Taylor Swift already made her attitude toward romance clear on Midnights
Taylor Swift has grown up and out of the "happily ever after" fairy tale era. Now it's time for fans to do the same.
Music Features taylor swift
Don’t say Taylor Swift didn’t warn us. Fans whose parasocial ardor for the pop star surpasses perhaps any other idol on the planet were shell-shocked by the news that Swift had split from her boyfriend of six years, actor Joe Alwyn. Many are still stuck in the denial phase of grief, adamant that the news must not be true until they hear it straight from the source. In lieu of that, all we have to go on is the music—but her most recent work may offer some insight into the Grammy winner’s current attitude toward relationships.
In fairness to the Swifties, it’s no wonder that they’ve formed a certain attachment to Swift’s happily ever after. The singer built much of her own mythology on the backs of fairy tales and romantic fantasies. “Love Story” is the most notable example, but her oeuvre is littered with wedding imagery. Her lyrics are filled with heterosexual couples who run away together so that their love might thrive. Perhaps this is the reason that a certain contingent of Swifties became convinced that their icon was preparing to retire at the conclusion of The Eras Tour. She got her happy ending, so now it’s time to close the book, right?
But if we listen to her most recent album, Midnights, Swift is explicit that a relationship isn’t her priority, particularly a traditional “he kneeled to the ground and pulled out a ring…” kind of relationship. “All they keep asking me is if I’m gonna be your bride,” she complains on the album’s opening track “Lavender Haze,” dismissing out of hand “that 1950s shit they want from me.” Swift’s true priority, she explains again and again, is her work and her ambition. In “You’re On Your Own, Kid” and “Midnight Rain” she reiterates that she gave her “blood, sweat, and tears” for her career, and it’s always going to come first. Fame may be a prison, but it’s one she chose and will keep choosing. It seems like a message any fan or potential partner needs to understand.
Despite the fact that, from 1989 onward, Swift has been pretty honest about how difficult it is to be in a relationship with her, “sources” close to the couple allege that her most recent ex didn’t fully understand that message. “Joe has struggled with Taylor’s level of fame and the attention from the public,” an insider claimed to People. “They had plenty in common and fell in love in a safe bubble while she was retreating from the world during Reputation. Then the pandemic hit, and they were locked down together and able to continue growing their relationship in this insulated way. But he didn’t really ‘know’ her yet outside of that bubble.”
Perhaps Alwyn, like some of her fans, fell for the fantasy of the reclusive folk singer who was ready to give it all up and live by “The Lakes.” But the real Swift is the “mirrorball” and the “Mastermind.” Even in the quiet pause of the pandemic, she was still “Bejeweled,” ready to reclaim her throne as pop’s reigning princess at a moment’s notice. She once reflected that she felt “frozen at the age [I] got famous,” meaning most people still see her as the starry-eyed teen spinning romantic fairy tales. The true Taylor Swift is more complicated and more powerful as an adult, willing to own her ambition no matter what it costs her. Revisiting Midnights might help people understand that.
80 Comments
Her thighs are shiny.
Very.But sweet baby Jesus, is she sheer perfection. Body of an angel.
It’s funny how people can have such different tastes. I think she’s a pretty woman, but I have to admit that if I didn’t recognize her as a famous singer and just happened to encounter her walking along in the supermarket or at the gym, I dunno if I’d have much reaction beyond, “yeah, looks like a fit white woman in her mid-30s.”
right, nobody’s into them!
Now that just seems like an intentional misinterpretation lol. But to be clear… mid-30s white women are great. I do not, however, fall on my knees in awe and think about angelic forms every time I see any member of the category. That seems like it would get in the way of finishing the grocery list.
indeed. That’s why when I go to get milk and cat food I come home with capers, organic celery, quail eggs and an STI.
What age of fit white woman do you fall on your knees for and think about angelic forms?
This isn’t creepy.
Which part? The one thats acknowledging that she’s a fantastic looking person?
Just the whole entire thing.
Are you uncomfortable with people thinking other people are attractive?
Not at all.
No, the satin tights she wears on her thighs are shiny.I’m guessing you’re not a leg man, The Kinja Caffeine Spider? I’d worry about outting myself, but I’ve been in the grays since the Flintstones walked the Earth, so I’m not going to worry about it because apparently nobody reads what I have to say anyway….
it’s funny that websites like this (and say, pitchfork for example) used to exist as an alternative to this kind of write-up, because there were mainstream pop culture news sources that tracked this stuff, and you’d come here for the left-of-center, off-kilter, interesting stuff.since journalisms bottom has completely caved out, now sites like this have to do the ‘were analyzing the work of the most popular musicians’ because it’s all SEO based. there’s no incentive to write about the unique or interesting (or even hire people with those interests), because even sites like the av club need to get their taylor swift clicks out. it’s really disheartening.
“left-of-center” “off-kilter” “interesting”
None of these come to mind when anyone mentions “Taylor Swift”
yeah man that was my point? they used to write about interesting stuff and now the only things that get published are things like this.
And spoiling Succession (for people who watch it.)
skill issue. it’s 2023 stay off the internet till you’ve watched the thing.
yeah, but I kinda agree with the burned viewers. An entertainment-centric website might should know a little better.
nah not me. the only people who still come to this website are maniacs anyway!
Some folks here probably put me in that category.
no comment.
Fuck off despicable hack
The Spider doesn’t actually respond to comments. They use them as a jumping off point for their terrible jokes.
But she made silly faces in that one music video! She’s just like us!
Must’ve missed that one. I guess my awareness of T-Swift is solely what The AV Club complains about. Like the one where her bathroom scale fat-shamed her.
I was joking. lol Her “interesting” qualities are really just facsimiles of interesting. I don’t hate her or anything–I bob my head along to her songs, and she did donate a million dollars for relief efforts when Nashville flooded in 2010, and I liked that–but yeah I definitely don’t think she qualifies as particularly interesting. Or I suppose I should say I’m not interested. Clearly a lot of folks are, so maybe I’m missing something.
Yeah, I don’t have the energy to hate anyone who hasn’t personally hurt me or my family. I don’t care for her music; but even bands and artists I like, I can’t bring myself to care who they’re dating or not, or seeing pictures of them at Starbucks or on the pooper.
Agree. Like I wish them well as I generally wish other people well, but other than that I truly don’t care about the details.
Turns out “left-of-center” “off-kilter” and “interesting” doesn’t pay the bills.
i don’t think ‘generic taylor swift article number 40′ does either.
I’m trying to remember this era you’re talking about. I’ve been reading this website for a little over a decade and there’s a lot I miss about how it used to be (Hate Song, more and better reviews of TV episodes including shows that had long since stopped airing, a section I could click on that was just previews of coming attractions, that brief Stand-Down video series… some of the things that come to mind). But while they certainly had more stories, including more off kilter stuff, I don’t remember them ever staying away from mainstream musicians or movie star analysis.
haha i’ve been coming since like 1997. i guess i meant like, yes you would obviously get taylor swift analysis, etc, but for every mainstream take (and that take itself would usually be a little more interesting) there were any number of articles about obscure things as well.it’s more of a volume issue than anything. there just used to be more interent!
I think it’s pretty telling how little effort and engagement this site has been getting, and I did find it fun when there was more volume and space for news about stuff and people that I’ve never heard of before. That being said, I don’t believe that correlates at all with coverage of mainstream celebrities as it has long been in the fabric of the website. I also miss weird reporting on mainstream celebrities, I’m pretty sure it was on this website where I first learned of the webpage dedicated to tracking the height difference between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. I was also very invested in following the “Twins” sequel “Triplets” as reported on here. And I really miss the “Food That Didn’t Get Eaten on The Bachelor(ette)“ column on sister site The Takeout. There can be interest in all things pop culture.
I’ve been reading this website for a little over a decade—and 2013 was the very year most of their best film reviewers/interviewers (Scott Tobias, Tasha Robinson, Nathan Rabin…) left for The Dissolve, along with the old editor-in-chief, Keith Phipps.If you’re curious about what the old AV Club was like (as in, before it was primarily a website), check this out:https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Tenacity_of_the_Cockroach/Q4DyYHZv6n0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP5&printsec=frontcover
Defector isn’t perfect, but it’s better.
i haven’t been, but i bop around the baffler, polygon & kotaku, aa dowd’s reviews on chron, nathan rabin’s happy place, the verge, longreads (RIP longform) and a few other sites. but it just feels like all of that content has shifted to youtube videos. and i don’t mind the odd video essay but there’s nothing like cracking open a good article on a website.
“sources” close to the couple allege that her most recent ex didn’t fully understand that message.
“Sources” probably being her publicist, the lady with the awesome name “Tree Paine”.
“Joe has struggled with Taylor’s level of fame and the attention from the public,” an insider claimed to People.
I could buy that. Maybe she wants the relationship to be much more open and social in public now, and he’s ill at ease in that kind of famous person social milieu.
It’s broken up other high-profile relationships before. A big part of why Bezos cheated on his first wife and hooked up with a TV producer is apparently because Mackenzie Bezos was really not comfortable with the Hollywood social scene.
Tree wouldn’t say anything unless Taylor wanted her to… But I wonder why Taylor would’ve wanted the news to break like this. It’s possible that someone else on her team leaked this info, or perhaps Taylor thought this would be the smoothest way to break the news to the swifties
The thought I heard that makes a level of sense is that they may have broken up a bit ago but if word leaked before the tour, suddenly the tour is all about her breakup and she didn’t want that so they kept it quiet until the tour is established and social media is talking about the tour itself not some hidden drama it represents or some shit. So now the fans who are noticing he’s not around on the tour start to chatter, so you leak that they had an amicable breakup (regardless of the reality, hopefully its near to the truth) now and fans go aww and then move on rather than conflating the breakup and tour for the entire year.
When you’re as big as she is, you do kind of *have* to play a certain amount of mind games to control the narrative of your own life because otherwise the public will always spin it into some off the wall dramatics like it’s a movie instead of real events happening to real people in their personal lives.
On the other hand she might have been more influenced than she realized. She married and divorced an average person (a school teacher) pretty quickly after divorcing Jeff. Maybe the teacher just wasn’t glamorous enough.
Hard to say based on current knowledge who had the issue with her fame. I have to take the internet’s word for it that he’s an actor, because I’ve never heard of him. So it may be that the relationship worked while they were in a relative bubble but she’s embarking on one of the biggest tours in pop history and he just feels like roadkill.
He’s been in a few movies (and was the star of Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk), but didn’t leave much of an impression.
He had a role in The Favourite that wasn’t insiginificant but I had to refer to youtube to recall it. Apparently his net worth is 4 mil next to her 400 mil and his only work credit seems to be his contribution to her album. Maybe she’ll go the more popular route these days and hook up with a millioaire/billionaire businessman. Or just stop dating until she figures it out. She has money, pets and – presumably – female friends. Personally, I wouldn’t complain. Relationships are hard.
I don’t know about the billionaire part but as far as general living of life goes, that sounds like exactly what she’s doing. If the relationship wasn’t on rock-solid ground as she prepped to be on the road for at least the next five months, then no reason to leave under questionable circumstances. And she’ll be too busy to even think about someone else for quite a while. Good call on her part.
Oh noes.
“In fairness to the Swifties, it’s no wonder that they’ve formed a certain attachment to Swift’s happily ever after.” yes it’s true they’ve bought into the marvel-esque world of lore and easter eggs she’s created. It’s a good way to sell your product!
marvel-esque world of lore, Easter eggs and rhinestone-encrusted acoustic guitars she’s created.
It is a good way to sell a product…except you don’t really need to and you really need to have an interest in doing it for it to work. I think she’s just a huge nerd and it turned out something she thought was fun turned out to strike a nerve with her fans.
I respect that she is consciously embracing being a diva
She embraced being a diva about a decade ago, Evil Lincoln. One great thing about watching Todd in the Shadows is his “Worst of the Year” lists track Taylor Swift’s transition from Aryan Country Princess to Thin-Skinned Pop Superstar Who Can’t Help Obsessing About Why Gossip Rags Seem to “Target” Her(!).Oh, Taylor? They target anybody big enough to attract their attention–just do what your own song says and Shake it Off! Shake it Off! Shake it Off!
Moving into opera is a possibility, but that would be difficult. It takes many years of training even you are an experienced singer.
After Tom Petty died I read the biography Petty about him by Warren Zanes and was bummed to learn that despite seeming entirely chill, he was incredibly neurotic about how his work would be received, making each record better than the last, and pursuing general musical perfection. Swift has a lovely, sweet persona but given how hard she works, and how critical she seems to be of herself, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case with her as well. We don’t see it in public but she’s driven to be a career woman first and foremost.
Her documentary “Miss Americana” explicitly showed that she was that way. A perfectionist that strove to make each record better than the last.
They were together for 4 years before the pandemic, so the whole “bubble” excuse is just Taylor’s PR team working the game. She had a best-selling tour during their relationship.
No one has made any “excuses”, what are you even talking about?
Jesus Christ imagine caring that much.
My guess is she’ll die alone.
surrounded by millions of dollars
and her cats
and her cats.
Why let the worms have you when you can give yourself to a more advanced predator instead!
I didn’t think of it like that.
Who will inherit it all legally.
She wanted fame and fortune, and she’s gotten that beyond her wildest dreams—and kept her looks while doing it!She can always find a bed warmer for a while…unless she goes off the deep end, suddenly decides Ed Sheeran is her soulmate, and puts out a hit on his wife….
“I guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats… Alone” – Gorgeous, ReputationShe has 3 cats, and in my eyes, that’s a cat lady
Yeah, 2 cats gives the other a companion, 3 cats is a cat lady
Yes, it must be difficult in the dating scene for a wealthy celebrity. Who would want to date one of those?
She sounds lucky.
Dudes, this does not matter at all
This poor Alwyn guy has no idea what’s going to happen to him. He’ll get the usual treatment forSwift Exes. Rumors and innuendos from sources ‘close to’ Swift about nebulous wrongdoings on his part, even though never confirmed or even clarified by Swift herself. Then come the breakup revenge songs, plural in this case, since the’ve dated for six years, if you can believe it. Sometimes it feels like all the female pop stars date for the sole purpose to gather more song material for the ever growing market of breakup revenge songs. Seriously, why would any guy date one of those pop sirens, knowing he will be an instagram accessory at best, like a Gucci handbag, or a not so flattering song topic at worst.
It’s amazing how when surveyed 86% of Americans would rather live in 1980 than 2023 (TMZ). The amount of girl power “independence” propaganda is astonishing. Women in general have never been more miserable and like 90% of them would prefer a traditional relationship. With the amount of fame she has she’s either going to need someone as famous as she is or a man with 2x the confidence. Most women regret not having families and women like Taylor aren’t going to date downwards. So a lot of men are going to be playing video games and staying home when they really need to work on their vibe as women are doing very well in our society and don’t plan on settling. They’re succeeding but who knows if they’re happy. This is easy peasy for Taylor and she reached success as a teenager but that is her easy road. Personal development for her, and everyone all the men out there is the difficult road. Obviously she’s the problem, it’s her, but what is her solution…….?
most women in 2023 weren’t alive in 1980 and only have the superficial happy presentation of what it was like. Drop them there and they’d fucking hate it. Everyone seems more miserable because we are now more aware of how fucking awful everything has always been and being aware of the shittiness of something is the first step to making it better. Fuck off.
you are an angry maniac
We’re miserable bc of men, you fucking dunce.
Genuinely curious as to why anyone gives a shit if a celebrity and their partner break up or not?
Of course, she grew out of it -after 9 failed relationships, it’s better to pretend she outgrew it, instead of admitting that “she just can’t keep a relationship”, lol
Christ this sort of article is so embarrassing. You know what this person you’ve never met is like better than her partner of 6 years based on the lyrics of midnight rain? Cop on to yourself
Relationships are not the priority anymore. This is pretty much the growth trajectory of every famous female pop singer experiences. Grande comes immediatly to mind. Breakups make good stories and they always make sense 20/2o. We do love our mythologies.
So you’re saying I’ve got a shot!