spencer out one day with something for one of his characters. It was like love at first sight for him, as cheesy as it is to say. You just had such a carefree energy. You were also always so happy. You were like a big cup of coffee. Anyone who spent any time around you was in the best mood and ready to kick the days ass.

“Hey loser.” You said as you flopped down in a chair beside his desk. It was the end of the day and usually, the two of you would go to his place and order food then watch something or play a game. Tonight, you two were going over to Shayne and Courtney’s home for a little celebration. “You ready to head out?” You asked giving him a soft smile.

Just your smile alone flooded his chest with the craziest butterflies. He felt heat flood to his chest and he smiled and nodded his head at you. “Yep, we’re going to Courtney and Shayne’s house, aren’t we?” He asked while turning his computer off and grabbing his stuff.

“Yes, I’m gonna go get absolutely plastered and you are gonna have to take care of me for the reeeeest of the night.” You said jokingly, throwing your arm over his shoulder.

Just you touching the man sent sparks flying throughout his body. “Yeah, right. You will take one sip of a drink, complain about it not being good, then give it to me to finish.” He said glaring at you.

The two of you headed out of the office hand in hand, to your car. You were in your head thinking about some of the stuff you had to get done tomorrow and realized someone was burning holes into the side of your head. You looked out of your corner of your eye and seen Spencer staring at you.

“Whatcha looking at, pretty boy?” You asked giving his hand a small squeeze.

Spencer tried laughing it off, slightly embarrassed that you caught him staring at you. He shot his eyes forward then glanced back over at you again, “Something beautiful.”

The two of you finally reached his car and got in to make your way to Courtney and Shayne’s home. There wasn’t much talking. You just played music over the aux while zoning out. Spencer could do nothing but stare at you. There was just something different about you tonight. He didn’t know if it was a certain way you had done your hair or the outfit you were wearing or what. He just felt like he was staring at the graphics in a new video game or something. He couldn’t get over how ethereal you are.

You finally made it to the party and started greeting people as the two of you walked in. You ended up splitting up, as he went with Shayne and Tommy and you went with Courtney, Kimmy, and Amanda.

The three of you stood for a while talking whenever Amanda noticed a certain someone kept glancing at you.

“If someone turns his head to look at you anymore, his neck is gonna break.” Amanda whispered while nodding her head in Spencer’s direction.

“I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever seen him so.. love struck before.” Courtney said giggling. “Ever since the two of you have been hanging out, he just seems so much happier. You just bring so much light to him.”

You started shaking your head while smiling, “No, no. It’s not me that has caused that. He’s just happier in general.” You explained while staring down at your drink and stirring it.

“Y/N. I have never seen that boy blush before until he started talking to you. You are like the sunshine to him.” Amanda said softly smiling at you and you couldn’t help but to blush.

“He honestly makes me really happy. Every other partner I’ve had in the past, I’ve never felt so comfortable with like I do with him. He is like my best friend.” You said while pushing your hair behind your ear.

Courtney just starts giggling while looking towards Spencer, “Literally every time he looks over here, his face lights up. It’s so freaking cute.”

Angela and Arasha walked up, so the five of you started talking about work and Courtney and Shayne.

Over at Shayne, Spencer, and Tommy’s table, they were drilling him about you and giving him shit.

“If you look at Y/N anymore, your eyes are going to burst of your head Spencer.” Tommy said while laughing at him.

“I wasn’t look at them, what are you talking about?” Spencer said while shaking his head and tried to change the topic to a new movie that is coming out. Of course, this didn’t work because he glanced over at Y/N and it was like his brain went to mush. They were standing directly under a light, so it was like a spotlight was on them. They just looked perfect. His words kept getting jumbled together and he kept stuttering. He finally just stopped trying to talk and stared at them for a minute. All he could think about was wanting to go over and kiss them. He was just so enamored by them.

Shayne was looking at him smiling because he knew exactly what it was he was feeling but he didn’t say anything. He knew that feeling because that is exactly how he felt whenever he started falling for Courtney.

It was suddenly like Spencer’s brain just broke down even more than it all made sense to him. All he could think was, holy shit I am in love with Y/N. His chest felt like it was on fire and he started shaking due to nerves.

“Are you okay dude?” Shayne asked noticing that the guy looked like he was about to start crying.

“No. I’m fucked.” Spencer whispered to himself before he chugged the rest of his whiskey.

“What’s wrong?” Tommy asked aloud, looking at the two in front of him.

“I think I’m in love with them.” Spencer mumbled while just staring at the table in front of him. Tommy and Shayne lost it and started shouting nonsense while acting like teenage girls. They never thought they would see Spencer like this because he was always someone who shut down his feelings. They couldn’t get over the fact that Spencer had finally found his person.

Y/N caught on to the two freaking out while their partner sat, looking like he was having a meltdown at their table. You stayed at the table staring at the three till you noticed Spencer was visibly tearing up and starting to cry.

“Oh, shit. I’ll be back, I think something’s wrong with Spencer.” Y/N said before jumping up to go grab Spencer and walk outside. You grabbed a water bottle while on the way and approached their table. “Hey boys, sorry to break up the party for a few minutes. I’m gonna grab curly headed goober here for a second.” You said giving Tommy and Shayne a soft smile.

Spencer just stood up and walked towards the back door that lead to the backyard. You followed behind him and shut the door behind him.

“Hey you, are you okay?” You asked, sitting down beside Spencer on the swing. You placed a hand on his thigh and started rubbing your thumb across his leg then handed him the water in your other hand. “Thought maybe you could use some water. You know, gotta stay hydrated.” You said whispering.

Spencer forced a smile back to you while grabbing the water then shook his head while getting a sip of it. “I’m fucking terrified.” He said while staring at the ground.

“Why?” You asked, taking your hand off his leg and wrapping your arm around his shoulder then resting your hand on the back of his head. You started lightly scratching the back of his head while staring at him, hoping maybe this would calm him down. Little did you know, the little signs of affection you were giving him were driving him absolutely insane. He just wanted to shout that he was in love with you.

You turned a little in the swing to face him but kept your hand on the back of his head. You were giving him a few minutes to try and calm down before asking anymore questions. Out of nowhere’s, Spencer just blurts, “I’m scared because of this.” It caught you off guard. All you could think was, I fucked this up. He’s going to break up with me.

Spencer felt you tense up and all he could do was laugh. “I’m not meaning it in a negative way. Actually, maybe a little. I’m just terrified I’m going to screw this up.” Spencer explained, finally looking over at you.

“Spencer, you could never-“ He immediately cuts you off. “I’m in love with you. I mean I am head over heels, infatuated with you. The second I wake up in the morning, you’re the first thing on my mind. The second I hear news that is exciting, I want to run to find you and tell you. The second I accomplish something, I want to find you and tell you. You give me a reason to be excited about the world, Y/N. I know we’ve only been together for almost eight months but god, I am so in love with you and just want to experience the rest of my life with only you.”

All you could do was just stare at him. “I’m not proposing to you right now, if that’s what it sounds like.” Spencer said while chuckling. “I’m just saying that one day, I want to marry you. One day, I want to do the thing old married couples do with you.”

“Can you say that again?” You asked staring at him in shock.

He looked at you with confusion, “I’m not proposing to you?”

You just laughed and shook your head, “No, no. What you said a minute ago.”

He just nodded his head slowly for a second before turning in the swing to face you. “I am so in love with you.”

All you could do was pull him into a hug and to hold him for a minute. “Is this why you were crying?” You asked laughing a little, pulling back to look at him. He just shook his head yes while looking at you. He looked like he was mentally shitting himself but you realized it was because you had not said anything to him.

“Oh shit, wait, I love you too, you dork.” You said back while giggling. You cupped the side of his face and just brushed your thumb over his cheek for a minute while looking at him.

“God, I am so in love with you Spencer.”

[artsaucewritercal]

“you’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.”

thoughts and no words version under the cut :)

it’s her… my magnum opus. i was in severe need of gracevannah art so i decided if you wanted something done you had to do it yourself. and of course credits to the wonderful music that fueled each drawing, that i imagined gracie and savannah playing out these songs to the point that i had to get the brain worms out through art so really you should be thanking them and also smosh and amanda and courtney for bringing these beautiful silly characters into existence

1. pretty girls, reneé rapp

2. night shift, lucy dacus

3. daylight, taylor swift

idk when i’ll next do a gracevannah art like this but i will definitely be doing more smosh stuff so maybe follow me? perchance? lol?

but last but not least here’s the no words version for all of this art:

[xoxochb]

i saw you asking for requests and i thought i would give a kinda basic one but like idk i have a feeling it will turn out good (im really bad with requests)

but like jason grace x child of aphrodite reader with false god by taylor swift maybe the lyrics "And you can't talk to me when I'm like this daring you to leave me just so I can try and scare you" but honestly any part of the song you see fit!!

all my love, amanda 🎀

⋆·˚ ༘ * even if it’s a false god, we’d still worship this love

warnings: arguing, kissing, this might be cringe? also takes place at chb because I can’t write the setting at camp jupiter to save my life

pairing: jason grace x daughter of aphrodite

“he’s my friend, that’s it! do you know what a friend is?” you asked angrily

you had been arguing about th”is for a half an hour now.

you had been talking to one of your male friends at the campfire, just catching up, but jason took it the wrong way when he caught you laughing at one of his jokes, hitting his arm playfully

“I know what a friend is, which is why I’m saying that he doesn’t want to be just your friend” jason replied

“oh my gods, you are so-” you cut yourself off, trailing your hands down your face as a way to calm yourself down

“so what? say it” he demanded

“relentless. you won’t let this go, why can’t you trust that we’re just friends” you say with a a calm tone, but your anger takes over, “leave”

a strong look of worry makes its way to his face, “what? what do mean?”

“leave, go away” you shoot him a glare, crossing your arms

“this is my cabin” you sigh at his words

“well I’m done” you mutter

“done with-” realization washes over him, “no- please, we can talk”

“we are talking, and you don’t trust me, it’s too late at night to deal with this” snapped

“I do trust you, I trust you more than anyone, I’m just worried. you’re a daughter of aphrodite, you’re gorgeous, everyone wants to be with you, I can’t help but feel you’ll leave me for someone better” he confessed

you think for a moment. maybe you had been to harsh… you begin to think that maybe this argument wouldn’t have started if you had asked him for further detail.

the more you think about his words, the worse it makes you feel

guilt.

that’s what you feel

extremely guilty that you yelled at him for being scare you would leave him, it wasn’t fair

“jase- listen, I’m sorry, I would never leave you, ever. you’re the one I want, not some other stupid boys, just you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t realize how you felt, I feel awful” you grab his hands and cup them in yours, looking up at him with a begging-look, hoping he understands your words, “but I really hope you trust me when I say I don’t want anyone else in this universe but you”

“but what if-” you cut him off with a finger to his lips

“no, there is no what-ifs, I only want you, idiot” you sigh, pulling him in for a passionate kiss, and he pulls you in closer by your waist

you let your hands travel up to the back of his neck, pushing him closer to you, and he lets out a content sigh as you do so, and you know you’ve got him to understand

“I don’t want anybody to take you away from me” he says in between breathless kisses

“no one’s going to”

[coq-ue-tte]

𝐀𝐝𝐚𝐦 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

(this is my first tumblr post so don’t mind me)

🕯 🧸 ☁ 🪐 🕊 🤎 🌙 📷

(𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐓𝐢𝐤𝐓𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭)

♡❀˖⁺. ༶ ⋆˙⊹❀♡

~ SAD HEADCANNONS ~

• Lawrence felt so guilty about not going back for Adam that he used his power as an apprentice to anonymously stalk Adam’s family, find his parents and send money to them to pay for his grave or to go towards the vigil.

• In an argument with Scott Tibbs (probably to do with the new album photoshoot) he broke the last picture Adam had of his parents.

• He began smoking and doing drvgs in his early teens, and this was one of the reasons why he fell out with his parents and got kicked out.

• After everything that happened to Adam, Lawrence took up photography to help remember him.

• Larry would also go to the parking lot where they first properly met, to reconnect with him.

• Afraid of the dark.

• After the events of saw 1 (if he magically escaped) he would NEVER lock the doors to the bathrooms he would use in public, in case he got locked in one again. But it would kind of annoy you because you’d have to wait for him.

• Went to a rehabilitation camp when he was younger.

• Adam met Daniel at a ‘Wrath of the Gods’ gig. But he saw him as a little brother.

• Daniel would rant to Adam about Eric, but Adam would relate to it all because of his own relationship with his father.

• Adam would often compare himself to the attention Scott got from women, this would make him a lot more insecure and self conscious .

• The photo of Adam (seen in The Scott Tibbs Documentary) was the last remaining thing Scott got from Adam’s apartment, the rest of it was taken by squatters…

• Bailed Scott out a couple times, this is one of the reasons why he is poor.

• Definitely had that one teacher at school that he’d just linger with because all of the other people in his grade/year pissed him off.

• Taught Daniel how to skate.

• HEAR ME OHT FOR THIS ONE BECAUSE I DON’T EXPLAIN IT VERY WELL !!!

~ Scott would definitely try and get with 18 year old groupies or Yk younger, but he’d definitely try and set them up with Adam too. Adam wouldn’t have any of this illegal shit and reassure the women that he was nice and didn’t want it.

• The iconic shirt of his seen in Saw 1 was probably given to him by his dad. It’s one of the last things he has.

• Gets into fights at bars bc he RUNS HIS MOUTH. But that doesn’t mean he wins them ….

• He waited every day outside of his apartment to see if Amanda was there.

• Liked Amanda because he knew that she wouldn’t run off with Scott.

• His parents definitely tried reaching out to him, but he didn’t want any of it.

• His parents put flyers and missing poster signs to try and get their son back. But it didn’t work …

• He had such a problem with Larry cheating on his wife because I get the vibe that Adam’s dad cheated on his mom.

• Died thinking that no one loved him. But there’s probably a lil bench put in his name in his hometown.

• Stalks his exes online.

• Got arrested for stalking and harassment.

.⋆｡⋆˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆. .⋆｡⋆˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆.

HAPPY / RANDOM HEADCANNONS <3 (yay)

‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈୨୧┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹

• Hates cheese.

• Went to a blink- 182 concert back when they were REALLY popular.

• He was close to his grandma, but when she died, he kind of spiralled (this is kinda sad but cute :))

• Donnie Darko is his comfort character.

• Gets outfit inspiration from people like Kurt Cobain and Billy Loomis. (If you know you know)

• His couch is COVERED in cigarette burns.

• Owns a tumblr account <3

• Owns a wrath of the Gods fan page. We love a supportive king.

• Owns one of those TikTok accounts that just low-key aims all of his posts about Taylor Swift and the swifties.

• Had a buzz cut back in high school.

• Definitely be one of those people like “Name 5 Songs !!! 😡😡😡” Bro would love pissing people off.

• Loved Smoking at night to Jeff Buckley’s Grace. Loved that man so much.

• Definitely a comic book collector.

• Would love all- inclusive buffets :)

• more than likely got expelled as a kid.

‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈୨୧┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹

(that’s all for now <3)

[twelvegrimmyplace]

Nick Grimshaw on kindness, queerness and life lessons as a grown-up.

Gay Times Honours Issue 2023

Friendly media mogul Nick Grimshaw, aka Grimmy, has done it all. He’s introduced his parents to Lady Gaga and, recently, even had tea with Harry Styles. Now, however, the former Radio 1 DJ is getting acquainted with something else – growing up. 

Getting older, no doubt, is terrifying. Carefree late nights with mates at sticky, flooded gigs are suddenly swapped for questions revolving around major milestones: partners, career, and, of course, kids. Close friends are no longer egging you on to ditch work and hangout or checking in to see if you’ve actually drank water. Instead, you’re trying to squeeze in a meetup between deadlines, dates and an ever-growing to-do list of life admin. And Grimmy is no different. Booze-driven afterparties have morphed into nourishing Sunday roast dinners with Mesh, his fiancé. Girl dinner Quaver packets have matured to conversations – on his glitzy new foodie podcast Dish co-hosted by Michelin-star chef Angela Hartnett – with Miriam Margolyes on how she likes her mashed potatoes. 

Having the big four-zero on the radar prompted a new perspective for the presenter. What was once maligned (“I felt like growing older was the end of something or deeply depressing,” Grimshaw admits) has been, mostly, embraced. It’s less coming of age but, rather, coming to age. Still, new digits doesn’t need to mean the fun is over. In fact, just last night, Grimshaw partied late with celebs Jake Shears, Amanda Lepore, Jodie Harsh, and Mutya Buena in Soho. Here in Holborn, however, things are much more mild. Sure, there’s some tasteful framed nude art to our right and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ crackling over studio speakers but nothing beats a good old-fashioned launch party, or a karaoke b-day bash taking place later this evening in central London. 

Nursing a non-alcoholic beer, Grimshaw scoots across a black leather couch, arriving fresh from a photoshoot, something he describes as his “Naomi Campbell moment”. Comfortably clothed in a light-wash denim shirt and distressed jeans, he kicks off the conversation as if reuniting with an old friend. “I've never taken stock before. I'd never sat down and thought about myself, ever, and I don't think people do,” he says. Since his early twenties, Grimshaw’s image has been inextricably tied to two things: big names and his infamous towering quiff haircut. At some point, he acknowledges, you will have heard his quick-fire Mancunian comedy soundtracking your early mornings. Whether he was making jokes with Taylor Swift or having the early hours crashed by Charli XCX, the presenter became a known face at the Beeb. In his autobiographical book, Soft Lad, Grimshaw reminisces on the pull the small screen had on him as a young child. Armed with a love for glamour and theatrics, the events he saw on the telly called to a younger Grimshaw who dreamed of moving out of Manchester to take on London. 

Onboarding, in 2012, at Radio 1 to cover The Breakfast Show was something the podcaster remembers clearly; “There was a lot of pressure”. His days of spinning songs and connecting with artists over music became more than a vocation, but a specialism. While he does admit, sheepishly, that there were days his hangover ran over into work hours, he’s since taken time to reassess his habits and lifestyle. “When I was 23 I was getting absolutely wasted and doing it like a Geordie Shore night out,” he says. Now, Grimshaw is more conscious of being selectively sober in certain environments. “It can be really hard to go out and connect with people who are drunk and you're not drinking. But, sometimes, you have the best nights ever. I went out last night and went to a really fun party up until 1.30 am and had really good chats with loads of people.” He’s taking stock of the bigger moments around him, particularly ones that bring him closer to friends and family – “It's about learning. It's about growth,” he says earnestly. 

At 39, Grimshaw’s longevity has something to do with his candour and bonhomie. The most common compliment doled out about the presenter is his warmth. As a child, he recalls, the label “soft lad” was stuck to him, presenting his sensitivity as something to be ashamed of. But, years later, it’s become something – like his favourite Maison Margiela knit sweaters – that he wears openly. “At school, I always felt on edge that I was going to get beaten up or laughed at. When you've had that, you learn empathy and you think about how people might feel or what they're going through,” he explains. 

Realisng he was gay, as a child, filled Grimshaw with dread as he feared what it would mean. With limited queer culture references growing up (just Elton John and Lily Savage) his feelings were fully realised, aged 11, when he developed a crush on a poster of England footballer David Beckham pinned up on his bedroom wall. “You know what’s funny, not that I’m doing Miriam Margolyes press, but I saw her yesterday. I'd never met her and I went into her dressing room. Before I could say hello, she pointed and exclaimed: ‘You’re gay!’ and continued with ‘So, my dear, nice to meet you.’ As I got into bed last night, I thought about how that would’ve killed me if I was a teenager, but it was a really lovely bonding moment.” 

Though being a presenter and DJ took up most of Grimshaw’s early adolescent years, his move to writing has allowed him the space to trawl through his past years without expectation. From reassessing his comfort with queerness to realising the strength found in the LGBTQIA+ community outside of his town in Greater Manchester, Grimshaw is grateful for the relationships he’s built with those around him. “I learn constantly from the queer community. It’s that notion of being yourself and leaning into yourself which can be hard to do if you're queer, especially if you've had that knocked out of you when you're a kid,” he says. “The community are essential in helping everyone, and me, support one another.”

Soft Lad and Dish capture different versions of Grimshaw; the quirky characteristics of a presenter that couldn’t surface in a music hotbed. In his new roles, the presenter-meets-podcaster chats to hot-shot talent while unravelling stories centred around food, famous friends and frenzied stories. His book is an homage to his parents (“I realised how important they were shaping me – I love them contractually, but also really love them) and to his English and Irish roots. Bookended between stories of queer curiosity and his loathing for football, tales of community and camaraderie at Radio 1 surface. “I loved it when we had a great guest from the queer community. I had great times with Sam Smith, they would be a riot and would really gossip with us when the records were on and tell us stories that we couldn't have on the radio. Troye Sivan was a great time as well,” he recalls. 

Another memorable moment was his run-in with an early-era Lady Gaga, in Notting Hill, before she became Mother Monster as we now know her. “I did my first interview with Gaga years ago, for the telly, and it was when she was brand new. ‘Just Dance’ had just come out in America and she was making a bra out of gaffer tape on a dressing room floor,” he says, laughing. “I brought mum and dad along because they were in town so they met her right at the beginning of her career. Ever since then, whenever she'd come onto the radio show, she’d ask about my mum and dad.”

Grimshaw’s stories of famous crossovers are, understandably, endless – even if they’re ones he’s told plenty of times before. Up until recently, he’s remained embroiled in an ecosystem of music promoting a “product” but, now, he feels like his new projects allow for authentic conversations about people and their interests. His mantra, nowadays, is this: “Living in the full, truest form of yourself, without fear and judgement.” For a young Grimshaw, this unbridled queer joy took the form of “glamorous” drag shows where he dressed up as Cher for his family. Today, it’s about cooking in a kitchen packed with too many guests (and remembering to drink water). Turning 40, at one point, felt like a frightening due date. Now it’s a milestone Grimshaw is ready to take on.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

It was inevitable that Republicans would go after Dolly Parton. Under the leadership of Donald "Make America Great Again" Trump, Republicans have grown to loathe most everything they used to hold in high regard. Forget patriotism — nowadays, Trump rallies are replete with claims that the United States is a "s__thole." The Super Bowl is now derided as an "election interference psyop." Once-beloved Budweiser beer has become a hate object. The same conservative forces who used to pretend they were defending American icons like Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head from imaginary "cancelation" are now mostly in the business of canceling anything and everything that Americans might enjoy. 

"There’s Nothing Loving About Dolly Parton’s False Gospel," the wet blankets at The Federalist recently declared. The much-derided essay from Ericka Andersen castigates the beloved singer-songwriter for "condoning immoral sexual behavior," by which Andersen means being gay or queer. Andersen doesn't directly come out and claim Parton is lying about being a Christian, but gets close with terms like "secularized spiritual leader" and "false gospel."  The faux-theology is a paper-thin cover for what is really a political attack. It's not just that Andersen resents that Parton offers innocuous statements of love and acceptance of LGBTQ people, sentiments shared by most Americans. As with the attacks on the NFL, Taylor Swift, and the "Barbie" movie, it's about encouraging paranoia in the Republican base. The message, from Trump down through the right-wing media, is that white conservative Christians are under attack from every corner of society. As New York Times writer Jamelle Bouie explained on Bluesky, this allows conservatives to "see themselves as involved in revolutionary action that justifies anything under the sun." Including lying, committing crimes, and, as we saw on Jan. 6, violence. 

The invocation of religious language isn't surprising. This tactic is borrowed directly from the world of fundamentalist Christianity. For decades, far-right Christian pastors have used a similar strategy to alienate their congregations from the outside world, leaving pastors with total control of their flock's lives. Believers are routinely threatened with hell for even thinking about whatever pop culture is trendy.  In the 80s, of course, this was the notorious "Satanic panic," where everything from daycare centers to popular rock albums to Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games was said to be a gateway directly to demonic possession. In the 90s, fundamentalists declared that Pokémon "teaches children how to enter into the world of witchcraft." For the past couple of decades, Christian fundamentalists have been freaking out over the "Harry Potter" series, which only seems to have quieted a bit as the author JK Rowling has so loudly championed the far-right opposition to trans rights. Lately, the biggest target for hyperventilating accusations of demonic possession is, of course, Taylor Swift, as well as most other big pop stars. If it might create a chance for young people to bond with those outside of the church, it gets demonized.  Separating people from any connection to the outside world is an effective tool for control, which is why everyone from abusive husbands to cult leaders uses it. As the GOP morphs into the cult of Donald Trump, then, it's not surprising that they've also grown fond of telling their followers to shun any interests outside of Trump rallies and MAGA media. After all, even a casual conversation about football with a dreaded liberal might be a reminder that Democrats are normal people and not the "evil" and "sick" people who need eradication, as Trump regularly claims. 

[...] Parton's "love they neighbor" view is downright banal to most people, but it does run directly against the "hate and fear your neighbor" message of MAGA. It's especially unsettling to Republicans, as Andersen explicitly writes, because it's a direct allusion to what was recently a common Christian message: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." As New York Times writer Elizabeth Spiers argued on Bluesky, the Trump base now openly embraces "a bastardized version of Christianity that’s reverse engineered from their biases," rejecting compassion in favor of "permission to judge people they don’t like and punish them for deviations from conservative norms." Russell Moore, who was once a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention but got pushed out for, among other things, being anti-racist, agrees. He has spoken publicly about how Christian ministers can no longer preach about the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus famously blessed the meek, the peacemakers, and the merciful. If ministers try to teach this scripture, Moore said congregants will revolt, calling it "weak." The relentless cruelty of Trumpism is their true faith. 

Andersen's attack on Parton is part of a larger trend where the GOP is becoming an arm of the once-fringe Christian nationalist movement. As Paul Rosenberg has explained at Salon, these are folks who believe their rigid version of Christianity must "exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions." To justify stripping freedom of religion away and imposing theocracy on Americans, Christian nationalists, including Trump, claim to be acting in self-defense. They make false accusations that they are somehow "canceled" by the "woke mob," and thus the only way to restore their "rights" is to take rights away from everyone else.

Andersen employs this dishonest tactic by claiming "the culture is on a constant witch hunt for those who would call homosexuality sinful." Never mind that LGBTQ people have suffered imprisonment, violence, and discrimination. Ignore the fact that, if conservatives had their way, queer people would lose their right to marry, would be denied health care, be fired from their jobs, and be put in jail for having consensual sex. She wants readers to believe the real victims are homophobes, because people accurately call them bigots. And that all those terrible things they want to do to LGBTQ are justified, because they feel "witch hunted" by having people disagree with them.

Amanda Marcotte wrote a good Salon piece nailing the hypocrisy of the Christian Right's attacks on pop culture icons such as Taylor Swift and Dolly Parton while simultaneously whining about being "victims" of "cancel culture."

[willymontana]

Behold, my MEGA MULTI-FANDOM COLLAGE OF DOODLES AND NONSENSICAL COMMENTARIES!!!!

I've OFFICIALLY graduated from high school (kinda) and one thing that kept me going through this phase is all of the fandoms I'm in or at least dipped my foot into for a bit. The entertainment media is really important to me, it helped me keep my sanity through many tough times. And in return, I like to doodle the artist, the characters, the memorable scenes, etc. whenever school just feels too much. I tried to salvage as much as I could, cut them up and put together this framed collage. This isn't only personal and reminds me of all the good times but it also symbolises an end of an era for me as I'm about to walk into the uni gate and be responsible for lots of things, I guess... Thank you for all of the wonderful moments and let's hope for more in future <3

Featured fandoms (some less subtle than others, with references through songs, names, etc.):

- Kylie Minogue

- Taylor Swift

- Lady Gaga

- Beyoncé

- Charli XCX

- Marina

- Brandon Rogers (Bryce Tankthrust, CEO)

- Stardew Valley

- The Hunger Games

- Burlesque (2010)

- Heathers (1988)

- Good Omens (2019)

- Hazbin Hotel (2019)

- Escape The Night with Joey Graceffa (2016 - 2019)

- Rupaul's Drag Race (Raja Gemini, Adore Delano, Amanda Tori Meating)

- Horror movies (in general)

- The PISD club (Post IELTS Stress Disorder) (jk, not really)

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

The thing that surprised me when I first got into the fandom side of Shameless is that Fiona and Debbie will very rarely receive a nuanced reception for their actions (thinking about the things they do that are wrong and thinking about intent) whereas Lip's actions will always be handwaved away, even when he's 100% in the wrong. I still love Lip but it's led to me sometimes eye rolling at some of his scenes. Really the one's where he's screaming at someone about how wrong they are.

yeah… i love shameless and i love the fandom but they are both incredibly misogynistic, unfortunately.

*cue the man by taylor swift*

lip’s actions will always be defended because people think that he’s cool. debbie and fiona’s actions won’t, because people think that they’re bitches.

and there are so many pieces of evidence that the reason people (men) love lip and hate debbie and fiona is because of gender.

debbie or fiona could (and have) do the same fucked up thing that lip did and people react so differently.

for example:

lip trying to convince karen to keep her baby, wanting desperately to parent the child despite the fact that fiona warns him it’s a shitty decision because they can’t afford it, and for that, he’s stepping up. he’s mature. he’s brave.

debbie lies about being on birth control to purposefully have a kid and refuses to abort it despite fiona’s pleas because they can’t afford it, and she actually raises the kid all on her own, for that, she’s dumb. she’s a brat. she’s a bitch.

both of them were wrong. lip was wrong for telling karen what to do with her body and risking everything for his family for a child he wasn’t even 100% was his. debbie was wrong for lying to have a baby at fifteen (she was not wrong for not aborting franny, though. a lot of people think that she was, but i’m a firm believer in my body my choice, so it’s her absolute right to not abort her child).

debbie drops franny because of sleep deprivation and she’s suddenly the worst. fiona’s a drunk and suddenly she’s a bad character and a shitty person (she is a shitty person, but they all are). lip dropped his kid and is an alcoholic but he’s given the benefit of the doubt.

lip treats the women in his life like shit. probably because of monica. debbie and fiona get screamed at by him for honest mistakes (mostly fiona), mandy, amanda, sierra, and tami all got treated like shit by him when they were dating (tami doesn’t put up with it as much, though). and i’m not even necessarily saying he’s a misogynist, but he generally treats men better than women. and people are a little too okay with that.

all of lip’s actions are defended by how hard he had it, fiona and debbie’s aren’t. people will get really deep with lip, and explain how his every move is okay because his childhood was shitty. debbie and fiona are so complex also, and they literally had the same parents as lip, but people don’t like to get as deep and explain their every move with them (i do tho😉). every shameless character is complex. even the characters that aren’t as big. they all are complex and they have layers and if you look into them you can find a lot. people will do that with characters like lip, but with debbie and fiona they just kind of shrug it off. personally i find debbie much more interesting than lip but that’s just me.

if you’re going to defend lip because of how he was raised, you should defend all of the siblings. they literally grew up together.

and i love lip. i’m not trying to say i hate him, but if people are going to shit on fiona and debbie, then people should shit on lip, too.

i’ve said this before, but all of the characters resemble a role. they all have trauma and they all have different trauma responses. but just because they deal with it differently doesn’t mean that they aren’t traumatized.

i’m getting off topic as always lol.

but i wish that lip would get held accountable more. and i wish that people would go easier on fiona and debbie.

the show is called shameless. all of the characters are massive pieces of shit. to call any character except for like, liam, a good person is stupid because that’s missing the entire point. just because you like a character doesn’t mean that they’re an angel. one of my favorite characters is debbie and she’s a piece of shit. like she sucks ass but i also love her.

i’m unhappy with this post i might just redo it😭

[tallmadgeandtea]

You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

[toomuchsmoshbrainrot]

ayo smoshblr fic writers

so in addition to the giant ass whump fic i'm working on, i also have a series that's based on songs. i cant stop getting ideas for it help.

current playlist:

1, 3, and 8 are published

1: outsiders inside the home that we built (ianthony)

3: without you, there's no way i'd be standing here right now (spommy)

8: i hope you're okay, but you're the reason (spommy)

there's also the sign on your heart said it's still reserved for me (spommy) named for the alchemy by taylor swift, but i didn't put it in the playlist cuz the plot doesn't really follow the lyrics.

2 (for damien/jackie) and 10 (for spencer/amanda) are currently in progress.

the rest of the playlist are free floating vague ideas.

4 i was thinking amangela

5 i don't have a pairing idea yet but the series is titled 'you sound like a song' so i kinda have to use it

6 i dunno yet either but its about someone being far away so maybe something with jackie again?

7 for shourtney

9 and 11 for ianthony

[nofingjustaninchident]

OMG FIRSTLY CONGRATS ON 200 FOLLOWERS!!! that is amazing!

i am obsessed with all the options for the follower event so catch me sending a bunch of asks in each week!! but to start i would love DON’T TAKE IT PERSONAL!!!

a little bit about me for the event: i love reading, crafting (crocheting and making beaded bracelets), my favorite season is autumn, my favorite color changed like almost every day but it is currently a forest green, my favorite album of all time is folklore by taylor swift (favorite song from the album is illicit affairs), my favorite books are percy jackson: titans curse (all of them really), six of crows, and the starless sea (these define my personality), and i am a daughter of athena.

no rush in completing this, keep up all the amazing work!!

all my love,

xoxo. amanda <3

oh, hello! thank you so much for the congrats, n you can send as many requests as you want!! (according to the rules, obvi)

⛧ DON’T TAKE IT PERSONAL

oh hi hermione granger, thank you for stopping by and saying hi! literally hermione granger, n i dunnoif u watched/read hp, but ur literally her.

[everythingsf1ne23]

𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐲𝐥 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 | 𝘔𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘦𝘭 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢 (𝘒𝘪𝘯) 

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 💌:

!! First of all I don’t claim to own any layouts that I use on my page, full credit to others who have used similar layouts, I just use layouts that I’ve used on my Wattpad !! 

I’m super excited for all the Michael lovers to read this, I’m not sure if I’ll leave this as a one shot or if I’ll make a fanfic of it it so please give me some feedback in the comments as I’d really appreciate if you all could let me know your thoughts, also requests are open in the ‘ask me anything’ box! ~Jess

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 📝:

in which, the new record shop catches Michael’s eye or was it the cute worker there?

𝘔𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘦𝘭’𝘴 𝘗𝘰𝘷:

I’m so tired of listening to Amanda bullshitting day in, day out.

I’ve taken a trip into town to help focus my mind on something that isn’t stressful.

I look in all the shop windows, to see if anything interests me but there’s nothing in particular in this street.

I continue walking around, I hear someone behind me and I quickly look around to see someone wearing a black hoodie and a balaclava, that was enough for me to start walking faster in case it was any of the cunts that were after the family.

I turn into a street and the person in the black hoodie is still behind me, I notice a record shop so I speed walk over to it.

I open the door of the shop and the bell rings at the door, behind the counter was a girl who was typing on her laptop.

She looks up at me, “Hi! Is there anything

 I can help you with?”

“I’m just having a look around”, I reply a/ I start to look through the shelves, 

“Okay, if you need anything let me know”, 

I hear her say, 

“Thanks” flicking through the shelves I see everything from Queen to Taylor Swift.

I look back at her to see her opening a box which I assumed also had vinyls into them,  ‘ she’s so pretty’ I think to myself.

After a while, I pick out a few albums and I walk up to the counter

“Ooh you’ve some great choices here” 

“Yeah I’m happy with them, I’ve never seen your shop here before, is it new?”

“Yeah it is, I wanted my job to be something that I’m passionate about 

and I love music”

I watch as she scans the records, 

with a bright smile on her face.

“You seem really lovely, what’s your name?”, I ask her and she looks up at me.

“Thank you so much! I’m Chiara, what’s yours?”

“I’m Michael”, was all I could say, I’m stunned by her beauty.

“Nice to meet you Michael!”

“It’s nice to meet you too”

Chiara handed me the bag with my records, “The receipt is in your bag, 

I hope to see you back here sometime”

“Oh yeah I’ll be back for sure!”

I walk out into the street and I’m hit with the coldness as it was warm in the record shop, somehow I feel like I will return to see Chiara sooner rather than later.

[whileiamdying]

Bon Iver Is Searching for the Truth

The artist Justin Vernon discusses his new EP, “SABLE,” the dream of a happy adulthood, and his worry that he’s purposely repeating a “cycle of sorrow.”

By Amanda Petrusich October 16, 2024

Bon Iver is the alias of Justin Vernon, a singer, songwriter, and producer from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Since 2007, when Vernon released “For Emma, Forever Ago,” his début LP as Bon Iver, he has been making formally experimental but gorgeously tender music that seems to take equal inspiration from Bruce Hornsby and the Indigo Girls, Arthur Russell and Aphex Twin. (The project name—a version of the French phrase “Bon hiver,” or “Good winter”—was borrowed from an episode of the television series “Northern Exposure,” a deep and formative work in Vernon’s life.) This week, Bon Iver will release “SABLE,” a three-song EP and the band’s first new music since 2019’s “i,i.” “SABLE,” is only a little more than twelve minutes long, but it feels revelatory, expansive, and raw. Vernon has a couple of different voices—a spectral falsetto; a deeper, throatier bellow—but it’s hard for me to think of another contemporary singer whose vocals carry quite as much pure, unmediated feeling.

Outside of Bon Iver, Vernon remains a wildly in-demand collaborator. He has a track on the newly remixed version of Charli XCX’s “brat” (he described the decision to participate as “a no-brainer,” saying “the art and the music, its aggression, its power, its pop-ness—it’s just amazing”), and he worked with Kanye West on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (2010) and “Yeezus” (2013), two of the most acclaimed rap albums of the past few decades. He also appeared on Taylor Swift’s “folklore” and “evermore,” both from 2020; because of the pandemic, Vernon and Swift didn’t meet in person until long after “folklore” was released. “I wasn’t starstruck,” Vernon told me. “I was, like, ‘Wow, you’re somebody that I would have been very close friends with in high school. You’re real and you’re here.’ To see what she’s been up to, the propulsion, the expansion . . . I don’t know, it’s just unlike anything anyone’s ever seen. And yet there she was, this person who made a lot of sense to me.”

I previously spoke with Vernon at The New Yorker Festival in 2019. Earlier this month, we sat down again to record an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, and continued our conversation after we left the studio. This interview, a composite of both encounters, has been condensed and edited.

Justin, it’s so good to see you.

It’s great to see you, too, Amanda. I was pacing around my room today, like, “I’m anxious! Shit.” I haven’t talked to anyone about music in any official capacity since our last conversation, probably. It’s been five years. I was, like, “Oh, that’s why.” Your nervous system’s kinda keyed up, and you have to have a CBD gummy, take a breath. Walk around the block, do some push-ups.

Five years is a very civilized pace, I think, and you’ve hardly been silent during that time. But do you feel any internal or external pressure to produce work on a certain schedule?

Nope, not at all. This one really came from personal necessity. It was just time. Some of these songs have been bubbling for five years.

“SABLE,” is just twelve minutes of music, but, for me, it feels a lot bigger than that. I wanted to ask you about the grouping of these three songs, in particular. You mentioned that they were written at different times, but I hear a very legible arc—a closed circle, almost. I hear the story—and this is quite relatable, to be honest—of a person trying, and then a person failing, and then a person finding some peace with their limitations.

Are you me? [Laughs.] That feels right. They feel like an equidistant triangle, a triptych. It’s three, and it couldn’t be longer. It runs the gamut from accepting anxiety to accepting guilt to accepting hope. Those three things in a row. There’s no room for a prologue or an epilogue at that point. Because that’s it—that’s what everything is.

From a place of guilt and anxiety, how vast is the distance to hope?

My friend Erinn Springer, who made the videos for “SABLE,” was telling me that with [the track] “AWARDS SEASON,” the word for her was “almost.” Time and time again, I’ve been sitting at that feeling of almost: we’re almost there, or we’re just about to get there, I can feel or dream of a place that’s coming soon. And I guess that’s what the song is talking about—change, and how we’re always partaking in it.

This is maybe an incredibly personal question, but—

[Laughs.] That’s good.

When you get to the place of almost—the thing is in reach, you can see it, you can feel it, it’s really close—is that when you panic? Because that’s when I panic.

I think that’s when I have to push further. These songs, they’re personal, of course, but the need to share them is also very personal. These are songs with truth that I’ve located, or been a vehicle for. But they’re true. And I was, like, These have to be shared.

The public piece is complicated. It also seems possible that your relationship to fame might change; maybe you want it one year and the next year you don’t.

I remember there was this moment during the pandemic where I was, like, I could stop doing all of this. I was driving my little A.T.V. around. I needed that—knowing I could stop. But getting back on the road there’s all this excitement, and then, so quickly, the anguish and weariness and impossibility of it set back in.

Do you think you’ll pull back from touring?

I’ll share a pretty vulnerable moment. I knew that we were gonna be taking some time off. It was the beginning of our last run. I was in Duluth. My family was there. I was so happy to be with everyone, but I was really suffering under the weight of everything. I was playing “[715] CRΣΣKS”—there’s no accompaniment. It’s really a crusher to do. It burns a lot of gas. I was scanning the crowd. I was just having a tough month. I was getting ready to start saying goodbye to the last sixteen years, in a way. There were six or seven thousand people out there, and I became overwhelmed with anxiety and sadness. I got choked up and started to weep. My bandmates were all up on the stage, leaning down, because it’s too short of a song for them to leave and come back. I lock eyes with Waz [Jenn Wasner], I can see Michael Lewis looking at me. And I’m crying—like, hard. Shoulders-heaving crying. And I feel unsafe, like this is not an O.K. place for someone to be. And the crowd is going wild, you know? I’m not mad at them. I would also be cheering for encouragement. But I was thinking, They wantthis. Or this is making sense to them. It wasn’t all negative—

But it felt like there was blood in the water?

The rest of the show, I could barely function. If I could do that same touring setup and have somebody else sing the songs, that would be a little easier. But that whole night in, night out, let’s excavate Justin—I’m not built for it. When I say it like that, I think, How is anybody? But, that’s just me, I can’t.

Well, there’s so little distance in your work. I don’t know, maybe Bon Iver doesn’t need to be a road show.

When I used to go to shows, for me, they were excavations. They were explosions, they were unique. They were a band playing four new songs they made up last weekend, at an all-ages venue in Eau Claire. Or seeing Melt-Banana open for Mr. Bungle in, like, ’95—I’m watching something rip me open. And of course they were all also touring and doing the thing and everything, but just . . . I did it a lot, and I’m extremely proud of that achievement. I’m extremely proud of the team. When we were at Barclays, Yo La fuckin’ Tengo opened the show, and we played “Sh’Diah,” and Sean Carey’s doing free-jazz freakouts on drums, and Michael Lewis, my favorite living musician and improviser and soloist, he’s playing, and we are throttling free jazz to an arena that is absolutely understanding what we’re doing. And, like, check mark. Check mark! Thank God. But I can’t go to that well over and over again. It has to be something sacred—it has to renew. I come back to the name of the band. It’s a good band name, a good project name, because it’s like—good death, good winter. Things need rest. A life needs to rest at some point.

It’s funny, I used to be a cynic about things like weddings—why does it have to be a big, performative, public thing? But you realize that is sort of the profundity of it.

I put these songs out because I know there’s truth in them, and I want to share that with everybody. I think where it gets slippery is when it’s, like, “O.K., but we need to see the person who sings the song.” Lately, the song has seemed to be not enough. That’s the part that gets me a little sensitive. But that’s what art is, and that’s why I believe in art and expression so much. It does seem to be the thing that carries cultures forward, past their old haunts and problems.

I mean, I think art can be instructive as well as lifesaving. I’m certainly not the first person to suggest that. Historically, you’ve been pretty mindful. Even using the name Bon Iver puts a little air, a little space, between you and the world. But you’re in these videos. It was so lovely to see your face.

Thank you. It felt like there was a certain amount of acceptance in that. My great friend Eric Timothy Carlson, who does some of my art work, was, like, “Man, just when are you going to do your ‘Man in Black’ thing?” And I was, like, “Challenge accepted. Let’s go.” Hiding has been a valuable thing, and a way for me to express that I don’t think it’s all that important who I am—that the songs are most important.

For listeners who have been with you since “For Emma, Forever Ago,” I suspect the single, “SPEYSIDE,” might feel like a kind of return, insofar as it’s a little more stripped-down, a little less layered, than what you were doing on “22, a Million” or “i,i.” Do you think of the two poles of Bon Iver—music that’s minimally produced, versus music that’s maybe more maximally produced—as in opposition?

From “For Emma” until “i,i,” it felt like it was an arc, or an expansion—from One to All. “I,i” was very much me trying to talk about the We—the Us, outside of I. And when I got to these songs, the obvious thing was, well, people might think this is a return to something. But it really feels like a kind of raw second skin. I think about time in cylindrical, forward-moving circles. This feels like a new person, new skin. A new everything, more than a return. But I did feel like it was important to strip it down to just the bare essentials and get out of the way, to not hide with swaths of choirs. Just get it as close to the human ear as possible.

Can you talk a little about where and when you wrote “SPEYSIDE”?

The “SPEYSIDE” story is that I was in Key West. I had been living alone in the woods by myself, in Wisconsin, and it was getting dangerous. My parents had always gone down there, and I was, like, “You know what? I could just escape.” I went for three or four weeks. My brother and sister-in-law also came, and then we were, like, “Oh, this is so fun, we’ll stay another month.” It didn’t matter. They were just working from home. This was January, February of 2021, and I was reflecting a lot. The song came out mostly in its entirety. I was thinking about guilt and people in my life where I was just, like, “Oh, my God, I really did not do that right. I did not act the right way.” It just came rolling out, with help from rum. I would go out to the pier, and I would look back at Key West, and I’d see it as this island. I didn’t want to name the song “Key West,” although it would have been appropriate. Speyside is a region in Scotland, and it’s a whiskey. That’s the story with the song title. It was my little nod to southern Florida.

So, I have this running text thread with a close friend of mine where we text each other the loneliest things we can think of. We’ve been doing this for years. And so, every six months or so, I’ll get a text from him that will just say, —“Rental car shuttle, pre-dawn . . .”—

[Groans.]

Or “Horse, stuck in the mud.” A recurring character on our text thread is the pedal steel guitar.

Oh, man.

So the text will just be, “Pedal steel solo, Buck Owens, ‘Together Again.’ Apocalyptic!”

[Laughing.] That’s apocalyptic-sad right there!

There’s pedal steel on two of these three new songs. I’m curious about your relationship to the instrument.

Well, it’s a very good question, because it’s the most beautiful musical instrument that humans have constructed, for sure. It really is. It’s an impossibility, and truly an American invention. It mimics the voice, but there’s nothing else that slides between chords like that. They’ve been trying to make keyboards in this century that mimic that, and there’s just nothing like it. Greg Leisz is one of my favorite musicians to ever live, and I was very, very lucky to get to record him again. A very formative record for me was Bill Frisell’s “Good Dog, Happy Man.” That was the first time I ever heard Greg play. There’s a song on there called “That Was Then”—my high-school friends and I—we’re very, very, very close—we all have it as a tattoo. The moment in which we felt the most alive and together was this little seven-, eight-second passage where Greg played this pedal steel line. It’s the pinnacle of music to me. And so to get him on “SABLE,” is just amazing. He’s a master, right? And he’s so funny, and we get along so well, but even he’ll sit there and be, like, “Oh, shit, how does this go?” It’s just so many strings and pedals. But he’s always searching.

I don’t want to ask you too much about the lyrics, because there’s often an opacity and an obliqueness to your writing that I find incredibly beautiful; in a way, I’m not that interested in the literal meaning. So, feel free to fib your way through this part. But I did want to ask about the title. “Sable” is a synonym for “black.” It’s a piece of clothing that widows sometimes wear. It’s a river in Michigan that my fly-fishing friends tell me is holy water for trout. It’s also a weasel, though that maybe feels less relevant.

Yeah, that cutie!

You use it as a noun in “AWARDS SEASON”: “But I’m a sable / and honey, us the fable.” Can you talk a little bit about what the word means to you?

It’s such a good question. For years and years, it’s just been there. There’s an outtake from the second record, I think, where I used it in a lyric. I don’t know what it is, but it’s true. I wrote it and I knew it was true, and I still didn’t know what it meant. I was, like, “Be O.K. with that.” But then I looked it up. Sable. Mourning. Deepest black. Also, place name. But what isit? For me, I think when I’m speaking that line, what it refers to is being the darkness. There have been times in my career where it has felt like I’m repeating a cycle of heartache. I was getting a lot of positive feedback for being heartbroken. And I wondered, maybe I’m pressing the bruise. Maybe I’m unknowingly steering this ship into the rocks over and over again, because . . . you know, I’m not, like, famous-on-the-street, People-magazine famous. But there have been a lot of accolades for me and my heartache. So it’s me asking the question: I’m a sable, I’ve been a sable. Am I repeating this cycle of sorrow? Or is this just how sorrow goes, and this is how everyone feels? That’s kind of what it means to me.

I hear joy and wonder in the work, too. But you’re right, that heartache is a part of the story of the Bon Iver. I think it’s easy to be dismissive and say, “Well, that’s a toxic notion, that artists need to suffer to make work.” But pain is generative, in a way.

That’s a really good way to say it.

When we’re grieving, when we’re hurting—I mean, grief is also an expression of love. I hate to say all of this, it seems like a terrible idea to perpetuate, but—

I think it’s either the most surface or the deepest thing. And, like we said before, grief can only come from the highest joys, the greatest things in life, you know? There were some things that I really needed to find out about myself in these songs. And so, in that regard, it’s been worth it, because I needed these songs to find out how I felt, and to really, actually say how I’ve been feeling.

I think of you as a person who considers language kind of pliable. And not just language but punctuation, too. You’ve made up some words. My favorite Bon Iver neologism is “fuckified.” It’s almost Shakespearean! Where does that playfulness come from?

When you said punctuation, my first thought was, I just did it wrong. But, no, it’s just expression. One of my best friends growing up—we’re still really close—we get into semantic arguments sometimes. He’ll say, “Justin, you can’t say something is super unique, or really unique. It’s either unique or it’s not.”

Your friend should get a job at The New Yorker.

Shout out to Keil! It’s the “SABLE,” thing. I didn’t really know what it was. And the “fuckified” in “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄”—you just have to kind of let it out as an expression. You brought up the opacity of my lyrics. It really feels like I’ve sort of found this new narrative structure in these songs, where it’s a little more clear what’s been going on, and I’m kind of just saying it, versus dancing around it.

The stories feel really close. Your voice feels really close. It’s a little like having you in the room.

I wanted it to be like that. To be right in your ear, you know?

“AWARDS SEASON” opens with the line “I can handle much more than I can handle”—that line flays me every time I hear it. I think it’s possible to perhaps understand those words as a person admitting to being overwhelmed. But, to me, it mostly sounds like someone discovering that they’re stronger than they thought they were. We’re lucky to learn that about ourselves in really tough moments, that we are actually pretty—

Resilient. And then there’s the spot where you know you gotta turn around and go back, because the mechanism isn’t working anymore. The metaphor I’ve always used is that it’s like running an engine with no oil. You are doing long-term damage. It takes a long time to re-oil, to reset the machine. My dad and I watched the Buster Douglas–Mike Tyson fight when I was growing up. Douglas’s mom had just passed but he still beat Tyson in Tokyo. Douglas would say you just have to “Suck it up.” My dad always says that. When I’m feeling like I’m not gonna make it, I remember my dad saying that to me. I don’t know—there’s times to suck it up and move on and get through it, and then there’s times where you gotta take a knee, and say, “You know what? I’m not strong enough for this, and I can’t do this alone.”

As you were saying that—“suck it up”—I was thinking, is that good advice? I think sometimes it is, right? And then, often, it is not, and it’s more complicated, and you need to ask for help and take care of yourself. But there are moments where we have to test ourselves a little bit, see what we can bear, what we can handle.

Yeah, right?

That Midwestern stoicism runs deep in the Vernon men.

Yeah, it does.

Speaking of healing: you’ve discussed the utility of psychedelic drugs in your life, in terms of managing anxiety or enabling creativity. I suffered abig loss two years ago, and there were times when the immensity of my grief felt truly insurmountable, to the extent that I wanted to manually reset my brain, to restore my capacity for happiness or lightness. There’s evidence suggesting that psychedelic therapies can be quite useful for grief. I’m still sort of figuring out if it makes sense for me. But I’m curious how that stuff fits into your life these days.

Well, these days, not much. It’s not in my life anymore, really. I once thought about pot, it’s sort of like going to the bowling alley and putting those bumpers up. It’s, like, “This rules. Every ball, I hit pins. Every idea I have has got legs.” After a number of years, that feeling gets really addictive. Mushrooms, LSD—there were times where it was very, very therapeutic. I think I look at it like opening a door. It has certainly stirred deeper pits of empathy and understanding and oneness with human beings and the world. Those were ideas I already had, but now solidified—that we are each other, and hurting one another is not going to get us anywhere but down. But the metaphor about it opening a door . . . you have to close a door. If you leave that door open too long, the snow’s gonna come in and you’re gonna get fried. I don’t look back with many regrets, although I do look back with accountability and a sense of reckoning.

Looking at your discography, I presume a kind of hunger in you for collaboration. You once said, “Power has come to me, but it’s not fun to wield by yourself, and it’s not as useful if it’s just your vision.” What appeals to you about resisting the auteur path?

I love this question. I believe in the power of the individual—don’t get me wrong—but I’ve always just found that it distracts from the point. Why do we like a song? Is it because of who’s singing it to us? Or is it the song? And I just think it’s the song. For me, it is. For me, it’s about the song and what the music does. It can be very distracting when it becomes, “Oh, I love Bon Iver so much. I want more Bon Iver. I want to see Bon Iver. I want to get his autograph.” I’m sensitive to it, and the attention can be overwhelming. I’m also uncomfortable with it because it distracts from the point that music delivered me to myself.

But I can also say when I first heard “Hello in There,” by John Prine, I was twelve years old, and I saw a universe of human joy and pain and love and life and death, all in three minutes. And of course I’m gonna be, like, “What was that?” And it’s useful, right, to have a name or whatever. But I’ve also found that in moments where I’ve thought, Oh, maybe I am really good at this, or really special, or I’ve got some sort of gift—really I’ve just rigged up a huge antenna to catch things. I have gotten better at crafting songs. But I just don’t need to dwell on it, and it’s not going to make the songs any more true or less true.

I wonder if what you’re talking about, the emphasis that we place on performers and performance, I wonder if it’s because—this is a very funny thing for me to say as a music critic—no one understands songwriting? Even songwriters! A lot of people speak of the process as almost this sort of divine channelling, wherein a sound or an idea or a melody comes to them, and they’re just receiving and recording it. It’s easier to be, like, there’s a guy up there and he’s singing and he has a voice and I also have a voice, that makes sense. But this other thing, where does the signal come from?

I mean, that’s the big question, right? Why are we worried about what happens when we die? What are we trying to find out? What is this mystery that we all seem to agree is there?

And music, in particular—neurologists are always studying it, trying to understand why it works on us—there’s no clear evolutionary advantage or reason for people to be absolutely devastated or buoyed by music. But we are, and we always have been. Maybe there’s a little bit of God in it.

Having been atheist and an agnostic at different times in my life, growing up Lutheran and then studying world religion in college, I was cynical, almost angry that when we use the word “God,” we’re so often misusing it. But I’ve been saying the word again lately, because I’m sick and tired of saying “synchronicity and coincidence.” And I just don’t know what else to call it. I’ve had friends who are deeply, deeply religious, and they talk about what God means to them. I’ve been a little more open to it. I’m certainly not a theist. But I like the word “God” and I’m back to using it.

The performance piece of it and the writing-recording piece of it—I’m not a musician, but they almost feel diametrically opposed to me. It’s weird that anyone can do both.

Nobody ever says that, but I agree. I’ve always looked at ’em like they’re the masculine and the feminine. They are a yin and yang. Masculine is live.

It’s power.

Yeah, it’s out. The record is so timeless and concave, or whatever the metaphors are. I actually mixed the EP. These are my performances. These are the moments that I wanted to create. I’m not going to think about how to instantly re-create them [onstage]. I’ve been working on this song for five years. I’m not gonna do that to myself. I’m not gonna do that to these songs. I really worked hard on getting the guitar to sound like it’s in your head on “SPEYSIDE.” I’m gonna let that breathe for a second, before I get out there and go “Woooooo!”

To return to collaboration: it forces you to be incredibly honest and vulnerable. Things that are hard for me—things that are hard for a lot of people. You have to have a line of communication open that allows you to be really frank about what’s working. How has that been for you? Have there been moments where your vision has not aligned with someone else’s? Have you ever had to scream, “Get out of my studio!”?

Twice. You know who you are. . . . [Laughs.] I think there are just times when you have to communicate. You mentioned Midwestern stoicism. I just learned that saying how you feel is really important. I’m, like, forty-three years old. [Laughs.]

Can you teach me?

Oh, God, it’s really hard. You just have to do it. It sucks. But saying, “Oh, just try it again,” is a way of saying, “That wasn’t it.” And then sometimes you’re, like, “Well, it’s never going to be it,” and then you don’t really have to say anything. So I never had to practice being super honest. I would just be, like, “Well, I’m not going to use that,” or “I’m going to redo that later,” or “I’ll edit it.” “I’ll chop it up later,” is what they say. But, yeah, of course, some of my longtime collaborators, like Rob Moose, we just have a language that we’ve built over the years. It’s pretty easy for us to find what each other wants. And we’re both very good at giving space to the other. Like, “O.K., I’m not sure what you mean, but let’s explore that.” Rob’s one of my favorite collaborators, if not my favorite. Musically, what I’ve gotten to achieve with him is just kind of wild.

You and I are around the same age—twenty-nine.

[Laughs.] Yep . . .

And I wonder what this era of life—some people, not me, but some people might call it middle age—has felt like for you.

Kind of like graduating from a master’s program or something. Feeling a little old, a little aged out, a little like Chris Farley at the bottom of the hill in “Black Sheep” saying, “What in the hell was that all about?” Like I said, I think I’ve been reckoning a lot with times I haven’t been so great, or times I haven’t been able to be a good brother or family member. While I feel a little weary, I feel very young in another way, in the sense that I get a chance now not only to look back but to look forward. Kind of a refresh. Not a restart—these are forty-three-year-old bones. But I’m taking care of my body more. I’m taking care of my mental health more. And if I look back and see a lot of suffering in my past it’s because I wasn’t treating myself correctly. Certainly, I’ve had everything I’ve needed to be flourishing, to be a kind and loving person. But when I look back, I see a lot of confusion, anxiety, and despair. So I’ve gotten to this point now—and these songs have really helped me open that door, or whatever the metaphor is—to start a new journey and to be alive and present and grateful from now on, as much as I can be.

In one’s early forties, there’s often that feeling of, Oh, this isn’t quite what I thought was going to happen.

“Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would.” My best friend Trevor always refers to it as “the memory of the future.” When we were young, if our childhood was good, we project ourselves into a happy adulthood. You start to put pieces together, you start moving the furniture around. And then when you actually get there you realize you’ve been trying to steer toward that so hard that you kind of missed some shit, and it’s never gonna be like how it was. . . .

Sometimes we end up chasing these ideas from our childhoods, and they guide us for the rest of our lives, for better or worse.

I feel like we are barely driving. I look at it like you’re yanking on the wheel. You’re down below, by the gas and brakes. But that’s all we’ve got.

I can’t tell if that makes me feel helpless, or if it makes me feel empowered. Helpless in the sense of, “I’m not in control of this.” But it’s also freeing in the sense of, “I’m not in control of this.” Right?

Exactly. That is a freedom.

_The idea that life just follows some twisted path, like a river—

That’s been one of my favorite metaphors for life. The Daoist concept of the way of the water. Life is like a river, and if you don’t stay in the flow you’re gonna get stuck. You might get pulled under, you might be on shore or in a bend for too long. Or you can go down the river and drown, or flourish, or get to the Holy Land, or whatever. . . .

Who knows!

It’s multiple choice. Actually, it’s not multiple choice at all. Actually, not choice at all. Multiple possibilities.

“SABLE,” starts in a place of contrition, which is part of the process of becoming hopeful. But it ends in a moment of radical possibility.

Mm-hmm. It does. It’s that “almost” word again. It’s, like, we’re right almost there. Almost.

Maybe now the Almost feels less scary.

We’ve been through some things.

You made most of “i,i” at Sonic Ranch, in Texas, but “SABLE,” was recorded at April Base, your studio in Eau Claire. Do you work differently there than in other places?

Yeah. It’s been a big reflection point. It just so happened that April Base went under an intense renovation process right at the beginning of 2019, and that’s when we moved most of the stuff to Texas and set up there for almost a couple months. But then, when the record was done and we went on that tour, by that time, it was 2020. And then the pandemic happened and the studio was empty, so I had to move into this small house on the property and live there by myself. I kind of set up a makeshift studio. It was really a good experience, because I hadn’t set up my own gear in a long time.

The ritual of untangling the cables, plugging things in . . .

Oh, man, there was a point where I was, like, “I need to switch the screen so it’s over there.” It took me three days to untangle the cables. And I was, like, “This is good for me! This is really good for me.” But to answer your question about being out there: I think, for years—during the psychedelic mind-opening years, especially—everything was expanding quickly. Then, at a certain point, it started to feel a little stagnant. My social life, my creative and collaborative life . . . there was a circle and everything was inside of it. I hadn’t met a lot of new friends. I hadn’t really been in other studios. And so I think there’s been a little bit of action in the last couple years of, like, let me get out of here a little more.

And now you’re spending time in California. How does that feel?

Necessary.

All that sunshine.

I mean, holy hell. I am Wisconsin, through and through. But if I’m just there then what is April Base for? And what’s my love of Wisconsin for if I don’t have to come back to it? Also, it’s a little lonely out there. A lot of my family and my oldest friends have all moved away. And so I also haven’t had a lot of opportunity to meet new friends that weren’t somehow connected to the past—

Or to your work.

Or to my work. In L.A., it was just, “Hi, my name is Justin.” “Hi, my name is So-and-So.” “Do you want to be friends?” “This is great.” And I almost started crying when I realized—this is my first new friend, based on normal circumstances, in sixteen or seventeen years. That’s been a very positive thing. There’s a little anonymity for me, walking around. A lot of anonymity in Los Angeles, in particular. So it’s been very positive and challenging, in the best ways.

What you’re saying about making new friends in midlife—I get it, there’s a giddiness to it. It’s nice to meet new people now because we’re always changing, and here’s this newest, freshest iteration of you, and you get to present that to someone, instead of them inheriting a bunch of ideas.

You don’t have to open your book and be, “Who am I again? This is how I am? These are the things I believe in? Let me just make sure I get all that. . . .” You can just be. ♦

[jennyboom21]

Over the next two days, we’ll be getting into all that and more with hours of presentations and deep-dive analyses. This is set to be a smallish, grassroots-y gathering—only 25 in-person campers are enrolled plus a dozen or so volunteers running the show. Meanwhile, about 300 remote Gaylors have signed up for streaming access to the learning sessions, building on the success of a virtual Gaylor summit that happened last year.

As a Gaylor myself, I’d be here even if Cosmo hadn’t sent me. I introduce myself to campers as we craft cute name tags for ourselves in the lobby of the Craigville Retreat Center. I meet Morgan, 30, who came here from conservative small-town Wisconsin, where she’s been living with her parents due to some unspecified tumult in her life. “I am desperate to be around gay people,” she tells me. When she heard about Camp Gaylore, “I jumped at the opportunity to come here and feel a sense of community.”

Paris, 25, a Boston-based attendee who grew up in Arizona, agrees. “With everything that’s happening legislatively right now, it’s really important to be able to find spaces where you’re able to be with like-minded individuals and feel safe and comfortable expressing yourself.”

Nevada, 25, a newcomer to the Gaylor realm, tells me they were able to attend only thanks to a scholarship the camp offered to defray the $350 tuition cost. “I really thought this was a dreamland that was completely out of reach for me,” they say. Just being here, in congress with others, feels like some kind of miracle.

So maybe I should revise: This weekend is about decoding Taylor Swift songs...but only sort of.

I didn’t travel far to get here, but I’ve come a long way. Four summers ago, I left my marriage to a straight man, right around the time Taylor released Lover. I had a passing familiarity with her oeuvre but didn’t consider myself much of a fan. I was crashing with friends—a lesbian couple—while searching for a new home and striving to create a more openly queer life for myself. With its pastel cover and pro-LGBTQ+ anthem “You Need to Calm Down,” Lover got a ton of airplay in that two-bedroom apartment. And the breakup songs—“Death by a Thousand Cuts,” “I Forgot That You Existed”—certainly spoke to me. But given everything I was going through, Taylor’s music felt like little more than a fluffy distraction.

Jump cut to the following July, when Taylor surprise-released folklore. Every lesbian I knew seemed weirdly excited for this album. With my divorce freshly finalized, I now had the bandwidth to dig in. I discovered Gaylor theories on TikTok and plunged into Taylor’s discography with an eye toward gay themes. For the first time, I listened—really listened—to 2017’s Reputation, an album marketed as Taylor not caring about her press coverage but could just as easily be about a secret queer romance powerful enough to blow up her life. This notion, of hiding in plain sight while inhabiting a straight-presenting persona, resonates deeply for me in queer readings of Taylor’s work.

Here at Camp Gaylore (alternately known as GayloreFest), the analysis is served up with mock-academic gravitas. “We all love to cosplay that we’re professors in this field of Gaylor education,” explains Madyson, 23, a camp co-organizer who hails from New York. To wit, the workshop lineup includes sessions like: “Darling, Everything’s on Fire”: An Exploration of The Hunger Games Through Taylor Swift’s Discography; Unpacking Parasocial Relationships: A Conversation in Favor of Imagination & Community; Friends of Fletcher: Themes in the Music and Visuals of Sapphic Singers & Songwriters; and “Now I’m Your Daisy”: Reimagining The Great Gatsby as Gilded Sapphic Fantasy.

What’s happening here is really nothing new—Gaylors are performing the kind of close reading that happens in pretty much every English lit seminar. For campers like Amanda, 30, a longtime Swiftie who discovered Gaylor theories during the pandemic while awakening to her own queerness, this interpretative exercise is more meaningful than the objective facts of Taylor’s sexuality. “I’m not over here trying to convert people like, ‘Hey, Taylor is gay, and it’s really important to me that you believe that,’” Amanda says. “It’s more about Taylor being this incredible writer who intertwines all these incredible things into her lyrics.”

“We are not the first gaggle of gays to go book a conference center and hang out with each other for a weekend just to talk and gab,” Madyson says. “It just so happens that we all met because Taylor Swift put out some bangin’-ass albums.”

“I don’t even care if she comes out,” Madyson adds. “I actually would prefer she didn’t because I think it’s more fun this way.”

After I check into my single room—a rustic BYO-bed-sheets situation—I return to the common area and settle in for the afternoon’s presentations. Remote presenters will be streaming from all over. A few campers here will be presenting too—streaming from a dedicated quiet room elsewhere on the property. In the common space, all sessions will be projected onto a wall.

And here I have to admit that I end up…not paying much attention to the material. In the best possible way, neither do many of the other campers. I watch as they focus on making friendship bracelets, add artistic flourishes to Gaylor-themed coloring pages, and paint each other’s nails. Chatty groups check in on solo folks: “Are you good by yourself? Would you like to come over here with us?” Sometimes a comfy silence envelops the room. A few campers even nap on couches, the presentation audio forming a sort of pleasant background drone.

This dynamic is striking in its chillness—different from most camps and retreats, where schedules are packed with structured group activities. Kae, a 26-year-old from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, much prefers the format here. Although Gaylor TikTok was helpful in “expediting” her awareness of her own bisexuality, she finds the noise of social media kind of bad for her mental health. Camp Gaylore feels like the 3D version of a friendly Gaylor group chat she joined on WhatsApp a few months ago, she says. “It’s nice, having a much smaller source of information and also a place where you can just be yourself and be accepted.”

Presentation topics aside, Taylor’s aura at camp is surprisingly scarce. The aesthetic is one of nostalgic/analog summer whimsy. Think: String lights and wildflowers. Salt air and disco balls. Strawberries and rainbow balloons. An activity table set up by camp staffers includes a deck of botanical oracle cards, the social-bonding game We’re Not Really Strangers, and a handful of book selections ranging from Emily Dickinson poems to contemporary works by queer authors like adrienne maree brown.

It’s almost as though the organizers plucked a handful of nice humans off the internet and closed tab on literally everything else, a welcome break. Gaylorism in general is Very Online—born on Tumblr, increasingly huge on TikTok. Along with Madyson, camp co-organizer Katie, 30, recently wrapped a popular Gaylor podcast called The Archers, the duo’s contribution to a booming cottage industry of queer-minded Swiftie content. (Madyson has already launched another pod.) Tess, 30, a London-based camp co-organizer, is a prolific Gaylor creator too. This camp is the group’s way of passing the mic to others to invite their perspectives, to “recognize the brilliance and beauty of our community,” as Tess puts it. There’s even been talk of starting a literary-style magazine that goes beyond Taylor and into the open waters of, well, gay lore. That’s why the camp name has an “e” at the end—an indicator of deeper possibilities.

Gaylor subculture has now gotten big enough to attract coverage from major media outlets, some of it less than favorable—a Salon article last fall compared Gaylors to QAnon. Many face harassment from a hostile cohort of Swifties known as Hetlors, notorious for a queerphobic insistence that Taylor is straight. Bullying from Hetlors has driven some Gaylors to go dark and wipe their social accounts, which explains why most here at Camp Gaylore have asked that Cosmo publish their first names only.

Taylor herself is outspoken in her LGBTQ+ advocacy—granted, as more of an ally. “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of,” she told Vogue in 2019. But as many Gaylors like to point out, that’s not quite the same as Taylor declaring she’s 100 percent straight and cisgender either. For now, the details of her identity remain anyone’s guess.

“In a cisheteronormative world, we are more likely to assume people to be cis and straight until told otherwise than to assume they’re trans or queer,” says Melissa A. Fabello, PhD, a sex and relationships educator. Her group coaching session this weekend, titled “The Bisexuality Crisis,” will address this very subject.

Camp Gaylore’s idyllic seaside haven is blessedly Hetlor-free. Madyson, who sometimes struggles to socialize in groups, tells me they feel “soothed” mingling on our private stretch of beach. This weekend has always been more about reinforcing the Gaylorverse than dissecting Taylor’s suspected queerness. “It is very much for people to meet and see each other physically and be like, This community is just as real offline as it is online,” Madyson says. In the sand, they spell out GAYLORE in dozens of tiny seashells.

We head to dinner in the large dining hall for a taco buffet—a communal setup that amuses Nevada. “This is so sweet, like the positive parts of going inpatient at the psych ward,” they joke. Then an earnest elaboration: “It’s just nice that other people understand what I’m thinking. I don’t have to explain a million things. I don’t have to be like, Okay, I guess I’ll let you ignore my pronouns. It’s a very good space.”

Afterward, we gather around an outdoor firepit for s’mores and impromptu performances. One camper breaks out an acoustic guitar and shares songs she wrote during a period of homelessness. Her voice is husky and powerful—a howl of survival. A few campers pass around a bong. Inside jokes are hatched. “As cliché as it sounds, I do feel like I’ve known these people forever,” says Lee, 33, a camper from California who credits Gaylor theories with fueling her lesbian awakening seven years ago. For her, this night is “cathartic.”

In the 10 o’clock hour, everyone heads back inside to watch the livestream of the Eras Tour. This has been a ritual for many of us since Taylor hit the road in March. Lots of campers have been tracking the surprise acoustic songs she performs each night—one or two per show, with no repeats from the pre-Midnights archive unless she messes up.

Tonight, Taylor is in Pittsburgh. One member of the Gaylor community—not at camp with us but someone who’s friends with a few campers—has been publicly campaigning for Taylor to play “ME!” at this stop, a track many Gaylors love (see: the big gay energy of its music video). Taylor playing “ME!” would be everything, a definitive acknowledgement of us.

As the livestream plays, campers string together bead bracelets with Gaylor references—the letters “SITBTTEBM” (“She is the best thing that’s ever been mine”), the phrase “WIDE EYED GAYS” (an intentional misspelling of the “All Too Well” lyric). Then the first surprise song begins: It’s “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” off Fearless. Everyone groans. The second song is a miss too: “The Last Time,” from Red. So much for “ME!”

Everyone is super bummed. A few campers even cry a little bit. But there’s beauty in the heartbreak too—something profound and unifying in our shared disappointment. “Even if Taylor were to go away and never do another thing, I feel like we still have this,” Amanda tells me later. “And that’s really cool.”

The big social event of the weekend, on the second and final night, is prom. Given that it’s being held in the retreat’s tabernacle building, camp staffers have printed out a color picture of Jesus, along with big letters that spell out “LYRICS TOO?”—a cheeky nod to the fact that we’re in a house of worship but mostly a deep-cut Gaylor reference (to something once uttered by Taylor’s pal and collaborator Jack Antonoff). A tattooed camp staffer DJs from a heavily stickered laptop, next to a whirling party light that scatters rainbow beams throughout the space.

Many of our prom looks are encoded with Taylor allusions. One camper wears a tiered, ruffled frock in pastel hues, à la Taylor’s Lover era. Another, channeling the Reputation album art, dons a matching corset and skirt in newsprint-pattern fabric. Still another is turned out in the crochet crop tank Taylor wore while promoting Midnights, its colors a near-perfect match for the lesbian pride flag tacked to one wall.

“Cruel Summer”—a Gaylor fave, theoretically chronicling Taylor’s rumored relationship with supermodel Karlie Kloss—blasts from the speakers. The dance floor fills up. We scream-sing the lines about sneaking in through the garden gate, about the shape of a lover’s body being new. As the song reaches its bridge, our collective joy turns incandescent.

“It felt like 70,000 of us in the room,” Lee marvels the next day as campers pack up to leave. “This was the most magical weekend of my summer—and I’ve been to the Eras Tour twice.”

Frankie de la Cretaz is the co-author of Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of The National Women's Football League. Their work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, and more.