"My girlhood just isn’t my most meaningful Era. What I suspect about Taylor — who is only 11 months younger than me — is that her girlhood isn’t hers, either." I think this is spot-on. What I see (as someone who knows very little, couldn't name more than one song, but DOES watch football and therefore has had Taylor thrust into my consciousness) is that she's re-inventing the girlhood she wishes she had and using the longing for the one she didn't as fodder for the rewriting of that experience. Case in point: dating America's most popular football player. Every time I see her in the box I imagine her girlhood fantasy of being a cheerleader dating the BMOC. America's prom king and queen. Also, "squirle." Can't explain it, but that has my heart exploding with joy and affection. #crazy
I think this is potentially the case & I also don't condemn that! There are so many amazing things about girlhood and wanting to hold onto them/recreate them is understandable. I just feel uncomfortable with the idea that there's only one "girlhood" and that it's necessarily more meaningful to most women than womanhood is.
And yes, "squirle" kills me dead. His entire Twitter archive is SOMETHIN ELSE
Totally! I don't condemn it, either. But I suspect mobilizing an entire culture around an idea of girlhood requires that the idea be somewhat narrow--and also, frankly, totally fantastical. Because I bet even the thinnest, whitest, most upper middle class girl with all the BFs felt herself inadequate or ashamed in some way. So maybe what Taylor is selling us is the idealized version of that. To be a girl is to get all sorts of poison darts all the time. I went to a prep school and I was neither rich nor cute nor preppy, but I didn't see a single girl there who was enfranchised by those standards and who genuinely loved herself. So maybe (am I writing a Taylor essay right now, too?) what's cool about Swift is that she's offering that model PLUS ownership of power and confidence. And that would be rad, even if it is narrow.
This comment really resonated with me, in a similar way to the overall tone of the essay itself. I was also fat, with popularity and romance hinging on twenty or so pounds that came and went depending on how committed to starving I was at any given time. How I behave today (including allowing myself to like what I like, "basic" or not) is one way to reclaim my girlhood in a way that feels genuine and helps heal my body-hate. <3
I am not even a Swiftie but your thoughts got under my skin and I felt compelled to defend her!! Saying that Taylor Swift's music is a celebration of girlhood completely misses the mark.
I was very much NOT a fan, like you, until 2020 when a friend sent me "Invisible String" and I found it very sweet and inoffensive. I binged the rest of folklore and was delighted. I felt a similar fondness for evermore. I enjoyed midnights (but am offended/baffled that it won album of the year). I have not gone back and listened to any of her work prior to folklore. I don't feel like I'm missing out. I find "Love Story" jarring and pandering. You can say that song is a celebration of girlhood - that's fine. But the magic of Taylor is her ability to reflect on her life and make meaning out of her past.
I'll quote Taffy from her appearance on The Daily (have you listened to this episode? would love to hear your take): "She has these songs that sound like amazing pop songs. She is a songwriting savant. But at some point, if you surround yourself with the music enough, you start to understand what she is doing, which is she is telling the story of girlhood into womanhood. Hmm. And in her songs, I see it. I see her in real time cataloging the experiences of what it means to grow up...
yes, they seem like only love songs. What a great trick that you could write about business betrayal and friendship betrayal in a love song. But then when you land on what is unique about a woman, a girl, a female experience, it's that we tend to And I know I am speaking in a highly subjective way. We tend to take all of that to heart in the same way. You know, times that I've been betrayed in business hurt as much as the times I've been cheated on by boyfriends.
It all lives in the same place. And finally, I don't know why it took so long for somebody to understand that we needed songs about these things. These are the full range of a woman's experience of, of any person's experience. And she channeled it."
As Michael says, "So from early on, from the very beginning, what Taylor Swift is up to is processing the very personal pain of girlhood through her music. It's very biographical. And what you're saying is really distinct about it is that it makes no attempt to glamorize or pretend that these were wonderful times. It's a real admission of just kind of the awfulness of being alive...
What you have clearly just demonstrated is that the Taylor Swift project of internalizing pain and turning it into music has the effect that you're describing on tens of millions of people. It makes them see a anew, a lot of the pain in their lives to look at squarely in the face and to try to better understand it and to have a catharsis around it."
Taffy ends by saying, "Everyone is singing that same lyric and it was something different for everybody. But in that moment, I knew what Taylor Swift has known all along, which is that this emotion is universal. We, the more detail you give, the more I will find myself in it. The more you trust me as a listener and let me into your life, the more I will find myself the way you have rendered a life. And I will be so grateful for the rest of my life to have been able to sing that and to be able to have some sort of catharsis around it. Clearly it wasn't enough. 'cause here I am crying on The Daily, all great art is the art that sees you."
FWIW I was overweight and uncool growing up but I think that's a nonsequitur when discussing the appeal of TS. You don't have to date celebrities and be rail-thin to appreciate her storytelling.
Thanks for taking the time to comment this. Giving me some stuff to think on, which is the whole reason why I write posts like this :)
I think what I didn't communicate well enough in this piece is that I suspect I don't connect with Taylor's music because I heard it when I was a teen, felt entirely alienated from the messaging of her earliest/most popular songs (which I remember then being mostly about love-y stuff), and then just kind of... gave up. I might feel entirely differently now, and I recognize how she's grown as a songwriter. For me it's more about having not connected with the music in that period of your life when you get reallllyyy obsessed with music, you know? I feel like I kind of just missed the boat for the reasons I explained. That's why I connect with her more as a woman *now*, when she does/says the things I said I admire.
Fair. Like I said, I didn't like her until 2020/folklore - this was a mass adoption inflection point for her (IMO, since this is when I started enjoying her music). Anne Helen Petersen discusses this in her "Why Are We So Obsessed with Taylor + Travis?" Culture Study podcast about how many found her cringe in high school. It wasn't mainstream to like her then, as it is now.
Ohhh my!! Thank you for this! I have been wondering lately “what is wrong with me? Why doesn’t she speak to me?” And you’ve nailed it, I have no desire to go back. 🤍
This was raw as hell and a really important contribution to the TS convo, as far as I’m concerned. That person’s ginormous comment here (I’m not even gonna reply to them) is exactly what’s problematic w her fan base- you can’t share your own experience and digestion of her music without a finger wagged in your face about why ur wrong. Crazy lol. I like some of Taylor’s music, but like you, I’m more of an Ariana or Dua type. If I’m going to listen to something saccharine, I want it to be fun and boppy, not pulling at the heartstrings of my inner 12-yr-old ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i'm ok with the comment tbh! this whole thing for me is about trying to understand, i really do want to know why it's such a Thing for other people and not me. it's still a question mark for me though, if the argument is "But the magic of Taylor is her ability to reflect on her life and make meaning out of her past." ... SO many female songwriters have done/still do that. So why is Taylor the chosen one?
lol am I an unhinged fan? it's certainly not how I see my self! Most of my ginormous comment was quoting a podcast. I think it's always good to engage in discourse and not be surrounded by an echo chamber. Definitely didn't mean to finger wag - I just thought the title was a bit click-baity/overly simplified. As I mentioned AHP breaks down why Taylor became the chosen one. I think it was because she was so prolific during the pandemic and people who were not previously listening to her music started to engage. Can you name a few songwriters (female or male!) who are as prolific as her and write all of their own music? Asking just out of curiosity because I don't know who they are! I can think of Bruce Springsteen and then my mind goes blank...
Kendall. I am begging you to step out of your bubble and do some research. Nina Simone. Billie Holiday. Kate Bush. Joni Mitchell. Dolly fucking Parton. (I Will Always Love You!!!) Loretta Lynn. Stevie Knicks. Christine McVie. Carole King. I think you would grow in amazing ways if you widened your view of the world.
Thanks for this list, I love a lot of these women! I was trying to get at more contemporary artists/peers of Swift since the question is "why is she so big right now?" and didn't mean to suggest she's the only talented singer-songwriter ever!
I can name multiple people in her peer group that write their own music. Ry X, Lainey Wilson, Jorja Smith, Goldie Boutillier, Sia, Adele, Yebba, Matilda Mann, and on and on. I think people should be allowed to like what they like. I also think people should be allowed to not connect, not relate, not understand the appeal of Taylor Swift. Music choices are so personal. I don't relate at all to Taylor's music. I also didn't grow up in white culture and it seems super foreign to me. Different strokes, different folks. ❤️
Maybe I need to put together some kind of Body Type singer/songwriter playlist for all of us to enjoy.... enjoying this turn to positive/productive music knowledge-sharing :D
Thank you so much for this piece. After experiencing situation after situation where people are talking about how Taylor makes them feel SO MUCH, I can't help but also wonder why she makes me feel so little. My girlhood was enveloped by anorexia, to the extent that I removed myself from the romantic world and never perceived myself as being the heroine in any story - rather, a person standing on the precipice of existence, unreal and trying to disappear physically and mentally. Your piece has really nailed it for me, something that I hadn't been able to enunciate before. I feel that my lack of this meaningful, familiar girlhood is perhaps why I also don't connect or resonate with her work also.
Love this perspective. (Major LOL at her sexy intelligent jock). So true about celebrating girlhood and how it doesn’t reflect everyone’s experience. 🤍
Personally, I never liked Taylor swift until I was utterly devastated by a break up a few years ago (like crying on the floor relentlessly), and then a friend sent me “August” from her Folklore album. I devoured the entire album and loved it. It kind of got me through it somehow.
I’m not a fan of all (or most) of her music… but she got me with the heartache stuff.
And I jam to “Bejeweled” (major Leo vibes). And “Karma”…
I've been pondering this post bc I also hate the girlhood messaging around Taylor even though I've been very locked into her since ~2012 or 2013 and am (as you know) a crazy fan. She was not a soundtrack to my own childhood bc I didn't listen to popular music really at all until some time in college. (I was homeschooled.) And I think her own music is way more broad in scope than "girlhood." Part of what makes Taylor-watching personally satisfying right now for me is the way she seems to be enjoying being an adult who cuts her own deals and calls her own shots. I feel like at some point in 2023 she woke up and said, hold up guys, I'm Taylor Fuckin' Swift.
So my question that's sort of parallel to yours is: why is this way of thinking about her so popular? why is it more appealing to her own fans to make her into the eternal girl? Don't get me wrong, a lot of her tour aesthetics are very girlish, I'm not saying she doesn't have a girly side or anything. But she has songs on her set list that point in a very different emotional direction, too. It's almost like for some portion of her fans she's performing some sort of reverse portrait of Dorian Gray function, like as long as they can act like she's never grown up, they can act like they haven't either. idk idk.
eta: meant to add, I think a good taylor without taylor experience for anyone who wants one is this cover album (https://somethingmerry.bandcamp.com/album/rered). The poppier Max Martin songs are mostly disasters but the rest is very solid.
"Part of what makes Taylor-watching personally satisfying right now for me is the way she seems to be enjoying being an adult who cuts her own deals and calls her own shots." That's supppper interesting, and I find myself way more compelled by this Taylor, as well. And yes, really good question about why her fans want to latch on to the eternal girl thing. I wonder if it's just right place, right time right now re: the "girl-ifying" of everything (girl dinner etc.) because people perceive adult life as getting harder and harder (which ofc in many ways, it is), so people don't want to grow up & are attached to the Girl Moment of it all?
oh also, for the Body Type singer / songwriter playlist, I like Lydia Loveless a lot! Joy Oladokun also worth a look… Nicole Atkins… SZA… and of course, Lana. :) (eta: also Mitski how could I forget Mitski…………)
something I find if I go hang out in like, Taylor hater spaces (which are usually full of ex-stans bc those are the only people invested to that degree), is that while fans online tend to baby her and treat her as this sort of helpless person, haters tend to attribute sort of superhuman levels of agency and responsibility to her. I kind of feel like they're trapped reacting to each other… the more stans tweet "that's pookie" about an adult woman the more ex-stans depict her as a narcissist in control of everything around her etc. obviously not the whole picture (I'm guessing writers like Taffy are not tapped in to stan spaces) but I think it's part of it.
I don’t just ‘catch your drift’, I am on the surfboard with you riding that wave, I am blown in circles by the same tornado. Watch us Tokyo drifting with the wicked witch. We're the weirdos, mister!
I think I'll agree with the middle/upper middle class part, but not sure about "white." However, it might also be because I upbringing doesn't fit the narrative of what a child of East Asian immigrants is supposed to experience.
I’ve gotta say, I’m right there with you. Her debut releases were too Wonder bread for my rebellious teenage self and it never occurred to me to try again. I don’t think she has missed my presence, fortunately.
I remember Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” video depicting a girl suffering from anorexia, which resonated quite a bit with me at the time. Taylor’s “fat” reading on the scale doubtless would have too, although I know a younger me would have thought, “Man, if SHE thinks she’s fat, I’m in sorry shape.”
You've touched on something I didn't realize about myself - my girlhood isn't something I look back at fondly either, though I do, like you, wish I could romanticize it ala Petra Collins.
I've always asked myself why I just couldn't 'get with it' and I'm currently at: this just isn't the expression of femininity that makes me feel empowered and that's okay!
This is fantastic. And I think you are truly on to something. I related very much, but not in quite the same ways. I'm far older for one, and my own girlhood was altered and the easy frolic of "girldom" seemed just out of reach-oddly the most me I've felt was in my aging. So perhaps I've harbored resentment for a youth that got kind of messed up and she triggers it. Also, as I remind myself, it's ok not to like things. Great piece.
"My girlhood just isn’t my most meaningful Era. What I suspect about Taylor — who is only 11 months younger than me — is that her girlhood isn’t hers, either." I think this is spot-on. What I see (as someone who knows very little, couldn't name more than one song, but DOES watch football and therefore has had Taylor thrust into my consciousness) is that she's re-inventing the girlhood she wishes she had and using the longing for the one she didn't as fodder for the rewriting of that experience. Case in point: dating America's most popular football player. Every time I see her in the box I imagine her girlhood fantasy of being a cheerleader dating the BMOC. America's prom king and queen. Also, "squirle." Can't explain it, but that has my heart exploding with joy and affection. #crazy
I think this is potentially the case & I also don't condemn that! There are so many amazing things about girlhood and wanting to hold onto them/recreate them is understandable. I just feel uncomfortable with the idea that there's only one "girlhood" and that it's necessarily more meaningful to most women than womanhood is.
And yes, "squirle" kills me dead. His entire Twitter archive is SOMETHIN ELSE
Totally! I don't condemn it, either. But I suspect mobilizing an entire culture around an idea of girlhood requires that the idea be somewhat narrow--and also, frankly, totally fantastical. Because I bet even the thinnest, whitest, most upper middle class girl with all the BFs felt herself inadequate or ashamed in some way. So maybe what Taylor is selling us is the idealized version of that. To be a girl is to get all sorts of poison darts all the time. I went to a prep school and I was neither rich nor cute nor preppy, but I didn't see a single girl there who was enfranchised by those standards and who genuinely loved herself. So maybe (am I writing a Taylor essay right now, too?) what's cool about Swift is that she's offering that model PLUS ownership of power and confidence. And that would be rad, even if it is narrow.
that's a really good point!
This comment really resonated with me, in a similar way to the overall tone of the essay itself. I was also fat, with popularity and romance hinging on twenty or so pounds that came and went depending on how committed to starving I was at any given time. How I behave today (including allowing myself to like what I like, "basic" or not) is one way to reclaim my girlhood in a way that feels genuine and helps heal my body-hate. <3
I am not even a Swiftie but your thoughts got under my skin and I felt compelled to defend her!! Saying that Taylor Swift's music is a celebration of girlhood completely misses the mark.
I was very much NOT a fan, like you, until 2020 when a friend sent me "Invisible String" and I found it very sweet and inoffensive. I binged the rest of folklore and was delighted. I felt a similar fondness for evermore. I enjoyed midnights (but am offended/baffled that it won album of the year). I have not gone back and listened to any of her work prior to folklore. I don't feel like I'm missing out. I find "Love Story" jarring and pandering. You can say that song is a celebration of girlhood - that's fine. But the magic of Taylor is her ability to reflect on her life and make meaning out of her past.
I'll quote Taffy from her appearance on The Daily (have you listened to this episode? would love to hear your take): "She has these songs that sound like amazing pop songs. She is a songwriting savant. But at some point, if you surround yourself with the music enough, you start to understand what she is doing, which is she is telling the story of girlhood into womanhood. Hmm. And in her songs, I see it. I see her in real time cataloging the experiences of what it means to grow up...
yes, they seem like only love songs. What a great trick that you could write about business betrayal and friendship betrayal in a love song. But then when you land on what is unique about a woman, a girl, a female experience, it's that we tend to And I know I am speaking in a highly subjective way. We tend to take all of that to heart in the same way. You know, times that I've been betrayed in business hurt as much as the times I've been cheated on by boyfriends.
It all lives in the same place. And finally, I don't know why it took so long for somebody to understand that we needed songs about these things. These are the full range of a woman's experience of, of any person's experience. And she channeled it."
As Michael says, "So from early on, from the very beginning, what Taylor Swift is up to is processing the very personal pain of girlhood through her music. It's very biographical. And what you're saying is really distinct about it is that it makes no attempt to glamorize or pretend that these were wonderful times. It's a real admission of just kind of the awfulness of being alive...
What you have clearly just demonstrated is that the Taylor Swift project of internalizing pain and turning it into music has the effect that you're describing on tens of millions of people. It makes them see a anew, a lot of the pain in their lives to look at squarely in the face and to try to better understand it and to have a catharsis around it."
Taffy ends by saying, "Everyone is singing that same lyric and it was something different for everybody. But in that moment, I knew what Taylor Swift has known all along, which is that this emotion is universal. We, the more detail you give, the more I will find myself in it. The more you trust me as a listener and let me into your life, the more I will find myself the way you have rendered a life. And I will be so grateful for the rest of my life to have been able to sing that and to be able to have some sort of catharsis around it. Clearly it wasn't enough. 'cause here I am crying on The Daily, all great art is the art that sees you."
FWIW I was overweight and uncool growing up but I think that's a nonsequitur when discussing the appeal of TS. You don't have to date celebrities and be rail-thin to appreciate her storytelling.
Thanks for taking the time to comment this. Giving me some stuff to think on, which is the whole reason why I write posts like this :)
I think what I didn't communicate well enough in this piece is that I suspect I don't connect with Taylor's music because I heard it when I was a teen, felt entirely alienated from the messaging of her earliest/most popular songs (which I remember then being mostly about love-y stuff), and then just kind of... gave up. I might feel entirely differently now, and I recognize how she's grown as a songwriter. For me it's more about having not connected with the music in that period of your life when you get reallllyyy obsessed with music, you know? I feel like I kind of just missed the boat for the reasons I explained. That's why I connect with her more as a woman *now*, when she does/says the things I said I admire.
Fair. Like I said, I didn't like her until 2020/folklore - this was a mass adoption inflection point for her (IMO, since this is when I started enjoying her music). Anne Helen Petersen discusses this in her "Why Are We So Obsessed with Taylor + Travis?" Culture Study podcast about how many found her cringe in high school. It wasn't mainstream to like her then, as it is now.
Ohhh my!! Thank you for this! I have been wondering lately “what is wrong with me? Why doesn’t she speak to me?” And you’ve nailed it, I have no desire to go back. 🤍
Thanks! I'm happy it did this for you!
This was raw as hell and a really important contribution to the TS convo, as far as I’m concerned. That person’s ginormous comment here (I’m not even gonna reply to them) is exactly what’s problematic w her fan base- you can’t share your own experience and digestion of her music without a finger wagged in your face about why ur wrong. Crazy lol. I like some of Taylor’s music, but like you, I’m more of an Ariana or Dua type. If I’m going to listen to something saccharine, I want it to be fun and boppy, not pulling at the heartstrings of my inner 12-yr-old ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i'm ok with the comment tbh! this whole thing for me is about trying to understand, i really do want to know why it's such a Thing for other people and not me. it's still a question mark for me though, if the argument is "But the magic of Taylor is her ability to reflect on her life and make meaning out of her past." ... SO many female songwriters have done/still do that. So why is Taylor the chosen one?
lol am I an unhinged fan? it's certainly not how I see my self! Most of my ginormous comment was quoting a podcast. I think it's always good to engage in discourse and not be surrounded by an echo chamber. Definitely didn't mean to finger wag - I just thought the title was a bit click-baity/overly simplified. As I mentioned AHP breaks down why Taylor became the chosen one. I think it was because she was so prolific during the pandemic and people who were not previously listening to her music started to engage. Can you name a few songwriters (female or male!) who are as prolific as her and write all of their own music? Asking just out of curiosity because I don't know who they are! I can think of Bruce Springsteen and then my mind goes blank...
Kendall. I am begging you to step out of your bubble and do some research. Nina Simone. Billie Holiday. Kate Bush. Joni Mitchell. Dolly fucking Parton. (I Will Always Love You!!!) Loretta Lynn. Stevie Knicks. Christine McVie. Carole King. I think you would grow in amazing ways if you widened your view of the world.
Thanks for this list, I love a lot of these women! I was trying to get at more contemporary artists/peers of Swift since the question is "why is she so big right now?" and didn't mean to suggest she's the only talented singer-songwriter ever!
I can name multiple people in her peer group that write their own music. Ry X, Lainey Wilson, Jorja Smith, Goldie Boutillier, Sia, Adele, Yebba, Matilda Mann, and on and on. I think people should be allowed to like what they like. I also think people should be allowed to not connect, not relate, not understand the appeal of Taylor Swift. Music choices are so personal. I don't relate at all to Taylor's music. I also didn't grow up in white culture and it seems super foreign to me. Different strokes, different folks. ❤️
Maybe I need to put together some kind of Body Type singer/songwriter playlist for all of us to enjoy.... enjoying this turn to positive/productive music knowledge-sharing :D
Agreed.
Thank you so much for this piece. After experiencing situation after situation where people are talking about how Taylor makes them feel SO MUCH, I can't help but also wonder why she makes me feel so little. My girlhood was enveloped by anorexia, to the extent that I removed myself from the romantic world and never perceived myself as being the heroine in any story - rather, a person standing on the precipice of existence, unreal and trying to disappear physically and mentally. Your piece has really nailed it for me, something that I hadn't been able to enunciate before. I feel that my lack of this meaningful, familiar girlhood is perhaps why I also don't connect or resonate with her work also.
I'm so glad it resonated with you. I hope you're doing better now :)
Love this perspective. (Major LOL at her sexy intelligent jock). So true about celebrating girlhood and how it doesn’t reflect everyone’s experience. 🤍
Personally, I never liked Taylor swift until I was utterly devastated by a break up a few years ago (like crying on the floor relentlessly), and then a friend sent me “August” from her Folklore album. I devoured the entire album and loved it. It kind of got me through it somehow.
I’m not a fan of all (or most) of her music… but she got me with the heartache stuff.
And I jam to “Bejeweled” (major Leo vibes). And “Karma”…
BUT I get why people aren’t into it. 👀
Breakup music never leaves us! Mine was Rilo Kiley's "More Adventurous" when I was 14. Still can't listen to it without falling apart. <3
The edit to the video (and the reaction that prompted the edit) made me feel actually insane last year!
listen ... I exercised GREAT restraint in my piece about it
every piece about Swift has to be so measured and careful and nuanced to not receive huge blowback it is respectfully deranged
I've been pondering this post bc I also hate the girlhood messaging around Taylor even though I've been very locked into her since ~2012 or 2013 and am (as you know) a crazy fan. She was not a soundtrack to my own childhood bc I didn't listen to popular music really at all until some time in college. (I was homeschooled.) And I think her own music is way more broad in scope than "girlhood." Part of what makes Taylor-watching personally satisfying right now for me is the way she seems to be enjoying being an adult who cuts her own deals and calls her own shots. I feel like at some point in 2023 she woke up and said, hold up guys, I'm Taylor Fuckin' Swift.
So my question that's sort of parallel to yours is: why is this way of thinking about her so popular? why is it more appealing to her own fans to make her into the eternal girl? Don't get me wrong, a lot of her tour aesthetics are very girlish, I'm not saying she doesn't have a girly side or anything. But she has songs on her set list that point in a very different emotional direction, too. It's almost like for some portion of her fans she's performing some sort of reverse portrait of Dorian Gray function, like as long as they can act like she's never grown up, they can act like they haven't either. idk idk.
eta: meant to add, I think a good taylor without taylor experience for anyone who wants one is this cover album (https://somethingmerry.bandcamp.com/album/rered). The poppier Max Martin songs are mostly disasters but the rest is very solid.
"Part of what makes Taylor-watching personally satisfying right now for me is the way she seems to be enjoying being an adult who cuts her own deals and calls her own shots." That's supppper interesting, and I find myself way more compelled by this Taylor, as well. And yes, really good question about why her fans want to latch on to the eternal girl thing. I wonder if it's just right place, right time right now re: the "girl-ifying" of everything (girl dinner etc.) because people perceive adult life as getting harder and harder (which ofc in many ways, it is), so people don't want to grow up & are attached to the Girl Moment of it all?
oh also, for the Body Type singer / songwriter playlist, I like Lydia Loveless a lot! Joy Oladokun also worth a look… Nicole Atkins… SZA… and of course, Lana. :) (eta: also Mitski how could I forget Mitski…………)
something I find if I go hang out in like, Taylor hater spaces (which are usually full of ex-stans bc those are the only people invested to that degree), is that while fans online tend to baby her and treat her as this sort of helpless person, haters tend to attribute sort of superhuman levels of agency and responsibility to her. I kind of feel like they're trapped reacting to each other… the more stans tweet "that's pookie" about an adult woman the more ex-stans depict her as a narcissist in control of everything around her etc. obviously not the whole picture (I'm guessing writers like Taffy are not tapped in to stan spaces) but I think it's part of it.
I don’t just ‘catch your drift’, I am on the surfboard with you riding that wave, I am blown in circles by the same tornado. Watch us Tokyo drifting with the wicked witch. We're the weirdos, mister!
lolllllll! let's go to the mall together, barbs!
Love this!! Such a smart and valid take, I definitely resonate.
Thanks Bri!
A question I never thought to ponder and now it all makes sense after reading this essay. Loved it! Thanks for sharing <3
Thanks so much JoVanna! So glad it resonated with you.
I think I'll agree with the middle/upper middle class part, but not sure about "white." However, it might also be because I upbringing doesn't fit the narrative of what a child of East Asian immigrants is supposed to experience.
I’ve gotta say, I’m right there with you. Her debut releases were too Wonder bread for my rebellious teenage self and it never occurred to me to try again. I don’t think she has missed my presence, fortunately.
I remember Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” video depicting a girl suffering from anorexia, which resonated quite a bit with me at the time. Taylor’s “fat” reading on the scale doubtless would have too, although I know a younger me would have thought, “Man, if SHE thinks she’s fat, I’m in sorry shape.”
You've touched on something I didn't realize about myself - my girlhood isn't something I look back at fondly either, though I do, like you, wish I could romanticize it ala Petra Collins.
I've always asked myself why I just couldn't 'get with it' and I'm currently at: this just isn't the expression of femininity that makes me feel empowered and that's okay!
💯
This is fantastic. And I think you are truly on to something. I related very much, but not in quite the same ways. I'm far older for one, and my own girlhood was altered and the easy frolic of "girldom" seemed just out of reach-oddly the most me I've felt was in my aging. So perhaps I've harbored resentment for a youth that got kind of messed up and she triggers it. Also, as I remind myself, it's ok not to like things. Great piece.