#swiftie morality crisis

[tellthemhowihopetheyshouted]

i am doing a bad job of blocking out taylor swift, i listened to poets to and from class and im watching an album reaction. im trying to figure out where the line is. a lot of senior swifties still seem comfortable with discussing theories about who songs are about and i feel conflicted now

i want to do the right thing, but i feel like im standing half in and out of a door way, and now that i know something else exists beyond what i've always done, it feels wrong and almost impossible to go back to what i was doing when it made me feel so guilty and embarrassed before

doing that feels like eating too much cake, or more than that like eating beef, or driving just to drive, it makes me feel better in the short term, but interlaced with it is the knowledge that it's going to, over time, fuck up something bigger than myself yk?

still firmly in my swiftie morality/identity crisis,

Quinn and co

[blackthornish]

just found out that Taylor is the celebrity who emits the most CO2 and I'm horrified.

As a Swiftie who understands the totality of Taylor Swift being a billionaire, I don't claim to be surprised because I'm not.

eat the rich etc.

however, 138 tons is inexplicable. It is an abuse and a crime. and my biggest surprise is that I found out recently only because she was flying back and forth, following her new boyfriend everywhere.

I expected more from Swifties too, the fandom is so organized for some things, but when it would be useful to try to draw attention and hold Taylor responsible for her irresponsible actions, the fandom becomes a desert land.

The amount of pollution caused by private jets is insane. And look, we saw what the warming climate could bring as a result of the first show in Rio de Janeiro.

and I say this as a Brazilian swiftie, from the northeast of the country, who was deeply hurt by Taylor and her team's stance after the tragedy of the first show in Brazil.

[dalekofchaos]

@taylorswift Your silence is deafening. You made a movie detailing how you recognize the power of your platform and how you would use your influence to speak out more. You made a song condemning the Trump administration. But nothing for Palestine. Nothing for hospitals being bombed and children being burned alive. Do better. Speak Out Now.

this is not a political stance, this is a humanitarian crisis. ignore anyone who says it’s too late to speak up and 👏 speak 👏 the fuck 👏 up.

ONE encouragement to donate. ONE link to a formal petition. ONE open letter.

you have enough money & power to combat any backlash while over a million people huddle in tents tonight, starving, wondering if they’ll make it to sunrise.

it’s time to speak up. Picture source

To all her fans saying "Taylor speaking out would not end the genocide" it wouldn't, but her voice is powerful

having a massive platform helps spread awareness as to where you can donate money and resources to help people.

Do you know how many lives were probably saved in these 24 hours after they posted the donation link?

Funny how this one Swiftie is more brave than Taylor Swift

And other artists should be speaking out for Palestine.

Yes more artists should speak up, not just Taylor. Billie Eilish should speak up. Olivia Rodrigo should speak up, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Halsey, Lorde and more should speak up for Palestine. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest names in the industry, if not the biggest and one word from her and her thousands to millions and billions of fans will show their support for Palestine and demand a ceasefire. Like I don't know how else to explain how vital it is to use your voice as an artist and a huge platform as Taylor has.

People saying "she's not an activist" as if that justifies her silence. she's pretty much the most powerful non-politician on the whole planet right now. i get the discomfort, but who doesn't use their power is complicit.

She specifically made Miss Americana to tell her fans she would use her platform and voice to speak out more on important issues. She has done nothing. At this point I wish Miss Americana was never made, and I'm pretty sure Taylor wishes she never made it as many of her fans are disappointed in her silence throughout the years.

Taylor might not be a Zionist but we (her fans) need to know what side shes on. Not speaking on a genocide that's happening is never ok even if she has been donating privately. Everyone assumed she supported Trump until she spoke out against him. The same can be done for speaking out against the atrocities committed against the Palestinians.

But honestly she has millions to billions of fans, huge connections and she doesn't use that power. Taylor should be ashamed of herself not to remotely speak out for Palestine.

At this point all it feels like is she cares about the fame of her success and from her relationship with Travis and the profit of her brand and nothing else. Nothing about her is authentic, everything is performative. It's all about control and profit to Taylor Swift. It feels as though she's ostracized everyone in her audience who isn't white or heterosexual and made it clear we need to find a new guiding light and I think we should.

And in her own words she is telling us who she is

“i just think it’s so frilly and spineless of me to stand up here and say ‘happy pride month!!’ while people are coming for their necks.”

"My entire moral code is a need to be thought of as good"

" Spineless in my tomb of silence "

'I never had the courage of my convictions, as long as danger was near.'

"I've never heard silence quite this loud"" You should find another guiding light "

"You're on your own kid"

"Do something, babe, say something" (Say something)

"Lose something, babe, risk something" (You're losing me)

"Choose something, babe, I got nothing" (I got nothing)

[critical-skeptic]

WHAT NOW?

TEMU Gilead is Coming: An Unvarnished Reckoning with Our Own Failures

This isn’t just a loss; it’s a colossal, existential crisis that everyone on the anti-QMAGA side, from Democrats to so-called progressives, needs to confront with brutal honesty. Trump has clawed his way back into power, buoyed by young male voters, sweeping the electoral college and taking both chambers of Congress. The dystopian blueprint outlined by Project 2025 is now within arm’s reach of becoming reality, and while there’s plenty of blame to go around, this moment demands an unsparing self-critique of our own faction’s spectacular failures.

Over the past two decades, a toxic combination of identity politics, performative activism, and hollow gestures of moral superiority has undermined what should have been a broad, powerful coalition against fascism. Instead of building alliances, we drew lines in the sand. Instead of engaging and educating, we alienated and dismissed. The pendulum swing between left and right has only accelerated, each side stoking the other’s flames in a downward spiral. And here we are, watching the collapse of democracy with smugness and overconfidence as fuel for our own undoing.

Identity Politics and Performative Activism: The Double-Edged Sword

Identity politics has been weaponized against us as effectively as we’ve used it to rally support. What began as a call for recognition, equality, and justice has been twisted into a purity spiral, where every misstep is grounds for cancellation and every dissenting voice—even within our ranks—is branded a heretic. We’ve reduced complex human issues to hashtags and purity tests, alienating potential allies with a sanctimonious fervor that rivals our enemies’. What’s worse, we’ve become oblivious to the backlash this has created among younger men—particularly white men—who feel vilified and abandoned, driving them straight into the arms of the right.

Want proof of this? Look no further than any outrage towards this very critique of ourselves or that very sensation you're feeling right now to dismiss my points, or to accuse me of being QMAGA, a misogynist, or some other convenient label. That is precisely the problem.

It’s no accident that Trump has seen a surge of support among Gen Z males. We’ve handed them over with our relentless portrayal of masculinity as toxic, our demonization of entire demographics, and our refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue. Every performative gesture, every viral Twitter clapback, every “woke” marketing campaign that reduces people’s lived experiences to commodified slogans—this is the oxygen that has fueled their resentment. And they’ve responded by voting in droves for the man they see as the ultimate middle finger to the establishment we represent.

Overconfidence and Smugness: The Seeds of Our Undoing

Our political campaigns have been plagued by a smug, overconfident belief that moral superiority alone would carry us to victory. Kamala Harris, to her credit, didn’t lean heavily into the “first woman” narrative during her campaign. But the broader messaging from her camp, the overreliance on pop culture endorsements, and the naive assumption that “Swifties” and Hollywood elites would deliver an unshakable base reveal how little we understood the electorate. We banked on identity and celebrity while underestimating the deeply ingrained conservatism within key demographics, including Latino voters, who remain far more complex and varied than we cared to acknowledge.

This overconfidence blinded us to the reality that smugness and moral posturing are not substitutes for coalition-building. The Latino community, for example, has shown time and again that their votes cannot be taken for granted. Yet we assumed that platitudes and virtue signals were enough, while the right steadily worked to win them over with culturally resonant messages and appeals to tradition. We’ve seen this before, but refused to learn the lesson: alienating allies, relying on performative gestures, and dismissing uncomfortable truths only strengthens the opposition.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The loss of this election isn’t just a temporary setback—it’s a harbinger of a dark future. A future where Project 2025’s corpochristofascist agenda is enacted, draining what little remains of our democracy, stripping away rights, and leaving us to fend off an authoritarian regime with dwindling resources and even fewer allies. We have already seen what happens when we rely on fantasies of “resistance” without the hardened resolve, the coalitions, and the practical strategies to back it up. The younger men on our side, while passionate, are often ill-prepared for the ugly reality of what resistance will truly require.

So what now? Are women and other marginalized groups prepared to rise above the petty infighting and bring the fight where it truly needs to be? Are we ready to abandon the performative acts and embrace true, coalition-based action that goes beyond virtue signaling and social media outrage? Or will we keep doubling down on what hasn’t worked, content to watch democracy crumble from the sidelines while we trade moral victories for actual losses?

TEMU Gilead is coming. The question is whether you will play the role of TEMU Offred—engaged in empty gestures and divisive rhetoric—or if you will wake up, before the last of us who have fought, and bled, and sacrificed are too exhausted, too old, or too dead to be of any fucking use. The time for games is over. Wake up before it’s too late. I hope I'm wrong, I hope I'm being an alarmist and that I am utterly wrong, but if I'm not, please stay safe.

[with-the-flickers-of-light]

I'm trying to collect all my thoughts on the Swift/Healy breakup, and I think what it all boils down to is that it does not erase or otherwise negate all the frustration and hurt of the past few weeks.

I've said before that just breaking up wouldn't be enough to win me back, and I stand by that assessment. From what I've seen, this was not a move precipitated by the realization that Healy was a shitbag. (Because for one, the information was already out there; and for two, it lasted a little too long for that to be believable.) And my anger over them dating was never really about the act of them dating, but about Swift having the mindset of being okay with Healy and what he's done. It was a wake-up call to show that she was perfectly fine with platforming a racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc. asshole. And no, breaking up with him is not the same as denouncing those beliefs.

(I was also a recent fan -- recovering from a purity culture that thought Swift was demonic and not-like-other-girls internalized misogyny that wanted nothing to do with someone who was popular -- so I wasn't around for her earlier dubiously moral choices. I didn't know about the swastika picture, or about the O'Russell movie. But the conversation about Healy brought it to my attention, and that just adds to the list of things Swift has to answer for.)

Not only will I not be forgetting Swift's part in this crisis of faith, I will not be forgetting the fandom response. The Swiftie community is so clearly not a safe space for so many members of marginalized communities.

So unless I see actual action from Swift to denounce the beliefs she's platformed these past weeks and months and years, no, she's not gonna be forgiven in my book. I will not be streaming her music or buying merch; at this point, I'm also not going to be listening to downloaded copies or working on arrangements or whatever. I'm a bit more at peace with the ways she's influenced me and my admiration for her work, but. I dunno. Still working through things.

Anyways, yeah. I dunno how to end this. But. Yeah.

[iamnotyourbabe]

On niceness, kindness, and the difference between them:

"In an era of “girls-supporting-girls” and “let-people-enjoy-things”, having distinct tastes or opinions is tantamount to social suicide. There is no room for good-spirited teasing or critique or gossip or even interpersonal dislike. As much as I despise the phrase, these things are human nature. We possess the human range of emotions, which includes being annoyed or petty or mean-spirited—to pretend anyone is above it is not only moralistic but biologically false. When we don’t like someone or something, we scavenge to find a political or moral reason to critique them, instead of owning up to our honest truth: sometimes, you just find someone annoying.

Our crisis of niceness is both insufferable and detrimental to our artistic output; the films, art, and music we make are expected to promote pleasantness and punish everything else. We don’t see culture as a vehicle for artistic expression, but instead for moral expression, and as such our capacity for connoisseurship is at an all-time low. A film can be visually uninspired, a song can be derivative, a book can be poorly written, but as long as it espouses some rhetoric of universal justice it will be lauded as “important”. This is boring. It is uninspiring. If you even critique the mechanisms of the culture industry and its monopolized outputs (Marvel Movies, Taylor Swift, etc), you are deemed at best a hater and at worst a misogynist/racist/classist/homophobe depending on the day and the detractor.

It is a vague and meaningless form of pleasantry and niceness that does little more than create social codes of conduct concerning our language and discourse. It is Redbubble “Treat People With Kindness” stickers on MacBook Airs, it is a mass produced t-shirt with a slogan like You Matter <3 sold as mental health awareness. It feels suffocating, a cloying Yankee Candle atmosphere that gives nothing of substance yet demands a smile and a quiet wave.

We have confused pleasantness with kindness. Pleasantness is plasticine and sanitized, florescent lights over pastel bulletin boards. Kindness is human, old hardwood floors and fresh fruit.

Kindness is bringing your neighbors a bowl of chili, or sitting quietly with the people you love to reflect in the morning. Both actions somehow sparked mass outrage online and the individuals who shared their moments of quiet kindness were either called privileged or evil or any of the -ists that internet commentors love to toss around… classist, ableist, et cetera. The people who attempted to bring some joy into their own lives and the lives of others were called ugly and annoying in hundreds and thousands of replies within the same cultural space that insists that it is materially violent to say that you don’t like K-Pop or Taika Waititi."

-meditations on meanness - charlie

this post was originally from @lantern-hill. they were getting unwarranted hate from swifties with no reading comprehension and understandably turned reblogs off on the original post.

essay from @wildsagebythemountaingoats

[autismvampyre]

https://www.tumblr.com/autismvampyre/741462958593441792/hate-how-its-practically-impossible-to-find-anti?source=share

I saw this post and I couldn't agree more and Im asking anonymously cause I don't want to get judgement and stuff and I know this is going to sound a little dumb but I'm having a crisis about like. Whether or not I should support Taylor anymore like. Im going for the eras tour soon and I'm obviously really really excited but I've been seeing more and more anti swiftie media and it all really makes sense. Your blog was like the only anti swiftie one that didn't say all swifties deserve to die lol (at least from what I could find) but I just wanted to know if you have any advice on like letting go of the music in a way. I love her music, and one of the reasons I'm really scared to let go is that my childhood best friend and I share so many precious memories over her music and I don't want to disappoint her in a way by not listening anymore and her music helped me through really really hard times, which feels kind of dumb to say cause I'm 15, but like it's always really helped me and I don't know if I can or if I want to let go but at the same time I'm huge on ethics and a big part of my life has always been helping people and empathizing, and I just don't know if I want to support an artist who can't seem to publicly do that. Idk I was just wondering if you had advice? Thank you so much :)

P.s. feel free to ignore this ik it's loaded and not related to your blog entirely

hey! thanks for the ask. i wanted to respond to this before i forgot so this might be rushed but i hope i can still help.

i get your dilemma, i really do. i like her music a lot and one of the worst things about the anti swiftie community is how much it relies on the "her music sucks" card. its lazy and just personal taste, and i absolutely hate the puritanical idea that if you enjoy a single taylor song you are in some way morally lesser. people like what they like, and i think it's completely fine to enjoy her music because that isn't really an ethical concern

you can separate the art from the artist. its fine to do so. you shouldn't force yourself to stop listening to music you like unless you feel thats right for you. im very critical of taylor but i still occasionally listen to her music because there are a lot of memories attached to it and those memories are precious to me. art can make you feel so much, and you're not dumb for feeling comforted by it.

i dont think you have to let go of her music unless you want to. i believe the most important thing is to let go of the idea of taylor as a brand. people tend to get attached to her due to clever marketing; to a lot of people she's their friend and they feel very protective over her for that. taylor thrives off the parasocial relationship of her fandom which is financially beneficial to her. the most important thing to remember is that she is a billionaire with more money than you could ever imagine and it is impossible to get that rich without fucking over the poor. the image of taylor in the media is not real, she isn't the girl next door, she isn't your friend, she's an ultra rich celebrity who gets richer by pretending to be your buddy. once you've realized that, you're pretty much done

now, i definitely wouldn't recommend financially supporting her. if you're going to the eras tour don't go alone, be safe, wear earplugs(seriously this one is so important you dont want tinnitus believe me). i know there are a lot of different factors and ethics about the shows but as someone who a) hates live music cause im autistic and just end up overstimulated and b) was never in a financial situation where i could or even would buy eras tickets i feel very under qualified to tackle any of that so i'd recommend talking to someone else who knows about that.

to end, i'll just say piracy isn't theft if buying isn't owning snd there are guides out there so you can listen without paying her dime. sorry if this was incoherent, i am tired. have a good rest of your day/night/whatever time it is and please take care

[iamfarfromvibingrightnow]

pretty blatant portrayal of a swiftie mindset

of course peoples criticisms are just to seem interesting and receive validation not at all due to morals surrounding genocide, white feminism, performative activism and her heavy contribution the climate crisis

its not to be interesting. its critical thinking

In this essay I will—

[firefly-fez]

Star Wars Characters as Taylor Swift Songs Because It’s Lockdown 5 Baby And I Have No Ability To Self-Regulate Concentration

Anakin: Right Where You Left Me

Ahsoka: Exile

Rex: Epiphany

Plo Koon: Never Grow Up

Obi Wan: This is Me Trying

Padme: Illicit Affairs

Satine: Mad woman

Hondo Ohnaka: Getaway Car

Yoda: Evermore

Palpatine: No body, no crime

(s/o to @katierosefun because I think she basically invented the star wars swifties fandom overlap)

Reasonings below the cut…

Anakin is very a character that never recovers from any of the trauma he goes through. Whether it’s his mother’s death, Ahsoka leaving, Padme’s death or his history as a slave; all of his hardships cut too close to the bone - he cares too deeply, and a part of him believes, I think; that coming to a point of closure is a betrayal - he can’t accept losses, on any grounds, ever. right where you left me is very much about someone who is stuck and cannot get themselves unstuck after grief, which is why i think it relates to anakin

Ahsoka: exile is very much a separation song; but about the total utter depth of the divide - of all taylor’s breakup songs the divide seems the greatest in exile - and that’s effectively what ahsoka becomes after leaving the order - she’s literally exiled. also the lyrics “youre not my homeland anymore / so what am i defending anymore” and “im not your problem anymore / so who am I offending now” strike me as representative of her struggle of trying to do the right thing, like how she is with trace and rafa defending the jedi even though a part of her believes they don’t deserve it - like when they see the slaves and she makes the comment about how “you’d think” the republic would stop it, but they don’t

Rex; epiphany strikes me as the prayer you make in the worst kind of emergency humanitatrian crisis; like the mental anguish of a conscripted doctor or soldier to a warfront; and by the end of the clone wars he’s so jaded - looking for a reason to believe it was all worth it; like we see in s7 in his conversation w/ Cody and Ahsoka just before order 66

Plo Koon: Never Grow Up has got to be the most underrated TS song ever lol XD. He’s everyone’s dad - especially Ahsoka’s - and he has to raise his lil’ girl in a war zone. He doesn’t want to send her there. I bet he tried to push back Ahsoka’s start as a padawan and refused to be  her master because his lil’ heart could not take the strain. 😭 Obi Wan: Obi Wan is depressed and trying and too much has been asked of him for so longa nd he’s thrown into the deep end too young and he don’t have a clue how to give anakin what he needs BUT HE’S TRYING

Padme: hidden marriage; enough said - but also because her relationship with Anakin is, I think, very quietly self destructive for her, and by the time she realises, it’s too late

satine: being a pwerful woman in politics who is very much is contradiction with the popular view, I just feel like this song is so representative of what she’d face and all the backlash against her. plus the story arc ended her for a man so i ant going to make her song about obi because yeah, she loved him - but shes more than a love interest in canon, shes her own political force

Hondo Ohnaka: I mean. Does this One need explaining?

Yoda: This song is kinda about being on the precipice between not knowing if you’re damned or if your salvation will ever come. its about losing hope and giving up on recovery. its about realising youre lost and being afraid youll never be found again. also the line “is there a line that we could just go cross” strikes me as when you want to give up on your values - the self-destructive impulse that youre damned and you might as well throw in the towel now, to just give up - and that makes me think of the jedi and the morally grey choices they make (clone army, for example) and their struggle against corruption and their eventual failure before it

palpatine; I mean. This song has gloaty ‘I got away with it’ vibes, and ain’t that palpatine’s entire character arc?

[valencing]

beezusquimby replied to your post “The fact remains that Taylor used feminism to her advantage and then...”

while swifty is absolutely and inarguably flawed, i find her to be held to an inhuman standard of morality and, TBH, many of those who condemn her are out here stanning for those who are no better ethically OR politically. as far as i can tell, the only determining factor in this equation is sexism plain and simple. i'm so sick of having to justify my enjoyment of a pop culture icon to other fans who woobify and apologize for white men every goddamn day AND ALSO- jk finito

a+ username and i agree with a lot of this - yes, she is held to a higher standard, yes she is a target of misogyny, and yes a lot of ppl who’ve been complaining about her for ages don’t hold the same standards for their fave white boys. and i def don’t think you have to justify your enjoyment.

but i’m gonna offer a few reasons why the election endorsement issue isn’t only about sexism. first, it wasn’t a normal election, it was a crisis in which no one should have had the luxury of being apolitical. second, taylor wasn’t living up to the values she herself chose to make central to her public identity. third, she wasn’t living up to the standards set by her own peers in pop music.

and on a personal note, it matters to me on an emotional level specifically because i liked and admired taylor more than most celebrities. i didn’t track what other celebrities did as closely because they didn’t mean as much to me. last year, taylor disappointed me a couple different ways, and because she's actually a real person to me in the way not all celebrities are, it changes the way i relate to her and her music. i’m not asking anyone else to feel the same.

[hlfmoonshine]

i have loved taylor swift since i was thirteen years old. i have stood by her for years. through all the public love, all the public hate, i stopped listening to artists who i thought had unjustly hurt her, i was her bravest soldier. i was fighting in only her army. i also took a lot of criticism and ridicule over my support for her. i've been here the whole time, but for the first time in seventeen years, i can't support it anymore. i know i say this with one of her lyrics in my username (i'm trying to come up with a replacement), but baby, you're losing me is my anthem right now, and it's aimed right at taylor. it's not just the jet emissions, it's the 800 different versions of each album, each missing or gaining a song so that she can keep releasing them, or releasing them only at the tour, making them even more "valuable". is it a feat that she's about to have nine albums out in five years? it is, but i don't think it's the accomplishment most of us have treated it like. if the rerecords, by her own admission, are not about the money but rather taking her work, her name back, then why are we getting so many versions? why are we waiting six months or longer between releases? to let the album breath? we know the album. we've been listening to it since it first came out. i support rerecording, i do not support hoarding wealth. i'm so tired. i have fought so hard, but girlie, you're a billionaire now. that's pretty much where i draw the line. yeah, she tips her tour employees (and tree tells the press about it) and she "paid a student's student loans" that one time, and she donates to charities, but the fact remains. there is no possible way to become a billionaire ethically. send all the hate you want swifties. i've stood with you, with her for so long, and it really does feel like i am mourning the loss of my longest best friend. girl was the queen of parasocial relationships, it feels like i am grieving, but if i have to lose her to clear this uncomfortable lump in my throat, this moral and ethical ick i am feeling just consuming her capitalist shit, i need to do it. three different versions of the era's tour (still missing 'tis the damn season for obvious reasons but also no body no crime, which means we could see another release of this movie.) taylor swift is a real person, with real flaws who makes real mistakes, and for myself, i'm tired of forgiving those as much as i have for the last few years.

ps. also don't bully students posting public information to hold you accountable for the contributions to the climate crisis we are experiencing. it's a really bad look.

ladies is it a #girlboss move to kill the planet so you can go to your boyfriend’s football games and then sue the college student who posts the public data about you killing the planet for “harassment”