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If you know me well, you’ll know I’m a fan of Taylor Swift’s music. Since her Fearless album (the first album I ever bought) to her most recent Lover album, I’ve followed her transition from country music sweetheart to global popstar. If you look back over some of the titles of my blog posts, you’ll find many are either lyrics or titles from some of Swift’s songs. But the one thing above all I’ve been hyper-aware of over the past ten years is Taylor Swift’s battle with the media’s perception of her.
Despite many male celebrities – including Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney (and even Swift’s ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris) – having an endless list of girlfriends, Swift is continuously vilified for her relationships and branded a serial-dater. It’s a brand that’s followed her the majority of her career. But why? Why do the double standards exist where Swift is branded a ‘slut’ for her high-profile relationships, when male celebrities are celebrated for theirs? Ed Sheeran wrote a song branding Ellie Goulding a cheater; Justin Timberlake wrote ‘Cry Me a River’ to accuse Britney Spears of having an affair – Kanye West even wrote a song calling Amber Rose a bitch, and yet whenever a woman writes a song about a breakup it makes the headlines and is called ‘scathing’.
Women in the music industry are watched constantly. Their male counterparts can get away with so much, and yet if the media tells us to hate a female celebrity – we do. Swift continues to earn backlash online, but often people aren’t sure why they hate her, other than because they’ve been told they ought to. Think about it – the world loves to hate Kim Kardashian because all we’ve ever heard is that she’s an awful person. Perhaps she is, but it’s rare that we question why we hate these female celebrities, and it’s often because of the media’s perception of them.
When the MeToo movement in 2017 reached prominence, and the world began to understand the true problem surrounding sexual assault, Swift came forward about a battle she’d been having for years regarding a DJ who touched her inappropriately a few years prior. Swift went to court against this man and asked for only $1 if she won the lawsuit. But even when Swift had been touched without her consent, she barely garnered support. She was still vilified and told she was ‘playing the victim’.
The world seems to love to hate Taylor Swift. Even when she announced this summer – and has since reiterated the fact – that the former head of Big Machine Records (the label Swift signed to from the beginning of her career and until recently) had sold her masters and banned her from buying them back, many stayed silent. Even now, as she battles the rights to music she herself curated and wrote, many men are refusing to stand in her corner. All because we’ve been told she’s awful.
How is it that we’ve let certain parts of the media control our way of thinking and why is it that sources continue to attack certain celebrities? I’m very much aware that it is a way of causing a media storm, and curates views – but as I’ve said before, these are real people with real lives. Although they have offered themselves up to media interpretation, the disrespect many receive, and the utter vilification goes beyond wanting likes on a story. It’s damaging. Not only to the vilified but also to those who read the stories. It’s causing a mob mentality against certain celebrities that is harmful.
Targeting one celebrity because it has become tradition isn’t a good enough reason. Not supporting them when the unimaginable is happening to them is disgraceful. I realise they are celebrities. But they’re also real people. Taylor Swift is battling to even be able to sing the songs she wrote when she was under Big Machine Records. Songs about life experiences she poured her heart out to make. Supporting the people who are stopping her from gaining back the rights to her songs just because you don’t like her doesn’t make sense. Because it’s not just her music she’s fighting for, it’s for the many who’ve had the same happen to them.
Why there are celebrities in the world we choose to hate, I will never know. You don’t have to say you like their music or the things that they do but admitting that the things that are happening to them are unfair is good. If you wouldn’t want it happening to you then why would you encourage it happening to someone else?
Swift seems to be handling the hate well – she’s had years of it after all. Between the lyrics of her songs and her attitude, it seems she’d taken the hate and manifested it into a don’t-care attitude. But she shouldn’t have to. No one should have to be so comfortable with hate that it becomes part of their every day.
Don’t hate these people just because the telly and social media tells you to. Encouraging their downfall reflects worse on you.