Emily Prescott
You will almost certainly have noticed that Taylor Swift is making her way across the UK. Even in the crowded news marketplace – an election, Euro 2024, poorly royals – she is, just by virtue of playing some concerts, consuming a lot of airspace and column inches. We see endless vox popping of her fans, of all ages, gushing about their idol.
I can relate to an extent. Like any normal young girl growing up in the 21st century, I sought solace in the music of Taylor Swift. When my heart hurt after I’d found out Ed Bentley had told another girl he loved her on MSN, she soothed me on my iPod nano. I’d listen to her song ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’: ‘I’ll bet she’s beautiful, that girl he talks about / And she’s got everything that I have to live without.’
She positions herself as an everywoman and an underdog but the act is increasingly implausible
But in the years that followed, as I grew jagged with heartbreaks and responsibilities, I became more and more cynical about Tay-Tay’s brand. Today I am sick of it. She is a 34-year-old billionaire who knows she needs to continue being ‘relatable’ to tweens. Once you begin to see that, all the mania starts to seem silly.
The Oxford don Jonathan Bate says Swift is a ‘real poet’ and a worthy successor to Shakespeare. Really? On her latest album, The Tortured Poet’s Apartment (or something), she sings: ‘At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger / And put it on the one people put wedding rings on / And that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.’ Is that proof of a real literary sensibility?
Like crying over boys, wearing crop tops or citing The Catcher in the Rye as your favourite novel, finding inspiration in girly pop stars is something that should be left behind in your teens. Pop stars, by turn, should, as they ascend into pop idol status, cease being relatable.
People may have sneered when Michael Jackson – one of a handful of singers whose level of fame compares to Swift’s – started singing about healing the world and aligning the planets. But at least he evolved, as they say, as an artist.
Swift’s lyrics remain largely about boys being either everything or arseholes. Of course, Swift is not obligated to say anything of great profundity or to solve problems big or small (or mine). I still enjoy some of her tunes but I find her faux relatability annoying. She’s so clearly playing to her market. It feels fake, like Rishi Sunak (another Swiftie) in his Adidas trainers or a Lloyds Bank advert telling me they really do care.
‘Love you… all 220,000 of you!’ Taylor wrote gleefully on her Instagram after her Edinburgh Eras show this month. Her Instagram is a treasure trove of trite. In response to Time magazine calling her their person of the year cover, she wrote: ‘Time magazine: We’d like to name you Person of the Yea – Me: Can I bring my cat.’
How quaint! How relatable! In another caption she thanks the journalist. ‘I have tRuSt iSSueS when it comes to interviews, but I couldn’t be happier that I did this one with him,’ she writes. Her praise for this journalist strikes an oddly Trumpian note, implying journalists who write things that aren’t entirely gushing cannot be trusted. Taylor Swift academic (yes, really) Dr Georgia Carroll says Taylor’s social media game is a form of ‘panoptic control’.
‘If fans know that Taylor Nation, or arguably Taylor herself is on social media and could be watching, they alter their behaviour so that should their messages be read, they’re deemed to be the right kind of fan. That means no negativity, no critique, nothing but displays of support and visible passion,’ Dr Carroll explains. Anybody who has experience the wrath of Taylor’s online army will know exactly what she means. I must admit to being quite nervous about how this piece will go down.
In return for their devotion, Taylor Swift gives the most adoring and dedicated fans chances to meet her. Others are offered more and more products to consume. There are four different deluxe versions of her album Lover and a ludicrous amount of merch, including a ‘Taylor’s version’ £64 umbrella.
She is at times inspirational – just last week it was reported she gave her tour’s trucking staff a six figure bonus – but her brand has given me tRuSt iSSueS. She positions herself as an everywoman and an underdog but the act is increasingly implausible. The constant branding seems to be making her music worse, too. Her last album is something of a creative dead end. Some lyrics include: ‘Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym,’ ‘I scratch your head, you fall asleep, like a tattooed golden retriever,’ and, ‘I feel so high school / every time I look at you.’
While little girls spend thousands on their relatable heroine and middle-aged men wearing friendship bracelets proclaim she makes them feel whole, I am increasingly fearful that large parts of society are worshipping a false idol. I hope, once Taylor has finished lurching between Blighty’s favourite cities, we can enter a calmer post-Swift era. Or, as she says in ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’, ‘I’ll put his picture down and maybe get some sleep tonight.’
The stage is set. Grab a front-row seat with The Spectator
Already a subscriber? Log in
Emily Prescott
Topics in this article
Trending
Also by Emily Prescott
Latest
Only subscribers can comment. Sign up and – in the run-up to the election – you’ll get the next three months for just £3.
Already a subscriber? Log in
