#like with the power of dream stans & taylor swift fans

[femdykelink]

taylor swift fans could've figured out the zodiac killer's cipher in a week

[catgirlforkaeya]

ARE THEY A SWIFTIE ?

various characters

headcanons of genshin characters i believe would listen to taylor swift along with their favorite songs and/or album

modern au

disclaimer: some of these may not be 100% accurate, it’s just for fun don’t get mad if your fav isn’t on here. i didn’t include every single character, so if ppl want i will do a part 2. also sorry if i picked the more “known”-songs, i’m drained from today and just going off the top of my head rn

a/n: in honor of me getting tickets to the eras tour today i decided to do this!! :D god bless my mom for sitting in the queue for 6 hours, i’ve been a taylor fan since red came out this is huge for me

kaeya

• starting off w my fav, of COURSE he would be a taylor swift stan. would be very vocal about it and not ashamed whatsoever. was def in the top 1% to listen to midnights upon its release

fav song: you’re on your own, kid + no body, no crime + wonderland

fav album: reputation + midnights

—

childe

• i can definitely see him being one. he wouldn’t be as open about it like kaeya but he enjoys the music. his little siblings probably introduced him to it 😭😭

fav song: anti hero + innocent

fav album: midnights

—

thoma

• absolutely 100% a swiftie, not a doubt about it. when he’s doing chores around the house he’d definitely have a playlist of her songs for it

fav song: message in a bottle

fav album: red + 1989 + lover (he can’t pick)

—

itto

• something about this man just SCREAMS swiftie. idk how to explain it but i’m right idc. he wouldn’t be a hardcore stan but wouldn’t just be a normal fan. he’s somewhere in the middle. he’d also def be a fan of her more up-beat albums, so like red, 1989, lover, those genres

fav song: all you had to do was stay + style

fav album: 1989

—

al-haitham

• this is probably ooc but idc he would be a swiftie, argue with a wall. kaveh yells at him to turn the music down but does he listen? no. and honestly good for him (he slowly turns kaveh into one too)

fav song: i did something bad + out of the woods

fav album: reputation + midnights

—

lisa

• lisa is a powerful woman so of course she’d love taylor. probably grew up with the music and fought for her life back in 2015-2017 when the world suddenly turned on taylor

fav song: last great american dynasty + tolerate it

fav album: folklore + evermore

—

mona

• i don’t have much to say about my reasoning behind mona, she just fits the vibe y’know? probably also fought for her life alongside lisa

fav song: starlight + enchanted + the lakes

fav album: speak now

—

amber

• same as mona, she just fits the energy. i can see her being like itto where she’s kinda in the middle of how much of a swiftie

fav song: wonderland + cornelia street

fav album: 1989 + lover

—

barbara

• a swiftie but she prefers the more country music albums over the pop ones

fav song: should’ve said no + the best day

fav album: debut + fearless

—

rosaria

• at first she was iffy about the music because let’s be honest, rosaria probably isn’t a huge pop music fan. but kaeya and/or barbara probably played it enough to the point she made herself listen and liked it

fav song: i did something bad + look what you made me do

fav album: reputation

—

keqing

• a swiftie but she’s very quiet about it bc she doesn’t wanna get judged even though everyone around her probably also is a fan

fav song: lavender haze + karma

fav album: midnights

—

ganyu

• same as keqing she’s quiet about it. definitely also listens to it whilst she’s doing whatever work she has though

fav song: paper rings + mad woman

fav album: lover

—

xinyan

• how could i not include the music queen herself?? xinyan probably wouldn’t have any preference as to what type of genre she likes, so she’s happy to listen to any taylor song

fav song: the way i loved you + coney island + wildest dreams

fav album: any and all

—

yae miko

• i love yae but she’d be one of those long-time swifties who are honestly scary. not in a bad way, she’s just the type to have been there through every era so she’s considered ancient in terms of stan wise

fav song: midnight rain + the man + don’t blame me

fav album: lover + midnights

—

kokomi

• also like yae, a long-time swiftie but not as intimidating. she probably bought extra tickets to give people who couldn’t get in because she just seems nice like that

fav song: all you had to do was stay + the great war

fav album: 1989 + evermore + lover

—

nilou

• in a modern au nilou would 100% create dances to taylor songs, probably posts them on tiktok and the dance goes viral too

fav song: dancing with our hands tied + this is me trying

fav album: speak now + red + midnights

—

layla

• mona probably introduced her to the music and she fell down a rabbit hole and became a major swiftie. fought for her life to get into the presale for eras tour too

fav song: snow on the beach + never grow up + tolerate it

fav album: 1989 + lover + folklore

© all rights reserved to catgirlforkaeya. reposting, plagiarizing, modifying, and translating is NOT allowed.

[goddamnalientourists]

Random bits of Lorien Legacies fandom history I remember:

- Everyone thinking Five was going to be a girl before The Fall of Five came out and people living their truth writing all those self inserts and oc girl fives who always ended up smooching Nine (who didn't love a good self insert?)

- all those anti Five memes after TFOF which were like "i am number four fans counting to ten 1 2 3 4 not you 6 7 8 9 10"

- that facebook game about mark james that may or may not have been a fever dream

- everyone calling setrakus ra mousetraps for some reason. I don't remember why.

- the fandom making Eight's sole character trait pizza because he referenced it one time. Also whitewashing him with Robert Sheehan edits.

- that time I was really into crack ships and someone took one look at a Nine/Marina fic I wrote bluescreened and did a whole essay on how ridiculous ships made them quit the fandom and everyone called them out on it

- Sam/Six ship being named Stormchaser

- When John/Six/Sam love triangle was going on and everyone went out of their way to hate on Sarah (and also that time everyone thought she was a traitor?? I forgot how that worked out my brain is telling me Setrakus shapeshifted into her but i haven't read it for ages so idk)

- the iconic fic I read once where the fic author didn't like Sarah so they included a scene where her head exploded and she was secretly a robot the whole time to get her out of the picture go bold or go home

- the time everyone started liking Sarah and making critiques of John's character and the series shitty writing #SarahHartDeservedBetter

- the time @officialpittacuslore rocked up, pointed at John and Nine and said "yes, I'll have some more of whatever those two have going on", dug a pit, labelled it 'Stohn' and everyone jumped in overnight (gay alien pit throwback uwu)

- astohnymous sending everyone in the fandom incorrect quotes on anon

- Six/Marina rising in popularity. Sirina supremacy. There is no heterosexual explanation for dreaming about seeing a girl on the beach that's soulmate energy right there.

- sandor/devektra/crayton/lexa fics and edits were a big thing for a while and devektra was always taylor swift

- the period before the revenge of seven was released where there was a countdown centred around celebration of fan content creation where everyone wrote fics and did art and edits for a certain theme!

- the time I got so annoyed by this random guy named Devdan just disappearing and never being mentioned again I made a whole detailed theory involving alternate timelines to make it so Devdan is Eight from a bad!future. I still think this is a cool theory and better than the actual explanation, bad and lazy writing.

- one time I ran a secret santa for the fandom and legend says I still haven't removed the page from my blog because I just forgot to for years. Literally. It's still on my blog. Wth?? Shameful 😔 my blog is terrible but what do you expect i dont get paid

- the shittacuslore and setracrapra RP blogs

- also I have a Malcolm roleplay sideblog I hardly ever used don't know if that counts as a significant moment of fandom history but I just find it funny how out of all characters I could have RPd I chose him. Could have picked a character with cool powers and telekinesis but I pointed at the local traumatised amnesia dad and was like "yes, I will be him", made 3 posts and never used it again.

- I've been an Adam stan since I first joined this fandom and the first thing I contributed to this fandom was a coloured pencil drawing of One wjth a surfboard, and it's been glorious watching Adam rise from 'character people are vaguely aware of but most haven't read the side-stories so they don't know about him to care enough' to 'fan favourite who deserves everything in the world and also look at him he's depressed and queer' (no I am not projecting ok maybe i am but can you blame me) anyway shoutout to Knave for all the Adam content over the years it feeds me

- The time people were coming up with shipnames for fun and I said Kevy for Kelly/Five and everyone rolled with it but it was actually a typo the whole time and doesn't even make sense when you look at it but it was too late to go back no i don't remember why we were discussing shipping kelly/five

- That solid week and a half everyone aggressively shipped Malcolm and Henri

- when legacies reborn came out and there was a resurgence of energy and theories around all the new characters

Anyway I joined the tumblr fandom ~2013 but I've been in this fandom since 2011, before The Rise of Nine was even released. Also what the actual bleeping heck it is 2021 and 2011 was TEN YEARS AGO?? A WHOLE DECADE????? Help

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift: ‘I was literally about to break’

By: Laura Snapes for The Guardian Date: August 24th 2019

Taylor Swift’s Nashville apartment is an Etsy fever dream, a 365-days-a-year Christmas shop, pure teenage girl id. You enter through a vestibule clad in blue velvet and covered in gilt frames bursting with fake flowers. The ceiling is painted like the night sky. Above a koi pond in the living area, a narrow staircase spirals six feet up towards a giant, pillow-lagged birdcage that probably has the best view in the city. Later, Swift will tell me she needs metaphors “to understand anything that happens to me”, and the birdcage defies you not to interpret it as a pointed comment on the contradictions of stardom.

Swift, wearing pale jeans and dip-dyed shirt, her sandy hair tied in a blue scrunchie, leads the way up the staircase to show me the view. The decor hasn’t changed since she bought this place in 2009, when she was 19. “All of these high rises are new since then,” she says, gesturing at the squat glass structures and cranes. Meanwhile her oven is still covered in stickers, more teenage diary than adult appliance.

Now 29, she has spent much of the past three years living quietly in London with her boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, making the penthouse a kind of time capsule, a monument to youthful naivety given an unlimited budget – the years when she sang about Romeo and Juliet and wore ballgowns to awards shows; before she moved to New York and honed her slick, self-mythologising pop.

It is mid-August. This is Swift’s first UK interview in more than three years, and she seems nervous: neither presidential nor goofy (her usual defaults), but quick with a tongue-out “ugh” of regret or frustration as she picks at her glittery purple nails. We climb down from the birdcage to sit by the pond, and when the conversation turns to 2016, the year the wheels came off for her, Swift stiffens as if driving over a mile of speed bumps. After a series of bruising public spats (with Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj) in 2015, there was a high-profile standoff with Kanye West. The news that she was in a relationship with actor Tom Hiddleston, which leaked soon after, was widely dismissed as a diversionary tactic. Meanwhile, Swift went to court to prosecute a sexual assault claim, and faced a furious backlash when she failed to endorse a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, allowing the alt-right to adopt her as their “Aryan princess”.

Her critics assumed she cared only about the bottom line. The reality, Swift says, is that she was totally broken. “Every domino fell,” she says bitterly. “It became really terrifying for anyone to even know where I was. And I felt completely incapable of doing or saying anything publicly, at all. Even about my music. I always said I wouldn’t talk about what was happening personally, because that was a personal time.” She won’t get into specifics. “I just need some things that are mine,” she despairs. “Just some things.”

A year later, in 2017, Swift released her album Reputation, half high-camp heel turn, drawing on hip-hop and vaudeville (the brilliantly hammy Look What You Made Me Do), half stunned appreciation that her nascent relationship with Alwyn had weathered the storm (the soft, sensual pop of songs Delicate and Dress).

Her new album, Lover, her seventh, was released yesterday. It’s much lighter than Reputation: Swift likens writing it to feeling like “I could take a full deep breath again”. Much of it is about Alwyn: the Galway Girl-ish track London Boy lists their favourite city haunts and her newfound appreciation of watching rugby in the pub with his uni mates; on the ruminative Afterglow, she asks him to forgive her anxious tendency to assume the worst.

While she has always written about relationships, they were either teenage fantasy or a postmortem on a high-profile breakup, with exes such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Harry Styles. But she and Alwyn have seldom been pictured together, and their relationship is the only other thing she won’t talk about. “I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she says, laughing after I attempt a stealthy angle. “If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it – but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”

Instead, she has swapped personal disclosure for activism. Last August, Swift broke her political silence to endorse Democratic Tennessee candidate Phil Bredesen in the November 2018 senate race. Vote.org reported an unprecedented spike in voting registration after Swift’s Instagram post, while Donald Trump responded that he liked her music “about 25% less now”.

Meanwhile, her recent single You Need To Calm Down admonished homophobes and namechecked US LGBTQ rights organisation Glaad (which then saw increased donations). Swift filled her video with cameos from queer stars such as Ellen DeGeneres and Queen singer Adam Lambert, and capped it with a call to sign her petition in support of the Equality Act, which if passed would prohibit gender- and sexuality-based discrimination in the US. A video of Polish LGBTQ fans miming the track in defiance of their government’s homophobic agenda went viral. But Swift was accused of “queerbaiting” and bandwagon-jumping. You can see how she might find it hard to work out what, exactly, people want from her.

***

It was girlhood that made Swift a multimillionaire. When country music’s gatekeepers swore that housewives were the only women interested in the genre, she proved them wrong. Her self-titled debut marked the longest stay on the Billboard 200 by any album released in the decade. A potentially cloying image – corkscrew curls, lyrics thick on “daddy” and down-home values – were undercut by the fact she was evidently, endearingly, a bit of a freak, an unusual combination of intensity and artlessness. Also, she was really, really good at what she did, and not just for a teenager: her entirely self-written third album, 2010’s Speak Now, is unmatched in its devastatingly withering dismissals of awful men.

As a teenager, Swift was obsessed with VH1’s Behind The Music, the series devoted to the rise and fall of great musicians. She would forensically rewatch episodes, trying to pinpoint the moment a career went wrong. I ask her to imagine she’s watching the episode about herself and do the same thing: where was her misstep? “Oh my God,” she says, drawing a deep breath and letting her lips vibrate as she exhales. “I mean, that’s so depressing!” She thinks back and tries to deflect. “What I remember is that [the show] was always like, ‘Then we started fighting in the tour bus and then the drummer quit and the guitarist was like, “You’re not paying me enough.”’’’

But that’s not what she used to say. In interviews into her early 20s, Swift often observed that an artist fails when they lose their self-awareness, as if repeating the fact would work like an insurance against succumbing to the same fate. But did she make that mistake herself? She squeezes her nose and blows to clear a ringing in her ears before answering. “I definitely think that sometimes you don’t realise how you’re being perceived,” she says. “Pop music can feel like it’s The Hunger Games, and like we’re gladiators. And you can really lose focus of the fact that that’s how it feels because that’s how a lot of stan [fan] Twitter and tabloids and blogs make it seem – the overanalysing of everything makes it feel really intense.”

She describes the way she burned bridges in 2016 as a kind of obliviousness. “I didn’t realise it was like a classic overthrow of someone in power – where you didn’t realise the whispers behind your back, you didn’t realise the chain reaction of events that was going to make everything fall apart at the exact, perfect time for it to fall apart.”

Here’s that chain reaction in full. With her 2014 album 1989 (the year she was born), Swift transcended country stardom, becoming as ubiquitous as Beyoncé. For the first time she vocally embraced feminism, something she had rejected in her teens; but, after a while, it seemed to amount to not much more than a lot of pictures of her hanging out with her “squad”, a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham. The squad very much did not include her former friend Katy Perry, whom Swift targeted in her song Bad Blood, as part of what seemed like a painfully overblown dispute about some backing dancers. Then, when Nicki Minaj tweeted that MTV’s 2015 Video Music awards had rewarded white women at the expense of women of colour, multiple-nominee Swift took it personally, responding: “Maybe one of the men took your slot.” For someone prone to talking about the haters, she quickly became her own worst enemy.

Her old adversary Kanye West resurfaced in February 2016. In 2009, West had invaded Swift’s stage at the MTV VMAs to protest against her victory over Beyoncé in the female video of the year category. It remains the peak of interest in Swift on Google Trends, and the conflict between them has become such a cornerstone of celebrity journalism that it’s hard to remember it lay dormant for nearly seven years – until West released his song Famous. “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” he rapped. “Why? I made that bitch famous.” The video depicted a Swift mannequin naked in bed with men including Trump.

Swift loudly condemned both; although she had discussed the track with West, she said she had never agreed to the “bitch” lyric or the video. West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, released a heavily edited clip that showed Swift at least agreeing to the “sex” line on the phone with West, if not the “bitch” part. Swift pleaded the technicality, but it made no difference: when Kardashian went on Twitter to describe her as a snake, the comparison stuck and the singer found herself very publicly “cancelled” – the incident taken as “proof” of Swift’s insincerity. So she went away.

Swift says she stopped trying to explain herself, even though she “definitely” could have. As she worked on Reputation, she was also writing “a think-piece a day that I knew I would never publish: the stuff I would say, and the different facets of the situation that nobody knew”. If she could exonerate herself, why didn’t she? She leans forward. “Here’s why,” she says conspiratorially. “Because when people are in a hate frenzy and they find something to mutually hate together, it bonds them. And anything you say is in an echo chamber of mockery.”

She compares that year to being hit by a tidal wave. “You can either stand there and let the wave crash into you, and you can try as hard as you can to fight something that’s more powerful and bigger than you,” she says. “Or you can dive under the water, hold your breath, wait for it to pass and while you’re down there, try to learn something. Why was I in that part of the ocean? There were clearly signs that said: Rip tide! Undertow! Don’t swim! There are no lifeguards!” She’s on a roll. “Why was I there? Why was I trusting people I trusted? Why was I letting people into my life the way I was letting them in? What was I doing that caused this?”

After the incident with Minaj, her critics started pointing out a narrative of “white victimhood” in Swift’s career. Speaking slowly and carefully, she says she came to understand “a lot about how my privilege allowed me to not have to learn about white privilege. I didn’t know about it as a kid, and that is privilege itself, you know? And that’s something that I’m still trying to educate myself on every day. How can I see where people are coming from, and understand the pain that comes with the history of our world?”

She also accepts some responsibility for her overexposure, and for some of the tabloid drama. If she didn’t wish a friend happy birthday on Instagram, there would be reports about severed friendships, even if they had celebrated together. “Because we didn’t post about it, it didn’t happen – and I realised I had done that,” she says. “I created an expectation that everything in my life that happened, people would see.”

But she also says she couldn’t win. “I’m kinda used to being gaslit by now,” she drawls wearily. “And I think it happens to women so often that, as we get older and see how the world works, we’re able to see through what is gaslighting. So I’m able to look at 1989 and go – KITTIES!” She breaks off as an assistant walks in with Swift’s three beloved cats, stars of her Instagram feed, back from the vet before they fly to England this week. Benjamin, Olivia and Meredith haughtily circle our feet (they are scared of the koi) as Swift resumes her train of thought, back to the release of 1989 and the subsequent fallout. “Oh my God, they were mad at me for smiling a lot and quote-unquote acting fake. And then they were mad at me that I was upset and bitter and kicking back.” The rules kept changing.

***

Swift’s new album comes with printed excerpts from her diaries. On 29 August 2016, she wrote in her girlish, bubble writing: “This summer is the apocalypse.” As the incident with West and Kardashian unfolded, she was preparing for her court case against radio DJ David Mueller, who was fired in 2013 after Swift reported him for putting his hand up her dress at a meet-and–greet event. He sued her for defamation; she countersued for sexual assault.

“Having dealt with a few of them, narcissists basically subscribe to a belief system that they should be able to do and say whatever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want to,” Swift says now, talking at full pelt. “And if we – as anyone else in the world, but specifically women – react to that, well, we’re not allowed to. We’re not allowed to have a reaction to their actions.”

In summer 2016 she was in legal depositions, practising her testimony. “You’re supposed to be really polite to everyone,” she says. But by the time she got to court in August 2017, “something snapped, I think”. She laughs. Her testimony was sharp and uncompromising. She refused to allow Mueller’s lawyers to blame her or her security guards; when asked if she could see the incident, Swift said no, because “my ass is in the back of my body”. It was a brilliant, rude defence.

“You’re supposed to behave yourself in court and say ‘rear end’,” she says with mock politesse. “The other lawyer was saying, ‘When did he touch your backside?’ And I was like, ‘ASS! Call it what it is!’” She claps between each word. But despite the acclaim for her testimony and eventual victory (she asked for one symbolic dollar), she still felt belittled. It was two months prior to the beginning of the #MeToo movement. “Even this case was literally twisted so hard that people were calling it the ‘butt-grab case’. They were saying I sued him because there’s this narrative that I want to sue everyone. That was one of the reasons why the summer was the apocalypse.”

She never wanted the assault to be made public. Have there been other instances she has dealt with privately? “Actually, no,” she says soberly. “I’m really lucky that it hadn’t happened to me before. But that was one of the reasons it was so traumatising. I just didn’t know that could happen. It was really brazen, in front of seven people.” She has since had security cameras installed at every meet-and-greet she does, deliberately pointed at her lower half. “If something happens again, we can prove it with video footage from every angle,” she says.

The allegations about Harvey Weinstein came out soon after she won her case. The film producer had asked her to write a song for the romantic comedy One Chance, which earned her second Golden Globe nomination. Weinstein also got her a supporting role in the 2014 sci-fi movie The Giver, and attended the launch party for 1989. But she says they were never alone together.

“He’d call my management and be like, ‘Does she have a song for this film?’ And I’d be like, ‘Here it is,’” she says dispassionately. “And then I’d be at the Golden Globes. I absolutely never hung out. And I would get a vibe – I would never vouch for him. I believe women who come forward, I believe victims who come forward, I believe men who come forward.” Swift inhales, flustered. She says Weinstein never propositioned her. “If you listen to the stories, he picked people who were vulnerable, in his opinion. It seemed like it was a power thing. So, to me, that doesn’t say anything – that I wasn’t in that situation.���

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was more than nine months into his presidency, and still Swift had not taken a position. But the idea that a pop star could ever have impeded his path to the White House seemed increasingly naive. In hindsight, the demand that Swift speak up looks less about politics and more about her identity (white, rich, powerful) and a moralistic need for her to redeem herself – as if nobody else had ever acted on a vindictive instinct, or blundered publicly.

But she resisted what might have been an easy return to public favour. Although Reputation contained softer love songs, it was better known for its brittle, vengeful side (see This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things). She describes that side of the album now as a “bit of a persona”, and its hip-hop-influenced production as “a complete defence mechanism”. Personally, I thought she had never been more relatable, trashing the contract of pious relatability that traps young women in the public eye.

***

It was the assault trial, and watching the rights of LGBTQ friends be eroded, that finally politicised her, Swift says. “The things that happen to you in your life are what develop your political opinions. I was living in this Obama eight-year paradise of, you go, you cast your vote, the person you vote for wins, everyone’s happy!” she says. “This whole thing, the last three, four years, it completely blindsided a lot of us, me included.”

She recently said she was “dismayed” when a friend pointed out that her position on gay rights wasn’t obvious (what if she had a gay son, he asked), hence this summer’s course correction with the single You Need To Calm Down (“You’re comin’ at my friends like a missile/Why are you mad?/When you could be GLAAD?”). Didn’t she feel equally dismayed that her politics weren’t clear? “I did,” she insists, “and I hate to admit this, but I felt that I wasn’t educated enough on it. Because I hadn’t actively tried to learn about politics in a way that I felt was necessary for me, making statements that go out to hundreds of millions of people.”

She explains her inner conflict. “I come from country music. The number one thing they absolutely drill into you as a country artist, and you can ask any other country artist this, is ‘Don’t be like the Dixie Chicks!’” In 2003, the Texan country trio denounced the Iraq war, saying they were “ashamed” to share a home state with George W Bush. There was a boycott, and an event where a bulldozer crushed their CDs. “I watched country music snuff that candle out. The most amazing group we had, just because they talked about politics. And they were getting death threats. They were made such an example that basically every country artist that came after that, every label tells you, ‘Just do not get involved, no matter what.’

“And then, you know, if there was a time for me to get involved…” Swift pauses. “The worst part of the timing of what happened in 2016 was I felt completely voiceless. I just felt like, oh God, who would want me? Honestly.” She would otherwise have endorsed Hillary Clinton? “Of course,” she says sincerely. “I just felt completely, ugh, just useless. And maybe even like a hindrance.”

I suggest that, thinking selfishly, her coming out for Clinton might have made people like her. “I wasn’t thinking like that,” she stresses. “I was just trying to protect my mental health – not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn’t. I was literally about to break. For a while.” Did she seek therapy? “That stuff I just really wanna keep personal, if that’s OK,” she says.

She resists blaming anyone else for her political silence. Her emergence as a Democrat came after she left Big Machine, the label she signed to at 15. (They are now at loggerheads after label head Scott Borchetta sold the company, and the rights to Swift’s first six albums, to Kanye West’s manager, Scooter Braun.) Had Borchetta ever advised her against speaking out? She exhales. “It was just me and my life, and also doing a lot of self-reflection about how I did feel really remorseful for not saying anything. I wanted to try and help in any way that I could, the next time I got a chance. I didn’t help, I didn’t feel capable of it – and as soon as I can, I’m going to.”

Swift was once known for throwing extravagant 4 July parties at her Rhode Island mansion. The Instagram posts from these star-studded events – at which guests wore matching stars-and-stripes bikinis and onesies – probably supported a significant chunk of the celebrity news industry GDP. But in 2017, they stopped. “The horror!” wrote Cosmopolitan, citing “reasons that remain a mystery” for their disappearance. It wasn’t “squad” strife or the unavailability of matching cozzies that brought the parties to an end, but Swift’s disillusionment with her country, she says.

There is a smart song about this on the new album – the track that should have been the first single, instead of the cartoonish ME!. Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince is a forlorn, gothic ballad in the vein of Lana Del Rey that uses high-school imagery to dismantle American nationalism: “The whole school is rolling fake dice/You play stupid games/You win stupid prizes,” she sings with disdain. “Boys will be boys then/Where are the wise men?”

As an ambitious 11-year-old, she worked out that singing the national anthem at sports games was the quickest way to get in front of a large audience. When did she start feeling conflicted about what America stands for? She gives another emphatic ugh. “It was the fact that all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked,” she says. “The thing I can’t get over right now is gaslighting the American public into being like” – she adopts a sanctimonious tone – “‘If you hate the president, you hate America.’ We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate.” She doesn’t use Trump’s name. “I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy.”

As we speak, Tennessee lawmakers are trying to impose a near-total ban on abortion. Swift has staunchly defended her “Tennessee values” in recent months. What’s her position? “I mean, obviously, I’m pro-choice, and I just can’t believe this is happening,” she says. She looks close to tears. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s really shocking and awful. And I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help, what are the most effective ways to help. ’Cause this is just…” She sighs again. “This is not it.”

***

It is easy to forget that the point of all this is that a teenage Taylor Swiftwanted to write love songs. Nemeses and negativity are now so entrenched in her public persona that it’s hard to know how she can get back to that, though she seems to want to. At the end of Daylight, the new album’s dreamy final song, there’s a spoken-word section: “I want to be defined by the things that I love,” she says as the music fades. “Not the things that I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.” As well as the songs written for Alwyn, there is one for her mother, who recently experienced a cancer relapse: “You make the best of a bad deal/I just pretend it isn’t real,” Swift sings, backed by the Dixie Chicks.

How does writing about her personal life work if she’s setting clearer boundaries? “It actually made me feel more free,” she says. “I’ve always had this habit of never really going into detail about exactly what situation inspired what thing, but even more so now.” This is only half true: in the past, Swift wasn’t shy of a level of detail that invited fans to figure out specific truths about her relationships. And when I tell her that Lover feels a more emotionally guarded album, she bristles. “I know the difference between making art and living your life like a reality star,” she says. “And then even if it’s hard for other people to grasp, my definition is really clear.”

Even so, Swift begins Lover by addressing an adversary, opening with a song called I Forgot That You Existed (“it isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference”), presumably aimed at Kanye West, a track that slightly defeats its premise by existing. But it sweeps aside old dramas to confront Swift’s real nemesis, herself. “I never grew up/It’s getting so old,” she laments on The Archer.

She has had to learn not to pre-empt disaster, nor to run from it. Her life has been defined by relationships, friendships and business relationships that started and ended very publicly (though she and Perry are friends again). At the same time, the rules around celebrity engagement have evolved beyond recognition in her 15 years of fame. Rather than trying to adapt to them, she’s now asking herself: “How do you learn to maintain? How do you learn not to have these phantom disasters in your head that you play out, and how do you stop yourself from sabotage – because the panic mechanism in your brain is telling you that something must go wrong.” For her, this is what growing up is. “You can’t just make cut-and-dry decisions in life. A lot of things are a negotiation and a grey area and a dance of how to figure it out.”

And so this time, Swift is sticking around. In December she will turn 30, marking the point after which more than half her life will have been lived in public. She’ll start her new decade with a stronger self-preservationist streak, and a looser grip (as well as a cameo in Cats). “You can’t micromanage life, it turns out,” she says, drily.

When Swift finally answered my question about the moment she would choose in the VH1 Behind The Music episode about herself, the one where her career turned, she said she hoped it wouldn’t focus on her “apocalypse” summer of 2016. “Maybe this is wishful thinking,” she said, “but I’d like to think it would be in a couple of years.” It’s funny to hear her hope that the worst is still to come while sitting in her fairytale living room, the cats pacing: a pragmatist at odds with her romantic monument to teenage dreams. But it sounds something like perspective.

[fullofbeautifulmistakes03]

Okay let me put some points out there. As you guys know English is not my first language so sorry any mistake.

I'm going to start by talking about how Jodie Comer was TT last night because she's supposed to be dating a Trump supporter.

I'm not afraid of losing "followers" so I'm going to say what I really think: Jodie Comer is first of all, a human being, an excellent and talented actress, with many capacities and nuances that I had not seen in this generation for a long time, not only for her amazing performance of Villanelle but for everything she has done throughout her career, so unless you have seen each and every one of her projects and have not a shred of taste for good talent, interpretation and delivery, don't come here to judge this woman's talent based on her personal decisions.

JodieComerOverParty honestly, what the fuck is that? That weak, senseless and hateful "cancel culture" under which nothing but haters and repressed people who do nothing but put their hatred and issues in the lives of others, has to get out of your heads. Can you think that you have to be really screwed up inside to sit down and do that creepy quest for someone's intimate life just to satisfy your own hatred, resentment and problems? And worst of all, this generation is being so powerful but so weak at the same time, so easy to influence; they literally see any TT and they just decide to join, for what? to look cool? Bc is it what you supposed to do if you have more than 3K followers? Or is it because you really want to speak and give an opinion that is not influenced by what people say but by what you really think? Because honestly I see nothing like that. Some Twitter, Ig and Tumblr stans are not only sheep that follow a shepherd without any purpose, but they defend something without any other purpose than to hate and keep their followers.

Do I have to give my opinion about Jodie dating a Trump supporter? No. Am I giving it? Yes. Because it's my fucking problem but I also understand that it's not my fucking problem what kind of dick is she sucking. Who she's dating doesn't give me any right to get into her private life, her family, and look for shit just because you reflect your fucking hatred on her.

Like, do you feel hurt because you think she has been a hypocrite for saying that she is an ally of the LGBTQ + community, supported BLM and read the letter to Virginia? But also dating a trump supporter?

Well, you have every right, you feel cheated and betrayed, I understand it, being a trump supporter represents everything that goes against our community and minorities and you are also assuming that by dating him and knowing his ideals and beliefs she accepts and adopts them which is not necessarily true but i understand. So, yes, I understand that you do not see congruence between her actions and the people with whom she has around her, especially her supposed boyfriend, I understand that she has a social responsibility when interpreting a character so dear to different communities, I understand that the fact that Jodie having a boyfriend who is Trump supporter can mean different and valid things for many of us, I understand that you feel somehow hurt, I can understand all that and I'm nobody to tell you that you should not feel it or that you're wrong or you're okay.

But what is definitely not right and I cannot understand is believing that you have the right to decide what is right and what is wrong in someone else's life. What is not right is that you feel you have the right to believe yourself with so much moral superiority as to point out to a person that point 1. You don't know and that point 2. You don't know. What is not right is that you support hate and suicide messages towards a person who point 3. You don't know. And that even if you knew and everything will prove true, you also have no right.

You have the right to give your opinion and your opinion has the right to be respected but your opinion does not have to be the opinion of your followers or your friends or your family, so the next time you decide to do a thread and a crap search think about what would happen if someone decides to do the same to you. I mean, they didn't find anything about Jodie so they went to get shit from the people around her. SICK.

Do I support the fact that she is dating a Trump supporter? No. It does that matter? Let's be honest, no, it doesn't matter, because at the end of the day I don't have to reflect or set my own expectations in someone else's life, especially in the life of someone I don't know. Do I support trump? No man, I hate the guy. But that doesn't give me the right to send hate and suicide messages to Jodie just because her boyfriend is trash. I love Jodie, but I do not idealize her, I know that she is a human being, I know and I hope that she knows of her privileges, I am aware of that, I know that she is an extraordinary actress, I know that I want to see her in many many more projects, I know that she deserves all the awards in the world, but I know that at the end of the day, Jodie is not only a talented actress but there are many things that neither you nor I know and that is why you cannot idealize your fav, that's all I know about Jodie.

You can't impose your expectations and create a weight of that size in them because simply at the end of the day when they make the first mistake, you, the one who loved her from the beginning for idealizing her and believing that she was perfect, are the first person to cancel her. So, if you are going to support someone because of their talent, do it, if you are going to follow their career, do it, if you are going to create an account in honor of that person, do it, but do it knowing that you are not following some perfect God or person, do it with the knowledge that your dreams are not their dreams, that your ideals are not that person's, that your expectations are not and do not have to be that person's but above all do it because despite the fact that at some point your fav disappoint you or make a mistake, you will be there to continue supporting them regardless of the man or woman they decided to be with. That is what a true fan does. Supporting the person's talent and work, a fan has the right to judge a misinterpretation, to say you don't like it, to say anything about any movie or tv show, but being that fan doesn't give you the right to invade someone's life in such a way that, that person feels shit to the point of committing suicide as it happened earlier this year or as it happened with Taylor Swift some years ago that she had to hide for more than a year for all the shit that those who called themselves fans threw her.

I would also like to say that Sandra Oh, she is an excellent actress, her talent is simply incredible and she deserves all the awards in the world, all the recognition in the world, and throughout Killing Eve, I have only been able to see how some insist on putting Sandra and Jodie against each other, despite seeing that they have a genuine and beautiful working relationship, I have been able to see how the "fans" of Jodie judge Sandra and those of Sandra Judge and blame Jodie for many things, my big question is, Why? The injustice that the television industry commits against minorities today is not Jodie's fault, in this case. It is not Jodie's fault that the writers of Killing Eve are white, it is not Jodie's fault that according to you Jodie has more screen time than Sandra, it is not Jodie's fault that some of you have so much hatred in your soul that they reflect it not only damaging a beautiful production but also to your fav.

Sandra is a powerful woman, not afraid to speak, she literally co-produced the series to precisely have a voice, Sandra is a woman in every sense of the word, which means she is strong, free, powerful and she can speak for herself, one thing I'm sure of is that Sandra Oh, she deserves everything good in this world except those toxic "fans" who believe that a woman like Sandra needs to be defended or to speak for her.

Sandra Oh, she knows what she deserves and how well she has said it, she is at the stage of her career where she can decide which project to take or not, basically she can do whatever the hell she wants. Sandra Oh, she does not need a handful of children to believe that they have the right to decide or say "this is what Sandra wants, this is what Sandra needs" Sandra Oh, she does not need you to defend her from anything because she has a voice that knows how to use and does not necessarily have to be as you all expect. So the next time you feel like you have the right to say "this is what Sandra wants or needs" take a second to review your frustrations, to review your expectations and stop putting them on the shoulders of your idols.

Finally, know that Villanelle is not real, she is a character played by this extraordinary actress named Jodie Comer. Know that Jodie Comer is not Villanelle and know that Jodie Comer has every right to be straight and play queer characters, she has the right not to be what you in her fantasy world expect her to be. I say this because I have seen how the anger of some is not even that she is dating a Trump Supporter but that she is dating a man and not a woman. Like, put your shit together.

I love Jodie, I support her career, her talent I hope to see her in many other productions.

I support Jodie, I support her because I judge her by her talent and not by her clothes, makeup, hair or boyfriend.

I support Jodie because I doubt that her commitment to her work, so far, is fake. I support her not because is my idol, because I do not idealize her, I support her because I admire her talent and I enjoy her work. I have nothing to say about her private life, each one makes her own karma, it is Jodie's problem if she goes out with a Trump or Bolsonaro supporter, Jodie's problem is the footprint she leaves on the road, it's Jodie's problem if she date a man or a woman, it's Jodie's problem if she lives in Boston or London, it's Jodie's problem her fucking ass. It is her problem, not my problem. Jodie owes me nothing, absolutely nothing. And I'm not so influential as to let this change my opinion about an actress who so far has given me nothing but her talent, I am not so influential as to take advantage of this situation and throw the repressed hatred at someone for some personal issues.

To those who take advantage of the situation to say what they really think of Jodie, go ahead, do it, have the ovaries to hold what you say but then go. To the weak stan who immediately changed their photo or their bio, look in the mirror, you are a fake, have the ovaries to hold what you said and go as well please.

The day I see that Jodie Comer is really a fake, that day I take her out of my life myself, but not based on the twisted mind of some sick person who decided that it is time to hate or cancel the amazing Jodie Comer.

[qvintcssence]

Task || 002 — About the Mun.

01. what’s your name/alias you go by ??

Stephanie, but I go by Steph or S. 

02. what’s your age ??

Well—if Dani’s ancient then I am prehistoric. If you insist on a precise number, I’m 30.  

03. what’s your zodiac sign ??

Aquarius.

04. what’s your ethnicity ??

Dudes, I don’t even know my blood type let alone my heritage. What I do know is that I’m whiter than casper. 

05. what’s your nationality ??

American. 

06. what’s your favorite band and/or musical artist ??

Hahaha, cover your ears, Cody. It’s Taylor Swift. 

07. what’s your dream job ??

My absolute dream job would be writing either as a novelist or showrunner. That said, I’m really passionate about teaching, and can’t wait have a classroom of my own. 

08. what’s one place you would love to visit ??

My favorite city in the world is New York City, but I really want to visit Germany. 

09. what’s your favorite tv show ??

Oh goodness... I’ve seen and loved way too many. If we’re talking ultimates though, I’m going to have to say Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

10. what’s your favorite movie ??

Remember the Titans. I am a sucker for sports films. I literally cry the whole time because they are just that moving. 

11. what’s your favorite song ?

I don’t really have a favorite. I go through stages of listening to songs on repeat over and over again and then not revisiting them until some time later. Right now that includes “Don’t Throw it Away” by the Jonas Brothers and “Church” by Aly and Aj. 

12. what’s your favorite sport ??

Baseball! I am a huge fan of the Cleveland Indians, though I’ve recently started stanning women’s soccer. How about that Christen Press though? 

13. what’s your favorite food ??

Italian. I’m garbage for pizza and pasta. 

14. what’s your favorite face claim to use ??

Hmmm. A few months ago I would have said Eliza Taylor without a doubt, but I’ve really taken to playing with Tasya Teles and Daniel Sharman as well. 

15. what’s your least favorite face claim ??

I get very uncomfortable when people roleplay with child actors and/or children in general. 

16. what’s your favorite character of yours to play ?? which do you think you’re most like ??

I have been with Rory for several years now, so I definitely feel like I know her the best. She’s very near and dear to my heart, so she’s probably my favorite. I love all my kids though. They’re all so different, and they provide me with such a unique perspective! 

I don’t know if I’m really like any of my muses. If I had to pick one, I’d say Matt because I too cannot speak around girls. Haha I don’t have him anymore though, so maybe Ashton or Jonas. 

17. what’s your sexuality ??

 I’m a lesbian because women 😍

18. what’s the last movie you saw in a cinema/theater ??

Ugh. I feel so set up by this question! I took my niece and nephew to see The Secret Life of Pets 2 today, and it was pretty cute. 

19. what’s the worst injury you’ve ever had ??

The summer before 7th grade, I broke my leg and shattered my growth plate sliding into home plate. I was safe though, and we won the game! Too bad my pain tolerance levels are like zero, and it was the worst pain I’d ever felt. #embarrassing

20. what’s a random or interesting fact about you ??

This is the question I struggled with the most. I’m boring, y’all... I have a baby brain tumor that I call a ‘brain buddy’ because he’s not really doing anything up there but chillin’. Also, I once wrote a feature length Power Rangers Film when I was 12. I still have it! 

21. do you listen to music while you write ??

Sometimes! If I do, it has to be very mellow because I get distracted very easily. If there is a song that really fits the moment or inspired me to write the moment, I’ll listen to it on repeat to keep the vibe. Otherwise, I’ll listen to instrumentals or Sleeping At Last’s album titled “Atlas.” 

22. are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer ??

It all depends on when I have time. I honestly get my best writing done on pen and paper while I’m at work with fewer distractions, but a lot of times, I get inspired at night. I also did a lot of writing while substitute teaching, so it all just depends on if the situation allows for it and how focused I can get myself.  

23. have you ever roleplayed intoxicated ??

Yes, it’s embarrassing. Don’t do it! 

24. what language or languages do you speak ??

I only speak English fluently, but I can read French decently well.

25. how long have you roleplayed ??

I started role playing way back in the days of message forums and MSN chat. It was power rangers, and I was 14 so... 16 years. Damn. 

26. favorite roleplay genre ??

Honestly, genre isn’t important to me. Give me a story worth telling, and I’m in. I just need plot. Everything else will fall into place. 

27. one sound you hate & one you love ??

I fucking hate the sound of metal against metal or metal against teeth. Anything that gets that loud screeching noise is a big no from me. 

I love the sound of heavy rain and thunder storms. 

28. do you believe in ghosts ??

I’m fairly certain that no less than three of my former houses have been haunted, so yes. Yes, I do. 

29. do you believe in aliens ??

Sure, why not? I find it harder to believe that the galaxy exists with only us. 

30. do you believe in true love ??

Yes, I do. I believe in reincarnation, and soulmates, and finding each other in each and every universe. It might not be forever, because bad things happen, but it is a constant. 

31. do you hold grudges ??

Not really. I get all hopped up about something for like 10 minutes and then forget about it. No use staying angry over something you can’t change. 

32. do you have any obsessions right now ??

I’m forever obsessed with Harry Potter, but I’d say I have a few other currents. The 1OO, Women’s Soccer, Cleveland Indians Baseball, and Resident Evil are the ones that come to mind. 

33. do you drive & if so, have you ever been in a crash ??

Double yes. I ran over my fence post backing out of my drive a few years back, and I’ve fallen victim to the icy Ohioan roads a few times. I also side swiped a truck merging into a lane and also pulling into a parking spot, but listen... I’m not that bad of a driver! Not-So-Fun Fact: All three of the weather induced accidents occurred on February 11th—a day before my birthday. 🙃 These also all occurred before I was 25... minus the bad park job. 

34. do you like the smell of gasoline ??

That’s a no. (Dani, that’s gross!)  

35. do you prefer writing fluff, angst, or smut ??

Honestly, I love it all. Not a huge smut writer, just because it feels a little too personal with the person you’re writing with, but I’m not opposed to it as long as everyone is over 18 and comfortable writing it. Angst and fluff get me hook, line, and sinker though. I live for it! 

36. are you in a relationship ??

I WISH.

37. grab the nearest book to you and turn to page 23, what is the 17the line ??

“I have buried one friend to-day,” he thought: “what if this should cost me another?” —The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.

38. put your playlist on shuffle and list the first four songs that pop up:

“Let’s Get Married” by Bleachers, “There for You” by Martin Garrix & Troye Sivan, “Star Maps” by Aly & Aj, and “Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. 

[bleachedclean13]

In exactly 9 days I’ll finally experience The Reputation Stadium Tour from Section B5 Row M Seats 1-2 with my dear friend Rayvin while my parents are seated at section 224 😭♥️ after waiting for almost a year! (Got my tickets on 17 Dec ‘17) But it is definitely worth the wait, I MEAN IT IS THE QUEEN HERSELF AFTERALL😫👌🏼💯🚨 This Perth show would be my 5th Taylor show and my very 1st Taylor show abroad! Definitely a trip to remember and the absolute BEST birthday present EVER. So incredibly thankful for such supportive parents who support my love for Taylor esp since my refuse-to-admit-it-lowkey-swiftie of a Dad is a stan himself ever since he went to The Red Tour (9 June ‘14) with me as I was a smol bean and he was protective haha 💓 after that night he literally knew every word to I Knew You Were Trouble and 22! He also offered to accompany me on one of the nights on The 1989 World Tour in Singapore while I go with a friend the other night H͙A͙H͙A͙H͙A͙ COOLEST DAD IN THE WORLD. He even held up a board we made together the whole time 😫👌🏼💯 This show would be my Dad’s 3rd and my Mum’s 1st despite not being a huge fan of loud events! Pretty sure my Mum would be a convert too after the night of the 19th 😝 I mean we all know how powerful of an impact Taylor brings ♥️♥️♥️ which is why @taylorswift will always always be my number 1 idol, favorite artiste, role model but more than anything my motivation in life to do good and to spread joy. I have been a Swiftie since 2008 when I was at my cousin’s place and a certain MV which goes by the name of ‘Love Story’ by another certain gorgeous and talented young blonde lady named Taylor Swift was trending on youtube and I clicked on it — BEST DECISION EVER! Still really bummed over missing The Speak Now World Tour back in 2011 :/ my family wasn’t as comfortable as we are now and I was too young in my parents’ eyes HAHA forever their baby 👶🏻 Also may I add that Mama Swift gives THE BEST hugs EVER. (or at least until I meet Taylor, someday!😆)Got the pleasure to meet her once the last two tours and I’m so thankful I did because it was the closest to meeting Taylor and meeting Andrea made me feel validated, like WOW. Taylor IS real. HOW IS IT REAL THAT SUCH AN INCREDIBLE PERSON WITH A HUGE GLOWING SPARKLING GOLDEN HEART EXIST. 😭♥️🏆 Also, my board this tour is inspired by the line from KOMH ‘All the boys in their expensive cars, range rovers & jaguars never took me quite where you do’ because it is true that Taylor took me places (in life and literally, I’m flying 2,431 miles from Singapore just for the tour😍😘😊) ! Would be a dream come true if All You Had To Do Was Stay ends up being Perth’s surprise song, like i’d literally lose my shit and cry even harder HAHAHA BC I’LL PROBABLY BE CRYING DURING THE SHOW FROM THE DISBELIEF THAT I’m there 😅 AYHTDWS was scraped off the setlist in Singapore 😭 P.S. If you see this by any chance dear Taylor, please know that I’ll always always support you no matter what you do because you are after all my love and pride 😭♥️🌟 also, G is GORGEOUS. H͙A͙H͙A͙H͙A͙ 😅😝🤯 I LOVE YOU SO MUCH TAYTAY

[bangtan]

BTS Speaks Out In Seoul: The K-Pop Megastars Get Candid About Representing a New Generation

No sound on the planet inspires as obsessive a fandom as K-pop. The “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” of BTS have (finally, for real) imported that mania to America -- all in Korean, as they rally dissatisfied millennials around the globe. Built in 1957 as a reception hall for South Korea’s fledgling postwar government to entertain foreign dignitaries, the Korea House is a quiet oasis amid the tumult of Seoul, with a photogenic courtyard and collection of old-school Korean houses known as hanoks. Normally it’s the setting for historical TV dramas or weddings, but on this bright, cold mid-January morning, it’s a hideaway for the seven-man Korean pop group BTS, whose celebrity has expanded past K-pop’s traditional sphere of influence and, especially during the last six months, moved into the United States as well. When I arrive, the band is sequestered in a room within a room, behind paper doors manned by a security detail. In the outer room, over 20 groomers, publicists and other handlers from the group’s management agency, BigHit Entertainment, mill about, grazing on the provided snacks and drinks. Everyone speaks in low tones. The members of BTS need an extra 15 minutes before the scheduled photo shoot, I’m told. They are, understandably, exhausted: Their schedule has been packed since New Year’s Eve with performances, TV appearances, commercials and meet-and-greets. I flew into Seoul expressly to meet them for this rare opening in their calendar. The first to emerge from the room is J-Hope, 23, the former street dancer from the city of Gwangju, who capers down the steps, then doubles back to get RM, also 23, the group’s leader and English-speaking ambassador. The rest soon file out wearing similarly dark Saint Laurent-heavy outfits: Suga, 24, the idealistic and soulful rapper; Jimin, 22, the baby-faced modern dancer; V, 22, the master impressionist; Jungkook, 20, the golden maknae (youngest member, a sort of privileged position in K-pop) who’s good at everything; and Jin, 25, who’s known as “Worldwide Handsome.” They form a semicircle of multicolored bowl cuts, and RM comments on how tall I am (6 feet) and that I can speak Korean (like a 10-year-old). They’re photo-ready but groggy enough that I wish they’d taken another 15 minutes to rest. But time is money, and these guys are worth a lot. It’s reasonable that BigHit would handle the members like prized jewels. They’re among the biggest stars in K-pop -- their last album, 2017’s Love Yourself: Her, has sold 1.58 million physical copies around the globe, according to BigHit. And while it may not be a household name in the United States, BTS -- which stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan and roughly translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” -- is pulling unprecedented numbers for a group that mainly sings in Korean to an American populace that has long resisted K-pop’s charms. Love Yourself: Her debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 in September 2017, and BTS claims the two highest-charting songs for a K-pop group ever, “DNA” (which peaked at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100) and the Steve Aoki remix of “Mic Drop,” featuring Desiigner (No. 28). In the States alone, BTS has sold 1.6 million song downloads and clocked 1.5 billion-with-a-“B” on-demand streams, according to Nielsen Music. BTS has connected with millennials around the globe even though -- or really, because -- the act seems to challenge boy-band and K-pop orthodoxies. Sure, it’s got love songs and dance moves. But BTS’ music, which the members have helped write since the beginning, has regularly leveled criticism against a myopic educational system, materialism and the media, venting about a structure seemingly gamed against the younger generation. “Honestly, from our standpoint, every day is stressful for our generation. It’s hard to get a job, it’s harder to attend college now more than ever,” says RM, until recently known as Rap Monster. “Adults need to create policies that can facilitate that overall social change. Right now, the privileged class, the upper class needs to change the way they think.” Suga jumps in: “And this isn't just Korea, but the rest of the world. The reason why our music resonates with people around the world who are in their teens, 20s and 30s is because of these issues.” The shoot’s done, and we’re sitting on couches in a small living room-like space amid the production studios at the BigHit offices, the members changed into cozy but still-stylish jackets and knitwear. Here at home, speaking in Korean, they’re calmer and less eager to impress than they were on their recent, occasionally awkward American press tour, where they did the rounds on The Late Late Show With James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where RM gamely evaded questions about dating. Today, their voices are noticeably deeper, more sonorous. RM does, as usual, a lot of the talking, sometimes throwing questions out to the quieter members. But Suga is a surprise: garrulous and thoughtful, seemingly primed for a socially conscious rap battle. Rabid K-pop fandom is, by now, a pop-culture cliche. Even in a world where supporters of American stars engineer efforts to goose chart positions and feud with rival fandoms -- Beatlemania multiplied by the internet, basically -- K-pop stans are legendarily devoted and influential. The BTS ARMY (that’s short for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”) is the engine powering the phenomenon: It translates lyrics and Korean media appearances; rallies clicks, views, likes and retweets to get BTS trending on Twitter and YouTube; and overwhelms online polls and competitions. BigHit says that it makes sure to disseminate news and updates about the band on the fan cafe, so as not to arouse the wrath of the ARMY. The global fan base is why a group you may never have heard of is attaining the upper ranks of the U.S. charts; playing late-night slots; appearing at the Billboard Music Awards, where it picked up the fan-voted top social artist trophy in 2017; and performing on the American Music Awards. (“The AMAs were the biggest gift we could have gotten from our fans,” says Suga.) Purely in terms of social media, they’re just about the biggest thing going, driving BTS to 58 weeks at No. 1 on the Social 50 chart, a total that’s second only to Justin Bieber’s, and more than doubles the number of weeks scored by the third-place act -- none other than Taylor Swift. The ARMY doesn't merely idolize the members of BTS, it identifies with them. When the group debuted in 2013 with 2 Kool 4 Skool, the members talked about the pressures familiar to any Korean student: the need to study hard, get into college and find a stable job. Their first singles, “No More Dream” and “N.O.,” castigated peers who attended classes like zombies without a sense of purpose. What was all this education for, they asked -- to become “the No. 1 government worker?” The tracks were a throwback to Korean pop acts like H.O.T. and Seo Taiji & Boys, only updated for a generation saddled with debt in an increasingly competitive economy. “I was talking about my past self,” says RM, confessing that he was one of those drones. “There was nothing I wanted to do; just that I wanted to make a lot of money. I started the song by thinking about it as a letter written to friends who were like me in the past.” “College is presented like some sort of cure-all,” says Suga. “They say that if you go, your life will be set. They even say you’ll lose weight, get taller...” RM: “That you’ll get a girlfriend...” Jin: “That you’ll become better-looking...” Suga: “But this isn't the reality, and they realize that was all a lie. No one else can take responsibility for you at that point. “If we don’t talk about these issues, who will?” continues Suga. “Our parents? Adults? So isn't it up to us? That’s the kind of conversations we have [in the band]: Who knows best and can talk about the difficulty our generation faces? It’s us.” As they become increasingly famous, though, the artists have also become wary of saying what might be perceived as the wrong or “political” thing. Suga is the most outspoken. When I ask them about the massive candlelight protests calling for President Park Geun-hye’s resignation in Seoul last winter, Suga readily takes on the topic: “Moving past right and wrong, truth and falsehood, citizens coming together and raising their voice is something that I actively support.” RM, on the other hand, is more alert to potential sensitivities. On the recent death of Jonghyun of K-pop group SHINee, who suffered from depression and committed suicide last December, he says, “We went to give our condolences that morning. I couldn't sleep at all that night. It was so shocking, because we had seen him so often at events. He was so successful.” Adds Suga, “It was a shock to everyone, and I really sympathized with him,” and then RM moves to end the conversation: “That’s about all we can say.” But Suga goes on. “I really want to say that everyone in the world is lonely and everyone is sad, and if we know that everyone is suffering and lonely, I hope we can create an environment where we can ask for help, and say things are hard when they’re hard, and say that we miss someone when we miss them.” I later bring up a tweet that RM wrote in March 2013, saying that when he understood what the lyrics to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ gay-marriage anthem, “Same Love,” were about, he liked the song twice as much. BTS fans naturally took this to mean that BTS openly supported gay rights -- a rarity in K-pop. Today, he’s slightly circumspect on the topic: “It’s hard to find the right words. To reverse the words: Saying ‘same love’ is saying ‘love is the same.’ I just really liked that song. That’s about all I have to say.” Suga, though, is clear on where he stands: “There’s nothing wrong. Everyone is equal.” BTS’ meteoric rise was something of a surprise, even in Korea. Three years into its career -- eons in the K-pop life cycle -- the group finally gained traction in 2016 with hits like “Blood, Sweat, Tears” and “Burn It Up.” Part of the reason is that BTS is the first major act to come out of BigHit Entertainment, an anomaly simply in that it is not one of the “Big Three” entertainment companies -- YG, JYP and SM -- that control the Korean music industry, producing most of the past decade’s notable pop acts, including Girls’ Generation, BIGBANG, Super Junior, Wonder Girls and 2NE1. And BTS simply didn't have the same feel as factory-fresh groups created to dominate the Asian music markets. Bang Si-hyuk, the founder/CEO of BigHit, cut his teeth at JYP, working alongside Park Jin-yong and writing and producing hits for Rain, 2AM and Baek Ji-young. “Even the people around me didn't believe in me,” he says, recalling the early days with BTS. “Even though they acknowledged that I had been successful in the past, they didn't believe I could take this boy group to the top.” Like the other companies, BigHit oversees everything from recording to distribution to marketing to events for its acts. He says that people thought the “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” name had a North Korean feel, but he felt that they would become a metaphorical bulletproof vest for their generation. Bang originally wanted to create a hip-hop group -- “like Migos,” according to RM. He first listened to RM’s demo tape in 2010 and still remembers some of the lines. (He cites, “My heart is like a detective who is the criminal’s son. Even as I know who the criminal is, I can’t catch him.”) “It was shocking to me,” says Bang. “RM is extremely self-reflective, sophisticated and philosophical, considering his age.” RM, whose real name is Kim Nam-joon, was only 15 at the time. Bang signed him immediately. Back then, though, “idol groups” -- boy bands and girl groups -- like Super Junior and SNSD were ascendant. So Bang created an act that would meld the honesty of hip-hop with the visual flair and charisma of a boy band in the vein of BIGBANG. During the next couple of years, he recruited Suga, a rapper he describes as having an “I don’t give a fuck” magnetism masking a humble core, and then J-Hope, the street dancer. BigHit then held extensive auditions. A casting director chased Jin after seeing him get off a bus and convinced him to try out for the group; he eventually made the team alongside V and Jungkook. Jimin was the last to join, after a BigHit agent scouted him at a modern dance school. In the beginning, each of the members tried their hand at rhyming. “I went so far as to learn how to rap,” says Jimin, who, like Jungkook, now sings. “But after they had me do it once, they were like, ‘Let’s just work harder on vocals.’” RM nods -- “It was the wise choice,” he says -- and everyone bursts out laughing. These were BigHit’s ragtag champions, and they have a sense of unity. Early on, they lived together in one small room, sleeping in bunk beds and learning one another’s sleep habits. (Jimin does strange contortions in bed, and Jungkook has started snoring. “It’s TMI,” acknowledges RM.) They still live together, just with a little more space -- J-Hope and Jimin sharing the biggest room -- and plan to keep doing so. “When we’re at home, we go around to everyone’s room,” says Jin. “Even when I go home [to see family], I get bored, honestly,” adds Suga. “And if there’s a problem or someone has hurt feelings, we don’t just leave it, we talk about it then and there.” “So if Hope and Jin fight, it’s not just the two of them that resolve it,” explains Jungkook. “It’s all seven of us!” says Suga. “Everyone gathers together,” says RM, ever the intellectual. “It’s like an agora in ancient Greece: We gather and we ask: ‘What happened?’” After the interview, RM takes me to his production studio, a small room at the end of a hall decorated with giant KAWS figurines in glass boxes, a Supreme poster of Mike Tyson and skateboards. Inside, the walls are lined with his own KAWS toys and a model version of the Banksy piece “Rage, Flower Thrower” that he admits paying a hefty sum for. Other than that, there’s just a typical workstation: a pullout chair, giant monitor and the most precious item of all, his laptop. In BTS’ lyrics, there’s a motif of the baepsae, a squat, fluffy bird native to Korea and known as the crow-tit. A Korean expression says that if a crow-tit tries to walk like a stork, it’ll tear its own legs. It’s a cautionary tale -- a suggestion that you shouldn't try too hard or be something that you’re not. But BTS deploys it as a brag, a declaration of a small, striving bird. In “Silver Spoon,” Suga puts a cheeky, boastful spin on it: “Our generation has had it hard/We’ll chase them fast/Because of the storks the crotch of my pants is stretched tight/So call me baepsa e.” Now that they are, almost in a literal sense, on top of the world, can they still claim to be underdogs? “We’re very careful about calling ourselves baepsaes now,” says Suga. “But the reality is that that’s where we started and that’s where our roots are.” And RM points out that they still consider themselves agents for change: “If there are problems, we’ll bring it up so that our voices can get louder, so that the climate changes and we can talk about it more freely.” BTS is the K-pop group of the moment because it balances the contradictions inherent to the genre on a genuinely global scale: The act is breaking through in America singing and rapping in Korean, creating intimacy through wide exposure on social media, expressing political ideas without stirring up controversy and inspiring fervent obsession with mild-mannered wholesomeness. It is the underdog that has arrived. But the group would rather you not ask what’s next. Its members and producers are skillfully evasive when it comes to questions about the next BTS album -- although they apparently have no immediate plans for an English-language release, intuiting that such a move would alienate their core fan base. Instead, they seem content to keep doing what they do. RM, of course, is philosophical about it. “In Korean, the word ‘future’ is made up of two parts,” he explains, proposing a sort of riddle about how far the band has come and how far it might yet go. “The first part means ‘not,’ and the second means ‘to come.’ In that sense, ‘future’ means something that will not come. This is to say: The future is now, and our now is us living our future.”

Source

[kaleidoscopeofmemoriesx]

so i watched rep tour movie on the 31st and i forgot to post it here, i just want to say that im speechless, i have watched it three times already and those three times ended with me being speechless.

Taylor is a fucking genius i swear.

Taylor never never disappoints, i love new year eve’s with taylor tbh, remember ootw mv was released on nye at midnight? I remember waking up on the 1st early in the morning just to watch it. I cant believe its been 4 years of that.

Taylor has been a great part of my life. Im 19 and I’ve been stanning her since i was 11 during speak now era.

i know im rambling a lot but the point of this post is: im super proud of taylor and the person she has become today. I teared up and cried several times during her speeches and during all too well and you belong with me and new years day, (yes im a emo baby) just by seeing how passionate all those fans looked singing a long to her lyrics and crying and screaming and that was just magical.

another thing that left me speechless was the whole stage and the magnitude of the Stadium like whoa, i saw videos and pictures and tried to follow each concert date through instagram and tumblr but really nothing compares to seeing it at the rep movie. IT WAS BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL. The stage is really really something.

And least but not last i want to speak about the power miss swift has. during IDSB and Don’t blame me??????? I was completely in awe admiring her and the stage imagine watching HER in all her glory, in her element live, imagine being THAT lucky.

im really so happy we got this as a new year gift, i love taylor and i cant wait for TS7, i will be waiting patiently for it even through i may not be ready for it (ahahah)

hopefully one day ONE DAY i will make my dreams come true of go to one of concerts I’ve always through that her concerts are magical, the stages, songs and costumes are the proof of it.

thank you so much Taylor for being a precious and beautiful soul inside and out i wish you nothing but the BEST OF THE BEST for this 2019 all the love and happiness of this world for you because it’s what you deserve! and above all i wish you a healthy 2019 ♥ thank you for being by our side and doing your best to try and communicate with us and being our friend and giving us courage and words that gave us strength when we needed it the most, im pretty sure im not just speaking for myself but for a lot of people too. I appreciate you a lot Taylor and i hope you know how loved you are by SO MANY PEOPLE (i know you do, the whole rep tour was a proof of it) I LOVE YOU and i hope you have an amazing year!!! @taylorswift

[silent-swiftie-ph]

Scribbled ideas

Nov 9, 2022

So doing this random journal again. It’s been awhile since I’ve written or talked to myself. Anyways, lately has been a rollercoaster ride for me. Dad’s bypass operation, my stressful birthday, missing my biggest stan’s “Taylor Swift” album launch, etc.

I dont know if I am for any fandom whatsoever, but as long as I can remember, Ive been a swiftie all throughout my life. I remember first hearing her songs back in 2006/2007, I was just a college student then dreaming of making a dent in this world. You know, I came from one of the top universities here in the Philippines so I was a bit full rather fool of myself.

She went here for her fearless album, but i was dead broke that time. Also, I didn’t have any support “fandom” friends with me. All of my friends are either, so-so with her or just freaking against her. 😂 well, i am still in that shit till now.

Kanye west incident, was angry as hell. I remeber rubbing the topic to my friends even though they didnt like it. I was connecting it to women power and artists equality. Like fellow artist should you know support each other. I know the feeling since I used to write my own songs and play it on my guitar when I was 13 years old. It just so happened that, that dream is something that the society here deemed impossible to achieve.

Red album was released and she also had a schedule here. I was a budding analyst and I was actually in the ticketnet website or whatever looking at the ticket prices fucking 2000 pesos for gen admission. I thought to myself that, damn. I would also need to pass this one. (Though looking back, i should have just used my mom’s credit card and worked my ass off to have it paid).

Fell of the radar for the next years or so… sadly when taylor started having model friends. I’m nowhere near their stature, im fat, im nerdy, im boyish, and im a geek. How on earth could I connect with them? Though, id still be looking back and forth from afar, this is also the time I had a gf, but unfortunately she doesnt like taylor as well. I’m bisexual by the way.

When 1989 came out, i was secretly wishing for a concert here in Manila. I really wanted to bring my then gf there and introduce taylor to her. But it didn’t happen. 😔

It was also the time that taylor was with KK, and a bunch of hotties like calvin, tom, alwyn. And I was like. “Whoaw, mom your so active all around the place. I will never ever be able to reach you.” Well I was secretly rooting/shipping kaylor because I was also in that phase during that time frame 🥲🫠

Fast forward to reputation, damn that album blew me away. It was my break up album. Well, not necessary that it’s a break-up album but I was listening to it endlessly to numb myself. I was eyeing to watch it in US coz I was supposed to go there in that certain tour dates for my business trip. Lo and behold, my business trip was rescheduled and what I did was just to visit an empty stadium and try to breathe in the essense of whatever is left in there. Hahahaha

Lovers is a mixed album for me. I mean I love it but confuses me all the time. I am no decypher queen type of fan. I think im just a creative and intellectual one. Its a declaration of love but im feeling a sense of lgbtq+ vibes to it. Tbh, i really thought Taylor was going to out herself. Hahahaha. Well, i dint care about that but lol, it was just my thought.

Miss Americana!!! This one blew me out. Personally, i have been an activist in all of my social media accounts. As I said earlier, i graduated from one of the top university here in our country and it is also a national university, so technically i have been programmed to think radically against any form of facism, unequality, racism, genderlect and everything. This film blew me away. It rekindled my connection with Taylor. I was so proud of her. I always thought her as someone who is a rockstar but not an activist. Well there are some hardcore feminist lines in her song but as a fellow feminist and activist, this really like “Mom, please hug me. I wanna be with you again” moment.

I was so sure that i will see Taylor but pandemic happened. I was a holy fucking mess. I was able to get into folklore, but damn i was a ghost for like evermore, fearless, red, and sadly midnight (which i am catching up), honestly, midnight released me from my voidness. It pulled me again here in this world. Everyone’s telling that this a dark album, but i actually dont care. I can relate to this. It’s like telling me that hey, there is this patriarchal shit going on, anxieties, over thinking, tunnel vision shits that fell through, but you will still be here. Live the hell that you want, even with a blood stained dress, love the hell that you want even you dont want to marry, forgive yourself for being the anti-hero, forgive that kid. Forgive that kid, let this all loose and celebrate, live, you’re on your own, kid. Your gonna be fine.

Always.

PS please be here in Manila. I believe I’ve saved enough to get VVIP ticket. HAHAHAHA But srsly, i wanna thank you so much Ms Swift

@taylorswift

[makistar2018]

10 Years Later, Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ Still Slaps

When it was released in 2008, Swift’s sophomore album launched a thousand takes. Today, it’s best remembered as a simple time capsule

By LAUREN M. JACKSON November 12, 2018

Taylor Swift during the "Fearless" tour at Madison Square Garden on August 27, 2009 in New York City.

Theo Wargo/WireImage for New York Post

Like Propel water, The Scarlet Letter and mechanical pencils, Taylor Swift’s Fearless pairs well with the sporadic squeak of team-issued sneakers, overpriced hot lunches and the kind of angst that defines comfortably suburb-bound teenage years. Sliding open the album on Spotify with my iPhone 8, I can still feel my limbs stretched in all directions, hear the snap-crackle-pop of a dozen adolescent girls’ joints going through the motions of yet another warm-up to what would become the soundtrack of my high school varsity dance team’s inner and outer lives, as well as leave poptimism forever changed.

I am 27 now, still anxious but inflexible, no longer clinging (as) tightly to singular albums to tell the emotional landscape of my life — but back then, Fearless was god. Swift was barely into legal teenagedom when compiling her sophomore album’s original 13 tracks, but more than the happenstance near-synonymy of our ages (I’m younger by 1 year, 6 months, 27 days), the four-walled, high school claustrophobia induced by the album is a matter of skilled musical mood setting. From the first downbeat of the inaugural title track to the last flippantly rebellious “hallelujah” on “Change,” Swift traps us in the mind of an ungainly teen as she was once trapped, as I was, as so many others wading the ambiguity between comportment and desire that doesn’t quite end when gowns come on and caps fly up.

Like so many notebook pages on the golden screen, Fearless is filled with boys. Stans and haters have their theories, but I like to think of each song as an archetype, less true stories of relationships gone sour than a young woman’s true to life hetero-ethnography. There are the boys who do good — the “Fearless,” “Love Story,” “Hey Stephen,” “The Best Day” boys (the last a tribute to Dad) — the boys who nurture and love intensely. They do all the usual country boy things, all the usual cinematic things: driving slow, kissing in the rain, flouting archaic inter-familial squabbles. They honor their promises and, most of all, leave the narrator better changed for her affection.

These boys who do good are short-lived. By Track 2, “Fifteen,” we’re already checking in to Heartbreak Hotel for the upteenth time with an account of that age generic enough to warrant a fan-made montage of clips from Degrassi: The Next Generation. The song tells an allegedly universal story of freshman year woes, complete with riding in cars with senior boys who also play football (because of course). It’s saccharine, sung in the vernacular of normative coupling that would become Swift’s enemy in the gossip pages. But the limited lexicon is not necessarily untruthful. “Fifteen” has aged about as well as anyone would expect, but some of those refrains make me yearn for arms long enough to slap all the powers that be responsible for belittling the whims of young girls. And according to the greater duration of Fearless — tracks like “White Horse,” “Breathe,” “Tell Me Why,” “You’re Not Sorry,” “The Way I Loved You,” and “Forever & Always” — the greatest threat to the happiness of teen girls are boys.

November 2008 looks rosy from here. America had just elected its first black president, the man who promised too much hope and change to possibly be true, but faith felt good back then. Men had committed just five mass shootings over the past year with one more on the way in December (2018 has 307 mass shootings to its name so far). The nation boasted just under 150 recognized active white supremacist groups (that number would climb to over 1,000 during Obama’s presidency). Global finance was in crisis but cable networks were still winning Emmys. Amy Winehouse was alive. Kanye still made sense and a bright-eyed, hair-tousled new country darling was exclusively concerned with dating, rather than local politics. 

Like any celebrity who is also a woman, but also in a lane quite her own, Swift’s relation to mainstream feminism wanes and waxes with the season. A female artist beloved by the girls for whom her songs are written, Swift and her music are therefore more scrutinized, more rigorously excavated for signs of harmful messaging than her male singer-songwriter peers. Fearless frayed Swift’s reputation in a way that wouldn’t let up for years, if ever, largely because of its critical success. Swift took home four Grammys at the 2010 awards, including Album of the Year, beating the Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D., Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierceand, most egregiously, Lady Gaga’s debut studio album, The Fame. The perceived slight invited robust inquiry into this supposed album of the year, and the aesthetic discrepancy between the two quickly turned to politics. 

Autostraddle’s Riese called Swift “a feminist’s nightmare,” the enemy of “brave, creative, inventive, envelope-pushing little monsters” everywhere. An accompanying infographic, “a symbolic analysis” of Swift’s works to date, cataloged her most damning motifs, including “virginal” imagery, “the stars,” “crying,” and the 2AM hour. At Jezebel, Dodai Stewart agreed that Gaga was the rightful winner, speculating that in a race between “Gaga the liberal versus Taylor the conservative,” the latter “makes the Academy feel more comfortable.” One joy of pop culture is the revelation of how melodramatically things can change. Last month, Swift announced her endorsement of Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper for the midterm elections; meanwhile, Lady Gaga hews the path of glamorous respectability on her lengthy A Star Is Born Oscar campaign. 

Feminist readings of Fearless weren’t wrong, exactly. Allies on the album come in strictly male form, while other girls are competition for Swift’s persecuted first person. Even the red-headed bestie Abigail becomes a lesson in chastity, losing her virginity — “everything”! —to the boy who broke her heart (the foil to Swift’s main character, whose dreams of living in a big ole city protect her from such a fate). The charting single “You Belong With Me” is a bouncy jaunt through the valley of me versus those other girls. The video that won Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards over Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” — to seismic effect — stars Swift as both the frizzy blonde, bespectacled weirdo in band and the sleek brunette cheerleader with the man (Lucas Till who now plays MacGyver on CBS). In true romantic comedy fashion, Good Swift, clothed in white, ends up with the guy in the end, defeating Bad Swift, whose only crimes it seems are great taste in footwear and not appreciating her high school boyfriend’s likely moronic sense of humor. Both the song and video became emblematic of a kind of Swiftian all-for-one girl power. Her 2017 video for “Look What You Made Me Do” resurrects and buries all sorts of Swiftisms, including the iconography of the uncool girl who features so heavily in the Fearless-era of her oeuvre. 

Pop music exists not to elevate our souls or our politics, but to safely wade in the muck of our pettiest appetites, whether they come with trap drums or in serenades. Pop music deserves interrogation, but it will never exceed us. Fearless was a diary, sounding like the selfishness that bubbles up regardless of one’s intellectual or political guards against it.  The debate it ignited wouldn’t happen were it released today, amidst all this. It’s a relic of a time when determining exactly what an album meant, culturally and aesthetically, was a crucial discussion to have in public, when nuance had stakes. Compared to the basic moral tenets we now expend so much of our energy defending, such communal acts of criticism feel small and regretfully scarce. Fearless was a moment, now relegated to a time capsule, no longer a prompt.   

Rolling Stone

[lunapaper]

The year was 2010. Emo was just starting to die out (long live the scene). I was studying to become a secondary school teacher, and Katy Perry was shooting whipped cream out of her boobs...

Second albums, more often than not, fail to live up to the hype. And yet, Teenage Dream has somehow endured.

While Perry’s 2008 debut, One of the Boys, launched her into the mainstream, it really hasn’t aged all that well. On tracks like ‘Self Inflicted’ and ‘Fingerprints,’ she tries way too hard to emulate Paramore’s bold pop punk. On others, she attempts to rebel against her gospel roots by turning the bawdiness up to 10.

It can also come off pretty juvenile at times. The singer was almost 25 when she sang on the title track: ‘So over the summer, something changed/I started reading Seventeen and shaving my legs/And I studied Lolita religiously/And I walked right in to school and caught you staring at me.’

But let’s be honest: Even though it’s been declared ~problematic~, you still jam out to ‘I Kissed A Girl’ when you hear it, don’t you? I hadn’t listened to ‘Ur So Gay’ before this, either, but its slinky, jazz-infused vibe absolutely slaps.

Like Teenage Dream is also a product of its time, presenting pop at its most sugary, hook-laden and bombastic. It managed to spawn 5 No.1 singles, the second album in history to do so after Michael Jackson’s Bad, as well as a documentary, Part of Me. There’s even a deluxe edition, cleverly titled The Complete Confection. It was Perry at her peak.

You know the title track, of course. Evoking images of cherry red lipstick, tight denim and driving down an empty highway in summer, Perry desperately clings to the memory of young love, breathlessly pleading ‘don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back.’

‘The One That Got Away,’ meanwhile, is its bittersweet sequel, Perry's lovesick nostalgia now tinged with regret. Yet, the only thing I really remember about the song is the video starring Cassian Andor himself, Diego Luna, as Perry’s past love, the beautifully dishevelled and tortured artist of my dreams (Dear God, that penetrating stare...) He’s also the only reason why anyone bothered to watch Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, if it wasn’t already obvious.

First single ‘California Gurls,’ on the other hand, is pure pop exuberance at its most campy and carefree, indicative of a more innocent time when it wasn’t driven by algorithms or social media. ‘Firework’ is still a go-to empowerment anthem for just about every kind of montage imaginable. ‘ET’ (featuring a pre-’presidential’ Kanye) is heavily-synthesised cyber pop that doesn’t get nearly enough love.

But Teenage Dream, in retrospect, has quite a few misses. ‘Peacock’ is just one big, long, glitchy dick joke. ‘Not Like The Movies’ is big ballad schmaltz. The brassy soft rock of ‘Hummingbird Heartbeat,’ meanwhile, opens with a hell of a line: ‘You make me feel like I'm losing my virginity/The first time, every time when you're touching me.’ And I’m pretty sure ‘What Am I Living For?’ is partly plagiarised from Justin Timberlake’s ‘My Love.’ Even Pitchfork awarded Teenage Dream a rather tame 6.8 in their recent retrospective review.

By the time Perry released Prism in 2013 – her ‘darker, moodier’ record - she had shifted further into ‘inspirational anthems.’ There was the inescapable mega-hit ‘Roar,’ the saccharine power ballad ‘Unconditionally’ and the Eastern-tinged ‘Legendary Lovers,’ complete with wellness and spiritual motifs.

But it wasn’t without its bangers: ‘Dark Horse’ (featuring Juicy J) jumped onto the trap pop bandwagon just in time with its subterranean bass and eerie, otherworldly synths. Even the slick, 90s-indebted ‘This Is How We Do’ has a certain charm.

Prism also marked the point where Perry’s invincibility began to wear off. Where the masses once lapped up her candy-coated antics, they were now calling her out for wearing braids in the video for ‘This Is How We Do’ and dressing up as a geisha during a performance at the American Music Awards.

And they would only get louder during her era of ‘purposeful pop.’ Released in the aftermath of the 2016 US election, Witness was meant to cement Perry as ‘Artist. Activist. Conscious’ - as her Twitter bio read at the time. She had joined Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. On Instagram, she was quoting the likes of Socrates and Plato. She was Woke now, and she was telling anyone who’d listen.

Yet you’d be hard pressed to find much trace of this ‘purposeful pop’ on Witness, bar the first single, ‘Chained to the Rhythm.’ Written with Sia and Max Martin, the singer implores listeners to ‘put your rose-coloured glasses on and party on’ amid whirling, colourful synths.

The rest of the record, however, is made up of either soppy, overly sentimental ballads (‘Save As Draft,’ ‘Pendulum,’ ‘Into Me You See’), awkward lyrical turns and CHVRCHES/Purity Ring knock-offs (‘Hey Hey Hey,’ ‘Roulette,’ ‘Deja Vu’).

Funnily enough, Purity Ring’s Corin Roddick produced some of Witness’ better tracks: ‘Mind Maze’ and the soaring ballad ‘Miss You More, along with ‘Bigger Than Me.’

Final track ‘Act My Age,’ meanwhile, feels like a pre-emptive strike against the criticism Witness would inevitably receive (‘They say that I might lose my Midas touch/They also say I may become irrelevant/But who the fuck are they anyway?’).

Then there’s the godawful ‘Bon Appetit’ (featuring Migos) with its food-related double entendres. It was ‘Yummy’ before ‘Yummy’ existed. Seriously, I just wanna see Orlando Bloom say he likes this song with a straight face...

But I will still defend ‘Swish Swish’ to the death. Do the lyrics suck? Yeah, but Perry’s never been the strongest lyricist. But its pulsing 90s house beat does a lot of the heavy lifting, along with Nicki Minaj’s spitfire verse.

The promotional rollout for Witness, meanwhile, proved just as messy. Among the most infamous was a 72-hour livestream, where voyeurs got to witness Perry sleep, meditate, do yoga and welcome a random assortment of guests, including Gordon Ramsey and activist DeRay McKesson. Then there was the meme-laden video for ‘Swish Swish. She literally served herself up on a platter in the clip for ‘Bon Appetit.’ She tried reigniting her feud with Taylor Swift on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. Needless to say, it reeked of desperation.

Looking back, though, you can’t help but feel a little bad for Perry, trying so hard to please only for it to blow up spectacularly in her face. So devastated, it sent her to the Hoffman Institute, which offers an abridged version of therapy. As she later told the Guardian:

‘I think the universe was like, ‘OK, all right, let’s have some humble pie here […] My negative thoughts were not great. They didn’t want to plan for a future. I also felt like I could control it by saying, ‘I’ll have the last word if I hurt myself or do something stupid and I’ll show you’ — but really, who was I showing?’

But although Witness lacked the perkiness of Teenage Dream or the cartoonish charm of One of the Boys, it shines best on its darker moments.

‘Dance With The Devil’ has the kind of smoky allure that wouldn’t look too out of place on a BANKS album, while ‘Power’ is a revelation. Produced by Jack Garrett, what could’ve been yet another dull empowerment ballad is turned into a gritty, groaning slab of vaporwave pop, with sultry sax riffs that sample, of all things, Smokey Robinson’s ‘Being With You.’ It’s electric as fuck. You believe it when Perry sings: ‘’Cause I'm a goddess and you know it/Some respect, you better show it/I'm done with you siphoning my power.’

If the singer had just done away with the whole ‘purposeful pop’ concept and stuck with Garrett, Roddick and Terror Jr’s Felix Snow as her core producing group, Witness probably wouldn’t have been half the failure it was. It could’ve had a chance to grow on people, the kind of slow burn Perry could’ve gotten away with at this point in her career. The cyberpop dystopian feel also could’ve gone hand in hand with her newfound wokeness, echoing people’s fear and anger in the aftermath of Trump’s win. But alas, we’ll never know...

While the rollout for Witness over the top, Smile’s was lacklustre and wildly inconsistent.

First single ‘Never Really Over’ came out a whole 15 months before the release of Smile to little fanfare, along with a hippie-inspired video to match. ‘Harleys in Hawaii’ later followed, which also stuck with the flower power aesthetic. Other singles - ‘Daisies’ and the title track – seemingly came and went without a trace.

So how did Katy Perry get to this point? And is there any chance of coming back?

It’s hard to say. A lot of artists go through a rough patch or two:   Miley's twerking antics divided audiences when she released 2013’s Bangerz. Taylor Swift’s reputation divided audiences. Only in recent years has Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP been vindicated. Such is the nature of music and pop culture in general. It’s fickle, just one vicious cycle after another; an endless quest for trend-bait that'll never end.

Right now, disco pop is going through a renaissance, while hyperpop reigns supreme. Dua Lip and Charli XCX are basically untouchable at the moment. TikTok has taken over from Top 40 radio when it comes to breaking hits, while the gap between album releases has also grown shorter and shorter. Even the nature of fandom has changed, shifting from old-school elitism to the bloodsport that is ‘stanning,’ along with an unhealthy amount of ‘endless simping’ (to quote a close friend of mine).

Perry, meanwhile, has failed to keep up, choosing to play it safe in order to avoid further scrutiny. But in doing so, she strips away the humour, the mischief and other idiosyncrasies that fans fell in love with in the first place.

But what choice did she have? As Junkee’s Sam Murphy notes in his own piece about Perry’s rise and fall:

‘At that point, you have two choices as a popstar — hunt for relevancy or make what comes naturally to you. Perry chose the former and came unstuck. She inserted vague wokeness into her songs as cancel culture infiltrated pop, tacked on rap features as hip-hop became the dominant commercial genre, and worked with producers who may have been able to find her credibility.’

(Full disclosure: I started writing my piece on Perry back in December 2020, so the timing of Murphy’s piece and mine is purely coincidental).

Even if you don’t believe in cancel culture, no one actually wants to be cancelled. It’s just not good for PR, especially for someone with an image as glossy and as carefully put-together as Perry’s. Even now, she continues to atone for Witness, telling the LA Times: ‘Having more awareness and consciousness, I no longer can just be a blissful, ignorant idealist who sings about love and relationships […] Even my travels have afforded me a new perspective on cultures, class systems and the inequality around the world, not just in the United States,’ though she carefully avoids the subject of politics on Smile.

But redemption is possible. Swift – Perry's one-time nemesis - was a total pariah back in 2016, mocked for her Girl Squad, for diddling the Hiddles while on the rebound from Calvin Harris and criticised for remaining coy on her political leanings. Now she’s earning indie cred with two of 2020’s biggest albums, folklore and evermore, and has thrown her support behind a number of social causes.

The devil works hard, but Swift’s PR team work harder. I might not be her biggest fan, but Taylor works Kris Jenner levels of mastery when it comes to rebuilding public sentiment. Thanks to her newfound indie cred, you’ve almost forgotten about the pastel atrocity ‘Me!,’ her 2019 duet with that insufferable drama kid cliché, Brendon Urie. Shifting her songs away from petty grievances to more original storytelling was also a smart move.

But while Swift has managed to move on, Perry seems to have fallen into the same adult contemporary trap as Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera and Pink, one that ensnares many female artists over 30 (Though many have also managed to escape – Gaga, Taylor, Beyonce, Rihanna, Kesha, Robyn...)

As ‘woke’ as the industry and fans at large might think themselves to be, they’re still pretty ageist. There's still an expectation to ‘mature’ your sound as you age, to become more ‘serious.’ No more fun, no more experimenting, boomer. But when you do end up filing away the edges, you’re called dull, generic and past your prime. Perry said as much on the aforementioned ‘Act My Age. You just. can't. win.

And yet, many female artists over 30 have created some of their best work yet in just the past year or so: Hayley Williams made the dramatic shift from pop rock to low-key, Radiohead-inspired tunes on her solo debut, Petals For Armor. Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters was hailed by critics as her most bold, urgent and visceral. Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure? was a cut of understated disco pop elegance. Carly Rae Jepsen, meanwhile, released an equally stellar companion to 2019’s Dedicated.

At this point in her career, Perry could afford to follow a similar path to that of the Canadian singer. Once the meme value of ‘Call Me Maybe’ wore off, along with her mainstream appeal, Jepsen finally had a chance to discover real creative freedom, pushing her sound to greater heights and earning critical acclaim, all without having to compromise her love for catchy hooks and bold synth pop arrangements.

A couple of years ago, a Reddit user made a post about participating in a focus group held by Perry’s label to discuss why she’s ‘no longer one of the[ir] most notable female pop artists,’ and ‘what can [they] do with her image or marketing to make you care about her again?’

It’s depressing to think that an artist as accomplished as her needs a focus group to help solve her identity crisis. There really is no easy answer. Hopefully, Perry will be able to return more vibrant and assured than ever, on her own terms...

-Bianca B.

[stateofgrace-acoustic]

Taylor and Me

with reputation out and me loving it so much, i keep getting really nostalgic and astonished by how long i’ve been a fan of taylor’s and al the things she has accompanied me through. so i felt like posting a little reflection thing, feel free to ignore totally :D

like a lot of people Love Story was the first song of hers I heard. i was on the bus home with one of my friends and she let me listen to it. i was so young back then, oh my god. (like 12?) i think i found it catchy, but didn’t think much about it afterwards until two people had a presentation on taylor in music class. (we were all supposed to introduce our favorite artists). they played some more songs from fearless, and i can’t recall exactly what my reaction was but i know i wanted the album. i asked the presentation people if i could borrow it, and i remember looking through the booklet thinking how beautiful it was. i think even back then when i was so young i sort of intuitively understood what an amazing songwriter taylor was and how much work and effort she puts into everything she does.

fearless was for me very much an escapism record. i listened to it to enter this realm of magic and fairytales and dancing in the rain that was so far away from my everyday life and issues. i could never really apply her love songs to my life in a direct way, but i still felt like they were relatable for me, in a more abstract way - the feeling that came with them, a sort of freedom and passion, was how i felt in my happiest moments, when i didn’t feel inhibited by fear and doubt as i often did. and her nostalgic and sad moments i could relate to my own nostalgia as well. 

my mom bought me the fanbook for christmas, and that’s when i started being interested in taylor as a person as well., and how she sort of became my role model. i read about her childhood and the way she tried to achieve her dream so hard until she succeeeded. about how she wasn’t afraid to put herself out there, to open herself up completely in her songs. i admired how she put kindness above all else, how in touch she was with her fans, but also how intelligent she was and how all of her decisions in her career were her own, how she didn’t let anyone else take control over what her life or ‘image’ to the public should be. all of those things and values i took to heart and tried to live them in my own life as much as possible. looking back now i couldn’t be happier with my choice of a role model. taylor helped guide me through some years that were difficult, as they are for pretty much every teenager i guess. ‘fearless is living in spite of the things that scare you to death’ was the motto i needed so much in my life, because i was very much defined and trapped by my fears in my teenage years - of social interaction, of taking risks, of failure.. taylor’s music was something i could always turn back to to give me strength.

i remember when speak now was announced, i was excited out of my mind. i wrote the tracklist down onto my computer and kept looking at it. i loved all the released singles so much and listened to them for days on end. i painted 13s onto my hands and danced around the living room. that is one of the main things that comes to my mind when i think of happy teenage memories: this image of me dancing to a taylor swift song. 

speak now was an album that completely blew me away. i loved every single track from the first listen. it is still so incredible to me how she wrote that album completely by herself at 19; how talented she is with lyrics and melodies that completely fit together. i had some fan account back then on twitter and didnt shut up about taylor ever. 

around that time, my parents and i were planning this huge vacation in Calfornia that would turn out to be one of my best - perhaps THE best experience of my teenage years, and we figured out that a the time we wanted to go, the Speak Now tour was in LA. my parents agreed to get tickets because they knew how much it meant to me, and also because they were lowkey fans themselves:D you can’t imagine how happy i was. it was my first concert ever, and the fact that i got to experience it in that huuuge location with so so many other people, it was like a dream. i was pretty far away from the stage at the side, but it was perfect for me - i think the huge crowd would have overwhelmed me. i was completely enthralled by the huge setup, the stage aesthetics, the costume changes, just how big and well planned it all was. i ended up thinking all concerts were like this, but i remember my dad saying that artists usually don’t talk that much during concerts. but taylor told the stories behind her songs, universal experiences that people could relate to, inspirational messages she wanted to get out to her fans. she really cared so much about connecting with all of us. when she was in the love story cage thing flying around the arena she even waved in the direction of our seating area even though we were so far up! 

my favorite song from speak now was always long live, and i had desperately wanted her to play the song for the entire night. i loved all the rest, obviously, but i was telling myself not to be disappointed if it would be cut out. but then, almost at the end, she did play it! you can imagine small!me standing there almost crying quietly singing along in a state of absolute happiness. the memory makes me tear up right now ahhh, it was such an amazing moment. 

then came up the red era, and i remember staying up til super late to watch the announcement of the new album. the thing is...to make it short, red simply came too early for me. i was not ready, and not being able to fully comprehend and appreciate, the emotional maturity and sheer genius of the red album. i did not really like wanegbt at first. when red came out i did listen to it a lot and like it, but like i said, i could not fully appreciate it. hearing the general fandom discussions i feel like a lot of people had a similar experience, because red was such a leap from speak now in terms of the tone of the writing. im also gonna be honest here, i was influenced by the negative portrayal of taylor in the media that kinda reached its first peak back then, and even though i didnt buy into what they said about her because i knew better, it still influenced me like subconsciously, you know? i was also a bit sceptical at her direction towards pop music. so overall, i became a bit distanced from taylor. i felt like i needed to ‘outgrow’ her. a lot of it also had to do with the fact that it was my Edgy Phase where i thought being normal was a bad thing and i wanted to be as Special and Grownup as possible. (i think everyone has that cringeworthy phase sometime in their life but i hate remembering it:D). 

but the thing is, i think i needed that kind of alienation to eventually realize that taylor had grown up just like i had, but that didn’t mean we had to grow apart. by the time 1989 was announced i had actually done a great leap in maturity and had outgrown this thing where you idealize celebrities, and was able to see taylor as a person, with flaws and insecurities like everyone else, and that this didnt diminish her incredible talent of what a kind and wonderful person she is. 

i was not the biggest fan of 1989 itself (multiple reasons; i still liked it though, just didnt love it), but paradoxically, I felt closer to taylor again during the new era than during red. i kinda missed the red era now and regretted that i wasnt more involved when it was there (i still do). but i loved taylor’s new attitude, i was glad she had found happiness in independence and relying on herself. i loved the cat videos and the polaroids and the voice memos that gave insight into the creation of the songs. also, blank space was my jam and still is. since that ive been a huge fan of this super smart move of hers of taking all the things people throw at her and embodying it ironically. iconic!!

so since i was a bit more involved again (though clearly not as much as in my early swiftie days) i wanted to see the 1989 tour, and did! throughout the show i realized how much had changed, but also everything - the important things - that stayed the same (her interactions with the fans, the speeches, etc.) and i had tons of fun. it was like a giant party with strangers - which is obviously a very different feel to speak now, but loved it :D

i was worried that taylor would go into hiatus after 1989 because she always talked about how it was her best work yet, and it broke so many records and won so many awards, that i thought she might be scared she couldnt top it, and taylor always wants to top herself. i ended up being right, though the hiatus was more about all the drama and accusations because people just cant stop being awful. they cant take the idea of a smart talented woman who also shows vulnerability. 

but ive been awaiting a new album all this time, because generally i thought taylor doing pop had so much potential, i just wasnt completely a fan of the general direction of 1989. however....i never would have imagined loving the album as much as i do. i wrote a separate review about it, but basically - i totally love how reputation is big and confident but also super up close, intimate and deep at the same time. it’s darker, but it’s a powerful and sensitive sort of dark at the same time, if that makes sense. i can totally vibe to the general mood of the album because i think i can relate it to how i feel about my life right now a lot. also loving how taylor has truly found a place of happiness and trust after having been let down by ...the world?...so harshly. i love the aesthetic of the magazines and the poems, just everything about this era.

so basically, this album has completely pulled me back again to stanning taylor, and i think it’s kinda beautiful how i’ve come ‘full circle’ and am now back to hyping her music again as i used to :) i connect some of my most life defining and most precious memories with taylor, and i am glad i somehow found back to her and her music as i start off my twenties. 

im looking forward to getting involved in the fandom again so much, and i can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for us all :’)

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The one song TV shows always use to make us cry

Every so often while watching television, regardless of the show, the dialogue being exchanged between characters, or the kind of day I'm having, I'll involuntarily burst into tears.

Why? Well, once my eardrums recognize the gentle guitar strums of José González's cover of The Knife's song, "Heartbeats," it's all over. Chills travel throughout my body, a lump forms in the back of my throat, and before you know it my eyes are furiously blinking back tears.

Since the mid 2000's, González's rendition has been used to create some of the greatest music moments on television, effortlessly heightening feelings of grief and emotionally destroying viewers like me.

And though it's been more than ten years since I first heard the song, without fail, I cry every time. So in the sprit of good television and VERY good music, I decided to take a tearful trip down memory lane to look at some of the most heart-breaking "Heartbeats" inclusions.

SEE ALSO: We revisited the trauma of watching sex scenes with our parents for your entertainment

The song, written by Swedish electronic duo The Knife, was released in 2002 as a single off their forthcoming 2003 album Deep Cuts. If you haven't heard the original, it has a very fun and chill electropop feel, and the official music video features a bunch of kaleidoscopic skateboarding, birds, and trains puffing colorful shapes. Not super sad stuff, right?

But when Swedish indie folk artist José González covered the song to include on his debut 2006 album, Veneer, he gave the world a slowed down, soul-altering anthem — a perfect soundtrack to accompany television's most emotionally-charged scenes. 

From babies being welcomed into the world to bittersweet goodbyes, the track's purpose has been extremely versatile over the years. But despite the different scenarios it's accompanied, the song always managed to convey just the right raw and overwhelming sentiments.

Here's a look back at some of the most memorable "Heartbeats" moments since 2006.

A One Tree Hill kiss four years in the making

My first memory of hearing the José Gonzalez cover on television was in a 2006 episode of One Tree Hill titled "Some You Give Away."

It was Season 4 and Tree Hill High School finally won the state championship. The song plays after Nathan Scott takes the dangerous game-winning shot, and before you know it loved ones are embracing on the court in celebration, he and Haley share a passionate kiss, and Brooke and Lucas hug before she asks him the ~ultimate question~. 

“This is a dream come true…so who do you want standing next to you?” Brooke inquires. Next thing you know Lucas ditches Brooke to find Peyton and declare, "It’s you, when all my dreams come true you’re the one I want next to me." Then, as confetti rains down, "Heartbeats" swells in the background and the two share a legendary, long-awaited kiss.

The song also appeared in an episode later in the series (Season 5, Episode 5) as a nod to the emotional Season 4 scene.

Peyton emailed the song to Lucas with the message, "Play this song when you win the championship," and listening to it causes Lucas to come to the realization, "there are more important things than basketball"... aka LOVE. Profound.

Scrubs welcomes a baby boy

It's a big night for J.D. and after getting a pep talk from Dr. Cox he's off to become a father. Despite the anxiety and feeling of unpreparedness he has in the Season 7 episode, when "Heartbeats" plays over a touching montage of people in his life parenting their children, J.D. has an important realization that gives him the courage he needs to make it to the delivery room.

As a classic Zach Braff voiceover says, “I realized parenting is about sacrifice and I had to go in there and be there for my child, even if it meant taking some well-deserved abuse," J.D. is shown sprinting down the hall of the hospital to support Kim as she brings their child into the world. Thank you, "Heartbeats."

This Is Us says farewell to Deja

This Is Us — the drama everyone loves to spend their Tuesday nights sobbing over — had the absolute nerve to include Gonzalez's cover in one of the most moving scenes of the second season.

The moment I heard the song start during the "Number Three" episode, I KNEW we were in for trouble. I promptly tweeted in fear, because the only thing more devastating than watching the Pearson family say goodbye to their foster daughter, Deja, would be watching them say goodbye while simultaneously listening to "Heartbeats."

Hello, This Is Us don't u dare play Heartbeats you absolute villain

— Nicole Gallucci (@nicolemichele5) November 29, 2017

The song begins softly as Deja descends the staircase with her backpack on. She receives a farewell drawing and hugs from her foster sisters Tess and Annie, and Randall is seen signing papers to release Deja into the care of her biological mother, Shauna. Cut to Deja and Shauna embracing, and then, the dreaded moment arrives: It’s time to say goodbye to Beth and Randall.

The song fades a bit as heavy and thoughtful words are exchanged between Deja and her foster parents, but it’s still there, playing softly in the background, gently pushing the emotional moment to reach its maximum, tear-inducing potential.

"I don’t want you to think that... just because I want to go home doesn’t mean I don’t like living with you," Deja says over the music. "I know that. You don’t have to worry about that, I know," Randall replies.

Then, the two HUGGED one of the most powerful damn hugs on television. "Heartbeats" strikes again.

Another supercharged Superstore moment for Amy and Jonah

If you're a fan of Superstore, you know that Amy and Jonah have perhaps the most sexual tension of any coworkers on television. (Sorry, Jim and Pam.) So when we saw them alone at a golf course at night engaging in meaningful conversation, drinking a few beers, and laughing out loud a lot, we knew A Scene™ was on its way.

And wouldn't you know it? Just as Amy took a truly awful swing, completely missing the golf ball, "Heartbeats" arrived to let us know the true intensity of the adorable effing moment that we were about to witness. As the song plays, Jonah pulls a classic flirty move and attempts to teach Amy to play golf by wrapping his arms around her, slowing coaching her with verbal direction, and finally, moving their bodies as one to perfectly putt the ball into the hole. 

While this cute AF moment is going on, Kelly (Jonah's girlfriend) is seen leaving Jonah a voicemail, because WHOOPS turns out he completely forgot about their date since he was too busy celebrating his real soulmate’s expert-level golf game. Ah, the magic of "Heartbeats."

"Heartbeats" always delivers

Over the years the José González cover has been used in movies like Everything, Everything, and a number of other popular television shows, from Bones and 90210, to Brothers & Sisters and The Blacklist.

The original version has been featured on Entourage and Girls, and covered by other artists like Royal Teeth, Ellie Goulding, and even Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Tell me this 15-second video doesn't give you CHILLS???

The point is, whether it's an upbeat original or a soulful cover, "Heartbeats" always delivers, and it's decade-plus-long life on screen is a testament to its greatness.

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WATCH: Twitter stans turned Beyoncé and Jay-Z's new video into a meme

[bechi6715]

No sound on the planet inspires as obsessive a fandom as K-pop. The “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” of BTS have (finally, for real) imported that mania to America – all in Korean, as they rally dissatisfied millennials around the globe.

Built in 1957 as a reception hall for South Korea’s fledgling postwar government to entertain foreign dignitaries, the Korea House is a quiet oasis amid the tumult of Seoul, with a photogenic courtyard and collection of old-school Korean houses known as hanoks. Normally it’s the setting for historical TV dramas or weddings, but on this bright, cold mid-January morning, it’s a hideaway for the seven-man Korean pop group BTS, whose celebrity has expanded past K-pop’s traditional sphere of influence and, especially during the last six months, moved into the United States as well.

When I arrive, the band is sequestered in a room within a room, behind paper doors manned by a security detail. In the outer room, over 20 groomers, publicists and other handlers from the group’s management agency, BigHit Entertainment, mill about, grazing on the provided snacks and drinks. Everyone speaks in low tones. The members of BTS need an extra 15 minutes before the scheduled photo shoot, I’m told. They are, understandably, exhausted: Their schedule has been packed since New Year’s Eve with performances, TV appearances, commercials and meet-and-greets. I flew into Seoul expressly to meet them for this rare opening in their calendar.

The first to emerge from the room is J-Hope, 23, the former street dancer from the city of Gwangju, who capers down the steps, then doubles back to get RM, also 23, the group’s leader and English-speaking ambassador. The rest soon file out wearing similarly dark Saint Laurent-heavy outfits: Suga, 24, the idealistic and soulful rapper; Jimin, 22, the baby-faced modern dancer; V, 22, the master impressionist; Jungkook, 20, the golden maknae (youngest member, a sort of privileged position in K-pop) who’s good at everything; and Jin, 25, who’s known as “Worldwide Handsome.” They form a semicircle of multicolored bowl cuts, and RM comments on how tall I am (6 feet) and that I can speak Korean (like a 10-year-old). They’re photo-ready but groggy enough that I wish they’d taken another 15 minutes to rest. But time is money, and these guys are worth a lot.

It’s reasonable that BigHit would handle the members like prized jewels. They’re among the biggest stars in K-pop – their last album, 2017’s Love Yourself: Her, has sold 1.58 million physical copies around the globe, according to BigHit. And while it may not be a household name in the United States, BTS – which stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan and roughly translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” – is pulling unprecedented numbers for a group that mainly sings in Korean to an American populace that has long resisted K-pop’s charms. Love Yourself: Her debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 in September 2017, and BTS claims the two highest-charting songs for a K-pop group ever, “DNA” (which peaked at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100) and the Steve Aoki remix of “Mic Drop,” featuring Desiigner (No. 28). In the States alone, BTS has sold 1.6 million song downloads and clocked 1.5 billion-with-a-“B” on-demand streams, according to Nielsen Music.

BTS has connected with millennials around the globe even though – or really, because – the act seems to challenge boy-band and K-pop orthodoxies. Sure, it’s got love songs and dance moves. But BTS’ music, which the members have helped write since the beginning, has regularly leveled criticism against a myopic educational system, materialism and the media, venting about a structure seemingly gamed against the younger generation. “Honestly, from our standpoint, every day is stressful for our generation. It’s hard to get a job, it’s harder to attend college now more than ever,” says RM, until recently known as Rap Monster. “Adults need to create policies that can facilitate that overall social change. Right now, the privileged class, the upper class needs to change the way they think.” Suga jumps in: “And this isn’t just Korea, but the rest of the world. The reason why our music resonates with people around the world who are in their teens, 20s and 30s is because of these issues.”

The shoot’s done, and we’re sitting on couches in a small living room-like space amid the production studios at the BigHit offices, the members changed into cozy but still-stylish jackets and knitwear. Here at home, speaking in Korean, they’re calmer and less eager to impress than they were on their recent, occasionally awkward American press tour, where they did the rounds on The Late Late Show With James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where RM gamely evaded questions about dating. Today, their voices are noticeably deeper, more sonorous. RM does, as usual, a lot of the talking, sometimes throwing questions out to the quieter members. But Suga is a surprise: garrulous and thoughtful, seemingly primed for a socially conscious rap battle.

Rabid K-pop fandom is, by now, a pop-culture cliche. Even in a world where supporters of American stars engineer efforts to goose chart positions and feud with rival fandoms – Beatlemania multiplied by the internet, basically – K-pop stans are legendarily devoted and influential. The BTS ARMY (that’s short for “Adorable Representative M.C for Youth”) is the engine powering the phenomenon: It translates lyrics and Korean media appearances; rallies clicks, views, likes and retweets to get BTS trending on Twitter and YouTube; and overwhelms online polls and competitions. BigHit says that it makes sure to disseminate news and updates about the band on the fan cafe, so as not to arouse the wrath of the ARMY.

The global fan base is why a group you may never have heard of is attaining the upper ranks of the U.S. charts; playing late-night slots; appearing at the Billboard Music Awards, where it picked up the fan-voted top social artist trophy in 2017; and performing on the American Music Awards. (“The AMAs were the biggest gift we could have gotten from our fans,” says Suga.) Purely in terms of social media, they’re just about the biggest thing going, driving BTS to 58 weeks at No. 1 on the Social 50 chart, a total that’s second only to Justin Bieber’s, and more than doubles the number of weeks scored by the third-place act – none other than Taylor Swift.

The ARMY doesn’t merely idolize the members of BTS, it identifies with them. When the group debuted in 2013 with 2 Kool 4 Skool, the members talked about the pressures familiar to any Korean student: the need to study hard, get into college and find a stable job. Their first singles, “No More Dream” and “N.O.,” castigated peers who attended classes like zombies without a sense of purpose. What was all this education for, they asked – to become “the No. 1 government worker?” The tracks were a throwback to Korean pop acts like H.O.T. and Seo Taiji & Boys, only updated for a generation saddled with debt in an increasingly competitive economy.

“I was talking about my past self,” says RM, confessing that he was one of those drones. “There was nothing I wanted to do; just that I wanted to make a lot of money. I started the song by thinking about it as a letter written to friends who were like me in the past.”

“College is presented like some sort of cure-all,” says Suga. “They say that if you go, your life will be set. They even say you’ll lose weight, get taller…”

RM: “That you’ll get a girlfriend…”

Jin: “That you’ll become better-looking…”

Suga: “But this isn’t the reality, and they realize that was all a lie. No one else can take responsibility for you at that point.

“If we don’t talk about these issues, who will?” continues Suga. “Our parents? Adults? So isn’t it up to us? That’s the kind of conversations we have [in the band]: Who knows best and can talk about the difficulty our generation faces? It’s us.”

As they become increasingly famous, though, the artists have also become wary of saying what might be perceived as the wrong or “political” thing. Suga is the most outspoken. When I ask them about the massive candlelight protests calling for President Park Geun-hye’s resignation in Seoul last winter, Suga readily takes on the topic: “Moving past right and wrong, truth and falsehood, citizens coming together and raising their voice is something that I actively support.”

RM, on the other hand, is more alert to potential sensitivities. On the recent death of Jonghyun of K-pop group SHINee, who suffered from depression and committed suicide last December, he says, “We went to give our condolences that morning. I couldn’t sleep at all that night. It was so shocking, because we had seen him so often at events. He was so successful.” Adds Suga, “It was a shock to everyone, and I really sympathized with him,” and then RM moves to end the conversation: “That’s about all we can say.”

But Suga goes on. “I really want to say that everyone in the world is lonely and everyone is sad, and if we know that everyone is suffering and lonely, I hope we can create an environment where we can ask for help, and say things are hard when they’re hard, and say that we miss someone when we miss them.”

I later bring up a tweet that RM wrote in March 2013, saying that when he understood what the lyrics to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ gay-marriage anthem, “Same Love,” were about, he liked the song twice as much. BTS fans naturally took this to mean that BTS openly supported gay rights – a rarity in K-pop. Today, he’s slightly circumspect on the topic: “It’s hard to find the right words. To reverse the words: Saying ‘same love’ is saying ‘love is the same.’ I just really liked that song. That’s about all I have to say.” Suga, though, is clear on where he stands: “There’s nothing wrong. Everyone is equal.”

BTS’ meteoric rise was something of a surprise, even in Korea. Three years into its career – eons in the K-pop life cycle – the group finally gained traction in 2016 with hits like “Blood, Sweat, Tears” and “Burn It Up.” Part of the reason is that BTS is the first major act to come out of BigHit Entertainment, an anomaly simply in that it is not one of the “Big Three” entertainment companies – YG, JYP and SM – that control the Korean music industry, producing most of the past decade’s notable pop acts, including Girls’ Generation, BIGBANG, Super Junior, Wonder Girls and 2NE1. And BTS simply didn’t have the same feel as factory-fresh groups created to dominate the Asian music markets.

Bang Si-hyuk, the founder/CEO of BigHit, cut his teeth at JYP, working alongside Park Jin-yong and writing and producing hits for Rain, 2AM and Baek Ji-young. “Even the people around me didn’t believe in me,” he says, recalling the early days with BTS. “Even though they acknowledged that I had been successful in the past, they didn’t believe I could take this boy group to the top.” Like the other companies, BigHit oversees everything from recording to distribution to marketing to events for its acts. He says that people thought the “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” name had a North Korean feel, but he felt that they would become a metaphorical bulletproof vest for their generation.

Bang originally wanted to create a hip-hop group – “like Migos,” according to RM. He first listened to RM’s demo tape in 2010 and still remembers some of the lines. (He cites, “My heart is like a detective who is the criminal’s son. Even as I know who the criminal is, I can’t catch him.”) “It was shocking to me,” says Bang. “RM is extremely self-reflective, sophisticated and philosophical, considering his age.” RM, whose real name is Kim Nam-joon, was only 15 at the time. Bang signed him immediately.

Back then, though, “idol groups” – boy bands and girl groups – like Super Junior and SNSD were ascendant. So Bang created an act that would meld the honesty of hip-hop with the visual flair and charisma of a boy band in the vein of BIGBANG. During the next couple of years, he recruited Suga, a rapper he describes as having an “I don’t give a fuck” magnetism masking a humble core, and then J-Hope, the street dancer. BigHit then held extensive auditions. A casting director chased Jin after seeing him get off a bus and convinced him to try out for the group; he eventually made the team alongside V and Jungkook. Jimin was the last to join, after a BigHit agent scouted him at a modern dance school.

In the beginning, each of the members tried their hand at rhyming. “I went so far as to learn how to rap,” says Jimin, who, like Jungkook, now sings. “But after they had me do it once, they were like, ‘Let’s just work harder on vocals.’” RM nods – “It was the wise choice,” he says – and everyone bursts out laughing.

These were BigHit’s ragtag champions, and they have a sense of unity. Early on, they lived together in one small room, sleeping in bunk beds and learning one another’s sleep habits. (Jimin does strange contortions in bed, and Jungkook has started snoring. “It’s TMI,” acknowledges RM.) They still live together, just with a little more space – J-Hope and Jimin sharing the biggest room – and plan to keep doing so.

“When we’re at home, we go around to everyone’s room,” says Jin. “Even when I go home [to see family], I get bored, honestly,” adds Suga. “And if there’s a problem or someone has hurt feelings, we don’t just leave it, we talk about it then and there.”

“So if Hope and Jin fight, it’s not just the two of them that resolve it,” explains Jungkook. “It’s all seven of us!” says Suga.

“Everyone gathers together,” says RM, ever the intellectual. “It’s like an agora in ancient Greece: We gather and we ask: ‘What happened?’”

After the interview, RM takes me to his production studio, a small room at the end of a hall decorated with giant KAWS figurines in glass boxes, a Supreme poster of Mike Tyson and skateboards. Inside, the walls are lined with his own KAWS toys and a model version of the Banksy piece “Rage, Flower Thrower” that he admits paying a hefty sum for. Other than that, there’s just a typical workstation: a pullout chair, giant monitor and the most precious item of all, his laptop.

In BTS’ lyrics, there’s a motif of the baepsae, a squat, fluffy bird native to Korea and known as the crow-tit. A Korean expression says that if a crow-tit tries to walk like a stork, it’ll tear its own legs. It’s a cautionary tale – a suggestion that you shouldn’t try too hard or be something that you’re not. But BTS deploys it as a brag, a declaration of a small, striving bird. In “Silver Spoon,” Suga puts a cheeky, boastful spin on it: “Our generation has had it hard/We’ll chase them fast/Because of the storks the crotch of my pants is stretched tight/So call me baepsae.”

Now that they are, almost in a literal sense, on top of the world, can they still claim to be underdogs? “We’re very careful about calling ourselves baepsaes now,” says Suga. “But the reality is that that’s where we started and that’s where our roots are.” And RM points out that they still consider themselves agents for change: “If there are problems, we’ll bring it up so that our voices can get louder, so that the climate changes and we can talk about it more freely.”

BTS is the K-pop group of the moment because it balances the contradictions inherent to the genre on a genuinely global scale: The act is breaking through in America singing and rapping in Korean, creating intimacy through wide exposure on social media, expressing political ideas without stirring up controversy and inspiring fervent obsession with mild-mannered wholesomeness. It is the underdog that has arrived.

But the group would rather you not ask what’s next. Its members and producers are skillfully evasive when it comes to questions about the next BTS album – although they apparently have no immediate plans for an English-language release, intuiting that such a move would alienate their core fan base. Instead, they seem content to keep doing what they do. RM, of course, is philosophical about it. “In Korean, the word ‘future’ is made up of two parts,” he explains, proposing a sort of riddle about how far the band has come and how far it might yet go. “The first part means ‘not,’ and the second means ‘to come.’ In that sense, ‘future’ means something that will not come. This is to say: The future is now, and our now is us living our future.”

© E. Alex Jung @ Billboard

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