#but will still continue to treat all of your opinions and inclusion under their umbrella as a polite afterthought the existence of which

[gothcsz]

You can’t just brand everyone who disagrees with you a racist. I am immigrant from a low socioeconomic background, I am black, and often black people in the U.S. miss how important those other parts of my identity are in shaping me beyond just my being black. It is a cheap shot trivializing serious struggles. You are entitled to your opinions about an online space and people might clash with you over your take on how to move on a fandom, but slapping that label of racist on them shuts down the conversation. This hurts folks at identity intersections… you’re muddling shit down to THEY ARE RACIST. THE END. While you’re here arguing online, people in warzones like Gaza or Sudan are dodging bombs, starving, or losing family. Their daily hell, displacement, grief, no clean water, makes these keyboard crusades look fucking pathetic. And overusing “racist” dilutes the term, distracting from their urgent realities and making it harder to call out actual bigotry. Stop weaponizing serious issues. It is correct to call someone out who called you a slur, but if people want to write something the same expression that allows them to do what they’re doing is what is allowing you to do what you’re doing.

You can’t just brand everyone who disagrees with you a racist.

i dont. and also i dont think you guys really understand what racism even is. it's not just a big overt thing, i mean it can be.... just look at who the fuck is in office here in the united states. people can be loud and proud about their racism.

it's the microaggressions. the interactions with non white followers/readers. the media that is consumed and the criticism of it. all of that is under the umbrella of racism. so sure, the people that have been mentioned in these asks aren't full blown bigots that are waving a white supremacy flag and saying they hate the black and brown people—but some are continuing to contribute to whiteness of it all. (the reader insert fics being white coded as fuck. being weird about virginity/innocence. moodbaords only including white cis women. barely any support for bipoc authors unless it's that time of the month where everyone all of the sudden wants to be all inclusive just to say that they are) or worse, they're silent when these conversations are happening.

and we're dealing with this shit at a fandom level, so while the problems might seem small here compared to the atrocities that are happening in the world around us: it's still important for us to treat these problems accordingly?? especially in a place where we have a little more control over it and can be more mindful of people that make up this fandom (a fandom for a brown man mind you.. that shit blows me every time)

I am immigrant from a low socioeconomic background, I am black, and often black people in the U.S. miss how important those other parts of my identity are in shaping me beyond just my being black.

this is a whole other conversation that i'm not certain this fandom has the capacity to handle. black usamericans and black people from other countries can sometimes see issues from different perspectives that are conflicting solely because of how racism looks in america vs the rest of the world.

While you’re here arguing online, people in warzones like Gaza or Sudan are dodging bombs, starving, or losing family. Their daily hell, displacement, grief, no clean water, makes these keyboard crusades look fucking pathetic.

you don't think majority of us recognize this? that we're not actively thinking about all of this in our day to day lives? how most of us have hella anxiety bc of it? bc we can't do shit about it bc we live in times where the government has instilled such fear into people that we feel helpless?? two things can be true and happening at once, that doesn't negate the other. stop trying to play oppression olympics.

Stop weaponizing serious issues.

literally no one here is doing that. except you, maybe, since you felt the need to bring up genocides while we're trying to have a discussion about racism in fandom.

[ts1989fanatic]

At this point, thinking sober thoughts about a new Taylor Swift song is painfully predictable. It's a here we go again exercise that think-piece writers and social media pundits have come to dread and celebrate in equal measure. Yet, no matter how formulaic the Swift responses are, the internet must be fed. Luckily for all involved, her latest single, "You Need to Calm Down," is irresistible hot-take fodder: It's been hailed as revolutionary, slammed as queerbait, praised as inclusive, and condemned as intolerant. The lyrics and music video nod to Swift's many celebrity feuds, but also include a GLAAD endorsement and a petition to ratify the Equality Act. There is homophobia, and also a food fight. It's a Tayfecta of Swiftian contradiction, and if there's one thing no one is feeling about it, it's calm.

Now, genuine reasons to celebrate or scorn "You Need to Calm Down" do exist. Many are celebrating the video because it approaches something like allyship, especially for a pop song. It's packed with queer celebrities of many racial, sexual, and gender identities; it highlights real activism and the Equality Act, and, because of Swift's platform, makes news stories of them both. (Donations to GLAAD have spiked since the song's release.) Swift and erstwhile nemesis Katy Perry buck tradition and do not literally kiss to make up. Some of its lines—like "shade never made anybody less gay"—are already being printed on T-shirts, and will be belted all Pride month long, as they are clearly meant to be.

The candy-colored bits of progress are not without tonal issues, though. Critics point out that homophobia isn't shade. That putting Swift's struggles with online haters and the LGBTQ+ community’s struggles with systemic bigotry under the same lyrical umbrella is reductive. That the video's homophobic protesters are unkempt, cowboy-hatted, blue-collar stereotypes, which is both classist and ignores prejudice's pervasiveness at every level of American society. Some read Swift's blue-purple-pink wig as a nod to the bisexual flag and hence as queerbait. Other people think it's unfair that Swift is only telling the protesters, and not the LGBTQ+ community, to calm down. (Those people are wrong. My patience for folks who think a glittery parade is tantamount to hate speech can't come to the phone right now. It's dead.)

The song has spawned more opinions than it has words. A still of Swift, dressed in a french fry costume, embracing Perry, who is dressed as a hamburger, is on its way to becoming a submeme of its own. Depending on who you are, it could be a cutesy symbol of happiness and buried hatchets, of Swift and Perry's vapidity, of straight white women centering themselves in a social movement that isn't theirs, or the bizarro world of performative celebrity relationships calibrated for maximum engagement. Just like the song as a whole. That's a lot of weight for a three-and-a-half minute pop song to carry, and putting that kind of burden on it does a, well, queer thing: It proves Swift right.

If there's anything to say about "You Need to Calm Down," it's that the song is more evidence that Taylor Swift is extremely good at her job: being the pop star people deserve, if not the one they say they want. People claimed to despise Swift's lack of politics, and now she is overtly political and they still hate it. People claimed to dislike her petty feuding, but then spent thousands of hours treating her lyrics, tweets, and Instagram photos like a scandal scavenger hunt. "You Need to Calm Down" continues to sate internet sleuths with its references to snakes (an obvious allusion to her beef with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian) and gowns (allegedly a nod to a dustup with Aretha Franklin). She even managed to iterate on a strategy that proved successful with "Look What You Made Me Do" and even "Shake It Off": blaming the listener, placing the controversy at the feet of the "haters," and accepting little culpability. No matter what you're feeling about "You Need to Calm Down," your hot take is still playing directly into Swift's hands.

Given the circumstances, there is only one solution: Stop meme-ing Taylor Swift. Not because she's scarily capable of manipulating the internet, not because her spotty feminism and allyship means she should be canceled, and certainly not because talking about her is boring. Do it because everyone's energy can be better spent. Sometimes a pop song is just a pop song. If you disagree, maybe you need to calm down.

[gyrlversion]

Stop Meme-ing Taylor Swift

At this point, thinking sober thoughts about a new Taylor Swift song is painfully predictable. It’s a here we go again exercise that think-piece writers and social media pundits have come to dread and celebrate in equal measure. Yet, no matter how formulaic the Swift responses are, the internet must be fed. Luckily for all involved, her latest single, “You Need to Calm Down,” is irresistible hot-take fodder: It’s been hailed as revolutionary, slammed as queerbait, praised as inclusive, and condemned as intolerant. The lyrics and music video nod to Swift’s many celebrity feuds, but also include a GLAAD endorsement and a petition to ratify the Equality Act. There is homophobia, and also a food fight. It’s a Tayfecta of Swiftian contradiction, and if there’s one thing no one is feeling about it, it’s calm.

Now, genuine reasons to celebrate or scorn “You Need to Calm Down” do exist. Many are celebrating the video because it approaches something like allyship, especially for a pop song. It’s packed with queer celebrities of many racial, sexual, and gender identities; it highlights real activism and the Equality Act, and, because of Swift’s platform, makes news stories of them both (donations to GLAAD have spiked since the song’s release); Swift and erstwhile nemesis Katy Perry buck tradition and do not literally kiss to make up. Some of its lines—like “shade never made anybody less gay”—are already being printed on T-shirts, and will be belted all Pride month long, as they are clearly meant to be.

The candy-colored bits of progress are not without tonal issues, though. Critics point out that homophobia isn’t shade. That putting Swift’s struggles with online haters and the LGBTQ+ community’s struggles with systemic bigotry under the same lyrical umbrella is reductive. That the video’s homophobic protesters are unkempt, cowboy-hatted blue-collar stereotypes, which is both classist and ignores prejudice’s pervasiveness at every level of American society. Some read Swift’s blue-purple-pink wig as a nod to the bisexual flag and hence as queerbait. Other people think it’s unfair that Swift is only telling the protesters, and not the LGBTQ+ community, to calm down. (Those people are wrong. My patience for folks who think a glittery parade is tantamount to hate speech can’t come to the phone right now. It’s dead.)

The song has spawned more opinions than it has words. A still of Swift, dressed in a french fry costume, embracing Perry, who is dressed as a hamburger, is on its way to becoming a sub-meme of its own. Depending on who you are, it could be a cutesy symbol of happiness and buried hatchets, of Swift and Perry’s vapidity, of straight white women centering themselves in a social movement that isn’t theirs, or the bizarro world of performative celebrity relationships calibrated for maximum engagement. Just like the song as a whole. That’s a lot of weight for a three-and-a-half minute pop song to carry, and putting that kind of burden on it does a, well, queer thing: It proves Swift right.

If there’s anything to say about “You Need to Calm Down,” it’s that the song is more evidence that Taylor Swift is extremely good at her job: being the pop star people deserve, if not the one they say they want. People claimed to despise Swift’s lack of politics, and now she is overtly political and they still hate it. People claimed to dislike her petty feuding, but then spent thousands of hours treating her lyrics, tweets, and Instagram photos like a scandal scavenger hunt. “You Need to Calm Down” continues to sate internet sleuths with its references to snakes (an obvious allusion to her beef with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian) and gowns (allegedly a nod to a dust-up with Aretha Franklin). She even managed to iterate on a strategy that proved successful with “Look What You Made Me Do” and even “Shake It Off”: blame the listener, place the controversy at the feet of the “haters” and accept little culpability. No matter what you’re feeling about “You Need to Calm Down,” your hot take is still playing directly into Swift’s hands.

Given the circumstances, there is only one solution: stop meme-ing Taylor Swift. Not because she’s scarily capable of manipulating the internet, not because her spotty feminism and allyship means she should be canceled, and certainly not because talking about her is boring. Do it because everyone’s energy can be better spent. Sometimes a pop song is just a pop song. If you disagree, maybe you need to calm down.

More Great WIRED Stories

The post Stop Meme-ing Taylor Swift appeared first on Gyrlversion.

from WordPress http://www.gyrlversion.net/stop-meme-ing-taylor-swift/