i just want to say something v quick. I remember believing in toe so much. i was so happy for taylor and i hated kaylor like SO MUCH. i never gave it a thought. never. then i found ttb’s blog after the reputation tour started. i was like “ok this is just for entertainment” i found the master-posts then i was like “hold on.. this might be something” the first song that made me think was King Of My Heart it just didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t get the timeline.
before toe i already knew that most of taylor’s relationships were PR but i was so scared i was going to get blacklisted by taylor cause she was always here, and people on tumblr too if i said something. haylor made me cringe 😬. i was scared taylor would see what i’m posting and hate me. and then i understood that MOST people didn’t say a word because they were scared of getting blacklisted too.
people all of a sudden hated karlie or like just ignored her presence like she was never there and i did too for sometimes when i was confused, also because i didn’t want people to see her face on my blog i was scared of being called a kaylor etc. what helped me later was the making of the songs when i gave this a thought i KNEW toe was never real. i did the math by myself and it all just didn’t add up. it wasn’t anyone. it wasn’t people making me believe in something i SAW the signs and i knew what taylor was sending messages for the ones who’ll find them.
taylor showed me toe was fake no one else did. then my WHOLE look at her music changed drastically. the first time i listened to Love Story after that i was like “oh my god.....” it was THERE all along i just never noticed. i never thought too hard about it.
by the time taylor dropped Lover I didn’t even have to try to understand, everything was just clear to me. I didn’t give a fuck anymore about being blacklisted or sucking up to swifties a*ses just to seem like I’m unproblematic.
it was not about being a kaylor or not. anymore. it was just about knowing that this is a whole other story inside the story she wants to show the public and that’s when i knew the brilliance of taylor swift.
she sells two stories in one. the oblivious one for the lazy heads who wants to believe the story she wants to sell. and the other story for daydreams and romantics who are like her. who see hidden messages and secrets in every line. people who want to put pieces together and find the real pictures. that’s why she uses easter eggs.
i don’t see why a straight woman dating a white man would put easter eggs in songs for her fans. what are we going to find there, Karen? the size of your man’s underwear? why is the world determined to divide a multimillionaire white woman dating a white man?
This is beautifully written! So spot on. I hope Taylor and Tree see this!!!
Ok I swear the second clip is a new angle?? Am I imagining this?? Help me out 🥲
“What must it be like to grow up that beautiful, with your hair falling into place like dominos?”
ah yes, I too say those things about ~men~ all the time
This is important
I’ve seen a lot of posts on my dash tonight about users who are threatening suicide, with other Tumblr members posting in effort to try to get ahold of them. I think you all should see this:
IF THERE IS EVER A TUMBLR USER WHO HAS POSTED A GOOD-BYE MESSAGE, SUICIDE NOTE, VIDEO, OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT, PLEASE FOLLOW THIS POST.
1. Scroll to the top of your dashboard.
2. See the circular question mark icon at the top? It’s the third one over from your home symbol. Click on that, and a screen similar to the one in the picture will come up.
3. Where you can type in questions, the box with the magnifying glass at the top, type in the word “suicide.”
4. Click on the first link that shows up. It should say, “Pass the URL of the blog on to us.”
5. Type in the user’s URL and tell Tumblr admin that the user is contemplating suicide and has posted a message indicating that they are going through with it or will be attempting. Hit send! Tumblr administration will perform a number of actions to contact the user and take the necessary steps to prevent the suicide.
TUMBLR: THIS COULD SAVE A USER’S LIFE. PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE SUICIDE THREATS.
Reblog this to keep other users aware. Suicide isn’t a joke, and neither is someone’s life. If you didn’t know this, someone else may not, either. Pass it on.
how many people cannot fully appreciate her genius because they do not understand all the layers and references in her work
i’m sure someone can provide a better quality screenshot, but i’m pretty sure she’s holding a spade card at 6:51 👀
so the last great american dynasty is about the woman who owned taylor’s rhode island mansion before her (the one where she threw all the fourth of july parties) and the song is all the folklore about the woman who lived there and how she was a “mad woman” and then at the end of the bridge taylor says “and then it was bought by me” and switches it to her perspective and how now she’s the mad woman who owns it… i…
cornelia street (and lover as an album) are a way to change the ending, to turn the life together into folklore. in this essay i will…
all queer history on here is just US-American or maybe sometimes some UK history as well and it makes me sad that there’s so little information about other countries’ queer history on here :(
remember when karlie kloss couldn’t walk by her girlfriend like a normal model and had to execute two spin moves on the down-and-back to blow her kisses and maximize eye contact to record that moment in her brain. incredible balance and focus.
and how they had this moment on a bed of hearts in front of everyone.
I love your analyzes and your blog. think is a bit offensive the way you demand support for Taylor when she uses queerbaiting as mkt tool only to deny it 15 days later when the money from attention, GP, pink money and general swifties was made. Now she wants the country radio so james is straight. Taylor is a unique case of closeted because she wants to be in and out to profit from both sides. Taylor plans to be cruel and has nothing to with her coming out. I NOW country radio didn't ask for it
I understand that you are frustrated and you have every right to your feelings (yes, even to your offence). I would point out, however, that:
I do not “demand” anything. It is absolutely your prerogative to withhold your “support” financially (you do not have to purchase her music or her merchandise) or as a “fan” (you do not have to participate in her fandom online or at all). I would only ask that if you choose to stay, you consider that “coming out” is contingent not only on an individual’s personal safety and security, but often also on their psychological readiness. This is not only for Taylor’s benefit, but also for the benefit of anyone who is closeted. The only person anyone owes it to to come out is themselves - at their own convenience and only if they believe it to be in their best interest. No one is obliged to come out - ever. We should not be expected to make exceptions of ourselves in order either to correct the ignorance of a society that presumes straight is default or to satisfy other people’s curiosity.
There is an inherent contradiction in your claim that Taylor is both “queerbaiting” and “closeted.” If she is part of the LGBTQ+ community, she is unable to “queerbait” by definition. I will concede the possibility that I am wrong - perhaps she is not “closeted”- but considering that she has never confirmed her sexuality publicly, it is important (again also for the benefit of anyone who actually is in the closet) not to assume in the absence of any clear indiction to the contrary that she is therefore straight. Besides reinforcing the notion that queerness is necessarily performative - in order to be queer you must first announce that you are - as if the closet itself and the process of coming out aren’t first and foremost inventions of the cishetero-patriarchy and we couldn’t exist authentically without them (is Queen Latifah who has a wife and child somehow less queer because she hasn’t stated that she is?), the logical extension of your argument otherwise is that only people who are publicly out ought be allowed to identify themselves with queer culture. This would effectively be to exclude LGBTQ+ people from their own community. It is also antithetical to the stated aims of that community - the acronym LGBTQ+ has historically included anyone in the closet who wises to align themselves with the community without also outing themselves under the umbrella “ally.” As such, it is wrong to assume that all publicly identified allies are straight (or cis).
Whether or not country radio asked for it (and you don’t know for a fact) is almost irrelevant. It is still conservative and it still operates according to certain conventions that apply even without them being consciously articulated. As someone who started their career in country music, I can only assume that Taylor is well aware of these codes of conduct whether they are tacit or not (and, even if times are changing, it is not a stretch to imagine that her previous experiences of homophobia in that industry will have shaped her expectations of it in the present.)
What she said in no way detracts from our ability to read the song as queer. That she wrote it from the perspective of a seventeen year old boy does not alter the fact that, when the song is performed, it is performed by Taylor, who is a woman singing about/to another woman. This is what most people’s first impressions will be and that by itself is significant. She also immediately followed up her explanation by stating that the protagonists (James, Inez and Betty) were named after her “friends’ kids.” As the lyrics themselves are, therefore, ambiguously gendered - if the actual James is (as far as anyone knows) not a boy, then fictional James isn’t automatically a boy either - I object to the claim that James is necessarily “straight” in consequence.
Finally, I am not saying that you cannot be critical. But, if you have to fault Taylor for something in this case, let it be her failure consistently to acknowledge that her actions (negatively) affect her LGBTQ+ fans as well as herself. She is allowed to panic or to react instinctively and impulsively to something she has been conditioned to regard as a threat. However, it is imperative that her own internalised homophobia (?) should not be a pretext for homophobic attacks by her fans.