Editor’s note: This is the first article in an occasional series titled “I Just Don’t Get It.” Sometimes, no matter how popular something is, it just doesn’t fit us. Whether it’s a food, a hobby, a pop culture star, or anything else the masses seem to love, we all have those “I just don’t get it” moments. In this light-hearted series, CNN journalists explore why we don’t understand things that other people seem to love.
(CNN) — I just don’t understand Taylor Swift. She’s already there, I said it. (DISCLAIMER: I DON’T LIKE IT. I WISH YOU ALL THE HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS IN THE WORLD. PLEASE, I HAVE A FAMILY.)
It’s just liberating… to not worry about something, right? When my friends start waxing poetic about the Eras Tour or their favorite Taylor Swift song, I listen politely as if they were talking about professional darts or French cinema, and a sense of peace comes over me.
I don’t need to love things, I think. I don’t need to hate them either. I can just watch them drift by like a leaf on a river current and say, “Wow, that’s something!”
Of course, it’s much more difficult when that something is, from all indications, made specifically for you to enjoy.
While Taylor Swift can appeal to anyone, there’s real data that proves what a simple glance at the Eras Tour crowd or a simple walk outside can tell you: Swifties are typically millennial suburban white women like me. Far more qualified minds than mine have written about the tension between Swift’s position as a “voice of a generation” and the extent to which that voice does or does not speak for listeners of color. That’s another conversation worth having, but it’s not what I want to get at here.
What makes me sting is the constant framing of Taylor Swift’s music among my peers (or at least among my census-designated demographic) as an undisputed communion of girls and women: A favorable review of “The Tortured Poets Department” in The Spectator calls Swift “the tortured voice of millennials.” https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1781444133741064231 of the BBC’s NewsNight, author Kat McKenna said that Taylor Swift’s “uniqueness is that she speaks to an audience that she doesn’t always speak to.”
While I don’t begrudge people that kind of connection, there are only so many times you can hear lyrics from “Cardigan” or “Cruel Summer” invoked like prayers before you start to feel like there’s something wrong with you.
- You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath. (You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath).
- You showed me colors that you know I can’t see with anyone else. (You showed me colors you know I can’t see with anyone else).
Great lines! Beautiful lines. For many fans, those stanzas are life-affirming poetry or, at the very least, quotable enough to adorn T-shirts and throw pillows and Stanley mugs as reflections of his own identity.
But are they really that unique? I’ve never gotten anything out of a Taylor Swift song about love, loss, heartbreak, revenge, shame, or personal fulfillment that she couldn’t have gotten out of dozens of other artists. Honestly, it’s like I missed a day of white women’s class where they spelled out all the ley lines of female bonding that are supposed to connect our paths to hers.
Again, I respect people who love Taylor Swift. I’ve seen, firsthand, thousands of women at the starting gate of a new 10K race belting out “You Belong With Me” at 4:15 a.m. From inside my noise-cancelling headphones, Everything seemed happy and fun, and who could fault that?
Maybe that’s why it stings me that I don’t care about Taylor Swift. I feel like I’m missing something. I have a feeling that the gears of my life, and maybe even my identity, would be a little more lubricated if I could have a single independent thought about Taylor Swift other than “She seems like a suitable role model!” or “I really admire her commitment to good bangs!”
(If you think this apathy comes from a place of snobbery, ha, you’re wrong! I don’t have good taste in music. The songs I listen to most on Spotify are Spanish gospel hymns and things with names like “438 mHz relaxing tonal therapy for people very delicate”).
Until recently, admitting you didn’t like Taylor Swift’s music was a strangely political statement. Told in the wrong circles, even such a mild admission could get you labeled as hateful, misogynistic, contrarian, or one of those grown women who still play the “I’m not like other girls” card.
It’s not an exaggeration. The Cut recently published an article about a woman who ended a relationship with a friend who didn’t like Taylor Swift. And what is more alarming, Paste Magazine decided not to include an author in its critical review of “Poets” because, according to an editor’s note that https://twitter.com/PasteMagazine/status/1781432759631700336, a review of her 2019 album “Lover” led to the writer receiving “threats of violence from readers who disagreed with the work.” While these are extremes, there is always some anxiety in admitting that you don’t care about something that seems expected to matter to you deeply.
However, Taylor Swift’s days as the definitive cultural barometer may be waning. While Swift’s fans were thrilled with the release of her new double-length album (again, good for them!), her critical reception was more mixed. After the feverish media whirlwind of “The Eras Tour” and her impact on the NFL season by supporting her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, people seem willing to talk about Swift in more temperate tones than the devouring ardor or hardened and senseless hatred.
If you don’t love Taylor Swift, if you don’t hate her; If she’s just not something that affects your life at all, it’s probably safe to come out now. Go, take your apathy and be free.
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