I have to start with this…I have casually listened to T-Swift for years. I was behind the times in more recent years, but I never really found myself annoyed with her or with any really negative opinion of her. I remember the Kanye mess in 2009 and my older two were really annoyed by her because most of the girls they knew were Swifties.
My wife and I decided to see the movie back in the fall. It was an experience, but not only because of the actual movie, but the people watching before and during the movie. People were making friends, trading bracelets, and dancing with strangers in the way back at first, and then in the front where they weren’t disrupting anyone. It was a fun experience and I found myself feeling real joy for what I had been a part of.
My wife went all in as a Swiftie pretty quickly after that. We found documentaries to watch and learned so much more about Taylor than I had realized all those years I was listening casually. During her worst times, I was busy with my own worst times like the great breakdown of 2015, the year from hell of 2016, the one year deployment of 2017, the big move of 2018, the complete and total let down of 2019, and the year the world fell apart in 2020. 2021 was my rebirth as a civilian and also the year I got officially divorced after being separated for nearly a year and also got married again. So yeah, I’ve been a little busy with my head in my own sand.
But Taylor was going through her own hell. Kim and Kanye couldn’t seem to leave her alone and love continued to prove elusive for her. She got groped and went to trial, sued for sampling without permission, and found her voice politically.
Our worlds collided again with the Eras Tour movie. I knew about the mess with Ticketmaster, but only because I had managed to get good seats for Billy Joel right before she broke TM’s website. And she reentered my thought process and I noticed that she was just around and present in the media all the time. In 2016 I was passed over for promotion in the military. I wasn’t actually expecting to be promoted because the great breakdown of 2015 had occurred right before the promotion paperwork for the following year. I was treated badly during this entire time period and I knew I had lost something at work in 2015. I had felt something collapse inside me. I never really told anyone that it was my will to live, but I digress. When I found out I wasn’t promoted, I was deployed. I spent three hours walking around the deployed location with “Shake it Off” blasting in my ears. Taylor’s words got me through the worst of the mess. The whole song made me feel like I could get through the remainder of my time int he military and I would make it to retirement.
With that in mind, plus being around my wife’s excitement about all things Taylor Swift, I felt myself falling into that wonderful abyss of the Swifties and learning more about Taylor and why her fan base adores her. I found myself really wanting to watch the Eras Tour again and enjoying watching Reputation on Netflix. It was Reputation where I found myself in lockstep with Taylor.
Her rebirth was the Reputation album, but that’s where I was losing my footing in life. Finding it this year, as I feel myself becoming exactly who I was always meant to be feels like fate. Every song felt like it was written for me and for what I have overcome. I still feel that way, several months later. Reputation is DEFINITELY my era!
Fast forward to Christmas. I bought my wife tickets to see Taylor next fall when she’s in Indianapolis. I feel like we both need to experience the full embrace of Taylor in person, as well as experience the wave of love that the Swifties generate at every concert. Is it a cult? Can they fuck up your world? Oh, absolutely. Just look at how Travis Kelce’s ex-girlfriends have been hassled. Or how Kim K’s dealing with all the snake comments. The Swifties are brutal and will always speak up for their leader, even if she didn’t directly command them to.
But…yesterday I leaned into the bullshit with Scooter Braun, thanks to some lyrics I heard clearly for the first time the night before. Spiderboy in Karma? Could that be about Scooter? I think maybe it could…
One look as this guy’s face tells me everything. He’s living with a lot of unearned privilege. He looks like a bully. He looks like a person who has had an easy life and enjoys tormenting people around him for no real reason other than he just can. When Taylor sounded the alarm on him with the mess of her masters, a lot of people jumped to his defense. Yet today, those same people are looking to get away from him. The narrative felt so familiar to me. It reminded me of my father.
“Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke,” when no is around. And then your inevitable blow up happens and he plays the victim.
“I was so excited to work with Taylor and the other Big Machine clients. All she needed to do was just talk to me. She would’ve found support, encouragement, and I most certainly wanted her to own her own music.”
WRONG. First off, Big Machine wanted her to “earn” her masters back, one early master recording for each new album she made. WTF kind of system is that? Make us even more rich with your efforts, energy, and labor and we will gift you back an earlier instance of your effort, energy, and labor. She wrote all of those songs. She put herself out there while they collected the money. She refused that setup and she moved on from Big Machine, which was reliant on her anyway. And then to punish her, they sold those master recordings to Scooter Braun, who they knew she despised. Why? Because he was working with Kanye and was directly involved with the harassment from Kanye and Kim K. For starters. There’s likely to be a lot behind the scenes with ole Scooter anyway.
I read an article where he complained about her “weaponized fan base.” I almost choked. Seriously dude? You should’ve known when you did the things you did to her that the Swifties were coming for you. Taylor refused to be silenced and she wasn’t going to back down. I do not blame her. People should own their intellectual property, not some huge corporation. It still blows my mind that just as Kate Bush received her songs back, she got big again because of Stranger Things using her song “Running up that Hill.” No one else should be able to get rich on someone else’s intellectual property longterm. I cannot wrap my mind around executives owning the talent’s work for any period of time. Anyway, the Swifties haven’t stopped attacking Scooter Braun and based on how much his other artists don’t care to stay with him, I suspect his days in the industry are probably numbered. At least I hope they are. He’s a jerk.
Enough rambling on my newfound Swiftie-hood and thoughts on Taylor and her conflicts. I think she is a talented songwriter and as a writer, I love the way she phrases things at times, choosing the exact right words to convey her feelings. I’m not sure how that incenses her haters, but maybe it’s just jealousy that they can’t write songs and make a billion dollars working hard. No one is outworking her right now. NO ONE.
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