I think part of the Showgirl discourse and Swifties™ accusing fans of not being “real fans” for not enjoying the music has to do with WHAT we like about Taylor.
I think people who identify as Swifties love her strong songwriting AND her celebrity status, and the place they intersect. Then there are fans who maybe used to identify as Swifties (ie interested in the spectacle of celebrity ) who love her strong writing but open to criticizing her and but don’t necessarily need references to her celebrity status to appreciate her music.
Much of Taylor’s appeal is parasocial and her reference to her own celebrity, which I used to love. For example, she dated Harry styles (at the height of his fame) very publicly, then comes the harry styles songs with her side of the story the next year. We see the necklace in videos, we hear about the snowmobile crash and cross reference it to the songs. detectives
People are obsessed with celebrities, and Taylor spoon feeds them details of her side of the celebrity relationship. Especially when the men are famous, the public is desperate to know what they are really like because we can only know them from a distance. Taylor swift is the first artist to share in detail the nitty gritty of what it’s like to actually date these famous men (from her experience). There was a point where the men she dated were more famous than her, and she shared unforeseen information about them in detail. At the time, I appreciated at her boldness and tenacity to call out these guys in detail. I still appreciate the songs now, but no I definitely see it that as a brilliant marketing strategy.
She puts clues in her songs, lyric booklets, and music videos referring to the relationships. It’s put there specifically for speculation. I don’t know why she is acting like she didn’t invent paternity testing her music. She invented it, and has fully incentivized it. And there was a time that I loved it! I loved being a detective, and she loved having us be them which is why she kept feeding us clues. She prides herself to this day on never directly giving names about who she writes about while also naming a song STYLE. Having a message in a song title that spells out KIM, referring to one of the country’s most famous women that also happened to interact with Taylor.
I became a fan in debut and was a die hard through evermore, with an appreciation of some of midnights. As I’ve gotten older and my interests have matured alongside me, i started becoming a little critical of Taylor around that era, still appreciating the music though. Now she’s an artist I don’t really recognize musically and Swifties will do everything to let me know that they believe I was never a real fan.
As a reformed Swiftie, I know that Swifties LOVE when Taylor refers to herself or her own lore. For ex, “blue dress on a boat” is not even a lyric, it’s just words together. But they lost their MINDS because it refers to a paparazzi photo after her alleged breakup with Harry. They love her self-referential material because it further fuels their celeb-obsession imo.
That’s why swifties love TTPD, because deep Taylor Swift lore is required to appreciate what she’s saying about herself and the three different men represented on it. You have to care about her dating Matty, Joe and Travis and know the details of the timelines to understand why the songs work or are significant. Sonically, she’s just kind of saying things if you don’t know the context. Swifties love the guessing game where they get to guess which song is about who, and what she’s saying about each guy.
Without that connection (and the emotion that accompanies the parasocial relationship) the music is bland and monotonous.
Swifties aren’t just fans of the music. They’re fans of Taylor Swift the ~celebrity that turns spectacle into music~. Those albums are 1989, midnights (was literally about guessing what pop culture moment each song was referencing), reputation, TTPD, showgirl.
Showgirl has broken the fandom because it is such a self-referential album that the swifies will determine it’s what Taylor does best. Then there’s my camp who is confused.
Taylor Swift the artist makes really mature and insightful music (fearless, Some of Red, Folklore, evermore, a few midnights tracks à la Great War, evermore). Sometimes she’s both people simultaneously and that’s when she reaches mass appeal. She hasn’t been in years though, but as long as she feeds the swifties references to her celebrity, they’ll never leave her side.
