#post: answered

[notebookmusical]

I truly can’t pinpoint when/what exactly changed about Taylor’s fans/fandom but the last few years (especially the midnights release) has really soured things for me and it’s honestly quite disappointing as someone who genuinely enjoys her music and thinks she’s a great artists. how did we get to the point of not even being able to voice an opinion about taylor without being crucified online. or if heaven forbid you dislike a song/album or enjoy the work of one of her exes (john mayer, the 1975, calvin harris, etc)

i’ve always been very fascinated/intrigued by the relationship between celebrities and their fans. and i think it’s really interesting to look back and think about how taylor built her fanbase by making herself as palatable/relatable/approachable as possible. like secret sessions, t party/loft 89/rep room, swiftmas, lover diaries, etc — all of which allow for fan interaction — but also relies on people getting noticed which then in turn encourages people to be as vocal? extra? whatever it is. which then feeds into the "who is a bigger / better fan" competition. i'm speaking from personal experience here, as someone who has liked her since debut — but i think a lot of this is also rooted in how much of the world hated taylor swift prior to ... i want to say folklore, really — like it was deeply uncool to like taylor swift, to be a swiftie, etc. and because a lot of that early criticism was rooted so much in misogyny, i think fans felt the need to (over the years) defend her — and i was one of those! i still am, when i feel like people are criticizing her unfairly. but i think that lends into the "taylor swift has never done anything wrong, and she's perfect and if you disagree then you're against us and you're a fake fan" mentality.

and then i think there's an element of ... not necessarily a superiority complex, but a something among fans who have met taylor. it's a genius marketing move, intentions aside. taylor's music is very personal — and taylor's marketing, and persona is very personal, in a way that other artists prior to taylor weren't, i think. relatability sells. you can see it in the way that people talk about her, and her music. which is very different from the way people talk about other artists — and obviously there isn't anyone else out there with the amount of fame/popularity as her, but you don't see the same amount of fanfiction-writing personal-life-speculating-projection onto other artists' lyrics as you do with taylor. and i think that when someone is that vulnerable with their thoughts, it makes it easy for people to think that they know them personally.

and i think that — as much as i love taylor — it's important to talk about her white woman feminism mentality. and i think that also seeps into how her fanbase interacts with her. the ginny & georgia "joke" is what comes to mind the quickest, but there are countless instances of taylor's white woman feminism — and her benefiting from it. and obviously it was in her right to call out a misogynistic comment, especially one directed at her, but not saying anything when the actress got so much hate for a line she didn't write ... made me feel a bit 🥴. it's interesting to see who taylor will choose to align herself with, i guess is all i'm saying.

i've really taken a step back from taylor — not just because the fandom is exhausting ( the amount of things i've seen about her, joe, travis, etc. is ... something! it's all projection! we do not know anything about these people other than what they choose to show us! ) but also because of her saying that she wanted to be on the right side of history and then over and over again choosing to be increasingly passive and silent. she will call herself an ally but won’t even talk about queer rights; she won’t talk about the literal genocide that’s going on. gun control, abortion rights, anything at all. it's just "go vote" but even that is incredibly passive. but she will take time to remind us to buy new variants, and to stream her music, and that her ex sucks.

i think there was a huge shift that started with folklore/evermore, just given that there weren't a lot of albums being put out during that time, the overwhelming public reception to it — a lot of people who previously didn't care for (or disliked) taylor started to like her, to give her a second chance, etc. then we get into the rerecordings era/midnights/etc., which started off with fearless and nostalgia and then became "how quickly can i put out the next thing". and bailey @placeinthisworld posted this earlier, which i fully agree with. it's about the next award, the next milestone. it's just all quantity. it's overexposure.

and then we have the joe alwyn breakup and the public response to that was also ... interesting. like i saw people crying over it, or saying that love is a lie, removing things from their playlists, acting like they were the ones who had been broken up with. which is just ... odd, given that we aren't the ones in the relationship. and now there are all these comments about being a "joe defender". and then with taylor dating travis, it feels almost like some weird american pipe dream unfulfilled fantasy for so many people — the singer and the american football player. and obviously, i want her to be happy! i don't care who she dates! but i do think the public reception about her and travis has been ... incredibly odd, and i think that the way people talk about her and travis is just ... very ... off-putting and is very rooted in some weird ... stuff. "she finally gets to be small :(((((" is such a weird thing to say. it feels like there's even more projection and self-insert-y stuff with her dating travis, which is a level i did not think was possible from her fans (and more so, the general public).

i have not felt this ... detached and impassive about a taylor release, ever, and it just makes me incredibly sad because i love her music, and am excited about the work, just not excited about the public reception, the public autopsy of her and joe's relationship, or the noise, and i know that internet spaces (and spaces in general) are what we curate, but it's also difficult when she is everywhere.

[majkemaniiia]

im not saying i ship moon and tofi romantically but i do need them to keep being little freaks to each other for the rest of their lives

Why-- why would you make me read something so incredibly cursed, I- ?? "( – ⌓ – )

(Unfortunately for me, your need is probably going to be fulfilled so. rip ⚰️.)

@menodoramoon @ofseptarsis

[lifenconcepts]

Tf you mean people don’t keep their bedroom windows open for long amounts of time? You ACTUALY close it at night?? Dude.. I haven’t closed my window since give or take a bit around the start of spring.. and even as im freezing my bone off I refuse to close it completely - I NEED the circulating air. Do inform me.. is it actually common practice to close your window at night?

[resonaate]

❝ I don't know if I can sit through too many movies... but everything else is fine. ❞

"So no Lord of the Rings trilogy extended version marathon this weekend?" She's 100% messing with him at this point.

[bowenoke]

before and after a brief explanation

[wormtime123]

(like two weeks late) quangle 4! this just turned into the cody compilation sorry

[willgrahamscock]

why would anyone want a big fat hairy dude with a pussy

I'm coming out of hiatus to tell you that big fat hairy dudes with a pussy is the ideal man on the big fat hairy dude with a pussy website

[mushyooms]

one of those polls from the premiere

[cryptidmickle]

hey stop holdin him like that hes supposed to be brooding

[bigfatbreak]

Speak of the Devil

chapter one / chapter two / chapter three / (we are here)

part one beginning / next

[baba-is-blog]

HOUSE IS LEAVES

BABA IS LOST

BABA IS DISTRESSED

[notebookmusical]

ok wait that anon was me. why don’t you like laura osnes 😭 i just know her from bandstand (like one of my fave musicals ever) and the og bonnie in bonnie and clyde … what’s the tea what’s the beef

feel the need to preface this with saying that i used to love laura back in like 2013; was a huge r&h cinderella fan, loved bonnie & clyde, etc. but. this tweet really summarizes it in a nutshell:

can't find a screenshot of this, but during early covid she posted an instagram story about how her cameos were discounted due to a "coronavirus clearance". which like, honestly is just very tacky and tasteless, and on its own not the worst thing in the world but. then we have the whole covid anti-vaxxer thing. she's since deleted this instagram post (and you can read more in that link) but basically insinuated that vaccinations cause infertility which is incredibly false.

here are some more tweets about it:

and then she moved to tennessee with her husband and wrote an album about cancel culture; here's an article about it

here's the onstage blog writeup/review of her album.

and then we've got this tweet that rob madge posted

with this screenshot

and then there's also this:

and most recently, when carrie manolakos (former sophie sheridan in mamma mia, former elphaba standby for wicked 2nt, has since also moved to nashville i think) posted in support of rfk jr. and trump, laura's husband wrote this:

edited to add: when zachary levi was spouting his bullshit about the covid vaccine last month, laura commented and said she commended his bravery (thank you @stevenkodalys for reminding me about this)

anyways i'm sure i forgot something still but that's the gist

[majkemaniiia]

i know its early but i got my eye on devyn and vee maybe its just the whimsical name potential of deveeeeeeee

They are delightful, aren't they? 👀

[kaybedenlerkulubu10]

Aesthetic.

[resonaate]

❝ What do you mean by using someone as furniture? ❞ He might be okay with that too.

"I mean why use a chair when I can just use your lap." Cue the cheeky smirk, and wink.