#i hope this is coherent and doesnt come off as like. mean or condescending? I always worry abt that when i critique swifties as a whole

[milfygerard]

Kelly! Tysm for adding ur thoughts!

i think this line about how "a lot of people are only comfortable engaging with Taylor’s work within the very tight framework of heterosexuality." is not just extremely true, but is true on just about every level. Swiftieism, it can feel sometimes, is aggressively self policed on a broad level. It seems that swifties as a generalized group are only comfortable engaging with taylors work within a very tight framework of conformity, even if it isn't something believed to be problematic or negative on a personal level. Queerness, mental health and neurodiversity, addiction, racism and white normativity, expectations for women, gender in general, class, the complications of interpersonal relationships ESPECIALLY regarding marriage , the difficulties of culpability, social isolation, childhood and adult traumas and how they echo forward, the living nightmare it is to have even (especially) a loving audience, the necessity of lying and obfuscation if you want to maintain that audience, theyre all topics that could be touched on and dissected in TTPD-TA alone, nevermind the rest of taylors extremely broad catalogue. If you try to discuss most if not all of these topics and your blog has an audience of more than 3 people, however, you are liable to start getting angry or aggressive or trolling anons pushing against you even trying to discuss these things in too much detail. This, from my view at least, built a sort of panopticon style self policing if you want to exist in the actual swiftie fandom on any sort of broader level outside of yourself or a very small group of friends/mutuals both online and in a physical space.

This honestly massively limits just how much analysis can even be done on a broader scale! For how huge and ubiquitous taylor is, it feels like popular critical discussion and interaction has only been ramping up recently (SO excited for that taylor poetry book) and part of that is just because of how difficult it is to talk about taylors music at all without facing major backlash and scrutiny either from people who love her or people who hate her. Combine that w the reactionary requirements of reviews and journalism ESPECIALLY music journalism really restricts album reviews from diving past the surface level.

Im gonna use this as an excuse to once again shill for my favorite music reviewer spectrum pulse, who really does apporach taylors art as a piece of artistic work to be analyzed. I dont agree with him nearly all the time but honestly I think thats a good thing. Posting his reviews on midnights and TTPD below bc theyre some of my favorites of each respective album.

also on a final note as i run out of steam: it is kind of funny how this sort of makes swifties broadly miss pretty obvious, easy to assume or observe aspects of taylors life (alcoholism, her rs w joe dissolving, her worsening mental health) and get totally blindsided when she started stating these things about herself directly and still on some level seem to be in denial (ive seen ppl get hate for talking about taylor having depression? its the third word in the third line of the lead single for midnights girl cmon) about these things being real

I have been thinking a lot about the discussion on @milfygerard ‘s blog about the lack of Taylor Swift rpf but how a lot of the same mechanisms of rpf is actually a really big part of the content on here focused on Taylor

but instead of openly talking about Taylor Swift the fictional character we think we know via her music and career, so much of Swiftism focuses on deriving the ‘true meaning’ of her lyrics/her art

There is a think a lot of reward in this fandom particularly when engaging with the idea that we somehow know Taylor Swift the person through engaging with her art. I’ve talked about this before but it’s clear to me as a queer fan seeing how gaylor is treated on here that a lot of people are only comfortable engaging with Taylor’s work within the very tight framework of heterosexuality.

Now I wonder if that comes from fans that believe they would somehow ‘know’ if their idol was a queer a woman, that they are so so attached to the specific image of her they have in her head that even someone else thinking she could be queer or her music could be queer feels like violence, like ripping at the threads of the reality they think is true

I don’t really know what I’m saying with all this other than I’d like it on record I am engaging with Taylor Swift the fictional character and not Taylor Swift the real human being because I do not know her and will never know her!!!! But I know the version of her I have in my head from the decade plus of engaging with her music/art and that for me is much more fun than trying to guess the reality of a woman I do not know