emilievitnux replied to your post “i’m writing my final uni essay on taylor swift (why young girls love...”
As a 30 years old fan i'm not sure if i'm young enough but if you need anything, question whatever. You know where to find me :)
thank you!!! (sorry for never replying!). the course the essay is for is on youth, so that’s why teen girls are my focus (i love taylor swift too, but am older as well, and also not a ‘super’ fan). but i’m slowly getting there! i think part of the problem is that i’ve had to read some terrible takes (like this one by the creator of autostraddle, she literally calls taylor swift a feminist’s nightmare, and i usually really like her??), and then i get bogged down in thinking/writing ‘this is why the critics are wrong’ instead of the actual question oops (though i do think a lot of what adults hate about her is what young people love). but now i’ve managed to find some pretty interesting and nuanced stuff as well so that’s made it better!
one question i am really interested in, that i haven’t been able to find an answer to, is if and how her fandom has changed as she’s changed. taylor swift’s early stuff was obviously super relatable to young teens, but now that she’s older, is she still attracting young teen fans? if so, what are they relating to in her newer music that is different to what fans of the same age related to in her earlier stuff? is she now attracting a different type of young teen fan? or is her fanbase getting older--late teens for example? obviously there are similarities throughout her work (her voice, her vulnerability, her confessional lyrics etc) but there are a lot of differences as well. at the moment i’m just ignoring this aspect, but it feels like a bit of a glaring omission, but as far as i can tell there’s no scholarship addressing it. (it’s like “we’ll write about her when we can attack her for being a ‘bad role model’ but now that she identifies as a feminist and it’s harder to level that charge against her she’s not interesting” am i bitter? lol)
Love is a ruthless game unless you play it, good and right.
Friendly reminder that when Taylor Swift’s publicist said Taylor wrote “This Is What You Came For” , Calvin Harris, a grown ass man threw a tantrum on twitter. And no one said he was “playing the victim”. I believe that’s what the kids call…Male Privilege.
Billboard: Taylor Swift's 'Look What You Made Me Do' Is An Acidic Departure: Critic's Take
“I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time.” “I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me.” “I got mine, but you’ll all get yours.” These phrases read like lyrical samples from a particularly pissed-off hard rock song – not from the new single of the pop romantic behind the sunny “Shake It Off.”
Taylor Swift has flashed her fangs on occasion before, but she’s never released anything as venomous as “Look What You Made Me Do”; the anger, the dead-eyed way she repeats the titular phrase, is almost unrecognizable from her previous singles. The title and artwork of Swift’s forthcoming Reputation album suggested a clapback at her perceived wrongdoers from last year, but the coldness on display here is a far cry from the tongue-in-cheek self-satire of “Blank Space.” Swift could have once again joined the chorus of those laughing at her; instead, she’s “got a list of names” and plans to go full Terminator on them.
A sea change like this demands ambition, and indeed, “Do” – produced by Swift and her “Out Of The Woods” cohort Jack Antonoff – slams a ton of different sonic ideas on the table. A combustible hook that interpolates Right Said Fred! A second verse that sounds like a group of sneering cheerleaders over evaporating synths! A bridge that’s essentially the haunted-house mirror version of the breakdown of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”! There are traces of Lorde in the melody (Antonoff just helmed Melodrama, after all), but “Do” would sound at home on a CSS or Ladytron album from the mid-00s. More than anything, it’s utterly weird, from an artist who’s taken several risks throughout a sterling career but never approached this level of idiosyncrasy.
“Look What You Made Me Do” is imperfect – the transitions between its movements are sometimes too jarring, and some of its lyrics (“The world goes on, another day, another drama, DRAMA!”) express a curt cynicism that doesn’t feel inclusive enough. Yet it’s hard to imagine a song this raw and personal being preoccupied with universality. Swift surely knew this would polarize, but cared more about capturing this fury on tape than playing safe and topping the charts. The old Taylor already did that. The old Taylor, she points out, is dead.
Where does Swift go from here, with the rest of Reputation? We’ll find out in November if the rest of her sixth album is as caustic as its lead single. “Look What You Made Me Do” is fascinating as a gloriously spiteful opening statement, and sets up what will likely be Swift’s most challenging project to date. Look what we made her do – something she never has before.
“There’s kind of a switch that flips as soon as I hear lots of people screaming, and that’s how I’m programmed. Like people start screaming and it makes me rise to that, it makes me rise to their level of excitement, and that’s just how it’s been.”
Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well.
Taylor on shooting her album cover for ‘Speak Now’ when she was 20 years old.
this is literally a taylor swift quote about picking up food after it’s fallen on the floor
her impact her legacy her power
this is my favourite post
red album art + tracklist
imagine thinking taylor swift wasn’t talented and didn’t write her own music
Taylor’s Instagram Story - 8/02