Toxic Social Media, Bad Takes and Think Pieces

I'm trying to not just do Taylor related blogs and content. It's hard, as much as I love her, I don't want this blog to be just about her. But at the same time, with her new album drop she dominates so much of the internet right now. Sadly, its not all good takes on her new record or her in general that has been out there.

Over the weekend there was a lot of buzz and excitement over the new album drop Life of a Showgirl and we attended several Swiftie events plus her movie listening party. Then Monday hit and it was like someone flipped a switch. People were posting how bad and awful the new album was. Some large Swiftie pages were posting her phallic references and innuendos on some of her songs were "vulgar" and disgusting.

Then there was the hate coming from the left, because she said she wants to have babies that she is somehow a MAGA Tradwife and, well I'm not going to list every bad take, but this one about put me over the edge.

This from CNN's official account. I get it, Taylor is a billionaire with heavy security. But as we've seen this past few years, someone who is crazy enough and determined enough can cause a lot of death and destruction. Let's not forget it was around a year ago Taylor had to cancel three shows in Austria due to credible terrorist threats at her concert.

Even if she has enough security to protect herself, people in her orbit like her friends, her family, her employees all do not and there is no way to protect them all. Why incite things like this with this kind of verbiage? Over a music album they didn't like?

Look, I get it, her music isn't for everyone. She now has twelve records out. They are all different in various ways. I like some of them better than others and a few hardly at all. Everything isn't going to vibe with everyone all the time. But launching into hate filled attacks, using phrases like "open season" or some of the other horrible vitriol I've seen about her the past few days seems a bit much.

People are mad she hasn't spoken up on various political and social issues. I'm really not sure why that is a big deal to so many people. She spoke up in a Tennessee Senate election in 2020 I think it was, her candidate lost. She spoke up for the 2024 election, her candidate once again lost. Her speaking up on Gaza, or against Trump or whatever issue of the day is out there is not going to miraculously bring about world peace and preserve democracy.

People who are so angry and riled up with hate for her simply because she won't make a social media post about their favorite issue really need to do a deep dive into their own feelings. Maybe seek therapy to explore why they feel so strongly about needing to have this particular celebrity speak out on specific topics in order for their activism to have any meaning.

I think a big thing to blame is how most social media and algorithms are structures. Everyone was loving on Taylor during the Eras tour because they could get clout and cash by live streaming the tour posting Tik Toks about her various outfits, surprise songs, contests and etc. Remember Swiftball?

Now that the tour is over, these same "Swifties" need another means of gaining clout. What gets more clicks than anything? RAGE!!!! Now that the tour is over, and Taylor is actually happy with her life, her fiancée and her music, its easy to get clout with a clickbait headline on why Taylor is really a MAGA Zionistic Terrorist. I'm not even exaggerating, I've seen that in more than a few posts.

I realize I'm biased, but I don't get how anyone can see this:

and be like "Yeah, fuck that evil bitch!"

This isn't to discount she also gave out tens of millions in bonuses on her tour to her crew, backup singers and dancers. Not to mention she donated millions to food banks in every single city they toured in.

Yes, you can find problematic things about her in her past going back to 2006 when she was a teenager. You likely could for any of us, except the rest of us having lived our whole lives in the public eye. Anyone who has followed her over the years has seen her grow and change and evolve. Yes, she is a billionaire, a big reason for that is due to the value of her catalogue.

Her wealth is still small compared to people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg who are all objectively awful people. Yet, she is held to a standard far beyond any of these clowns. Hell, she's held to higher standards for fixing the worlds problems than actual elected officials who are literally paid to fix this shit.

I know I sound a bit angrier than my usual self and I'll just say, since I work from home and spend a lot of time online, this week has been rough with so much negativity. I look to Taylor for some relief from our current hellscape this country is turning into. So when I see people coming for her and this fandom dragging this into a hellscape, I get slightly vexed.

Once again, not sure I should be mad at individuals, as most social media rewards rage bait and hot takes. I remember during simpler times a viral thread on Twitter (before it was X) that said encouraging people to read was ableist and it had hundreds of thousands of views, retweets and replies. I can't imagine the person who posted it even believed the nonsense they were spouting, but it got them clicks and attention which is all that seems to matter anymore.

All this is a big reason why I set up my own blog on Ghost, a decentralized platform. My goal here is to build a community with subscribers and my newsletter, and once I get enough people, set up a discord where we can meet and interact without relying on corporate media or social media to stay in touch. Its a huge undertaking and maybe a crazy goal as people like what is familiar no matter how awful it may actually be, but I'm going to try.

I'm not here to say how terrible social media is. Most of my actual friends are on it and a lot of it is my window to the world. There are a lot of good things about it. But there is a lot of bad too, and sadly, money and corporate greed have taken over so much the bad seems to just keep piling on. The truth is, social media is nothing without we the users. I know there have been many attempts to replace Facebook and X and most have failed.

I think the answer may be in thousands of small platforms and pockets of communities online in decentralized corners or the internet, instead of a couple of massive platforms. Once again, this may be a fantasy, but its worth trying out to see where it takes me. In the end, we don't have to be held hostage to corporate social media. We do have options. They may not be as shiny and sexy as Facebook. I know a lot of people who are monetized on Facebook so they do it full time.

That is great, until Meta changes their model on payouts or removes it entirely. Or bans you for a meme you posted in 2014. Once again, on those platform, we are not customers, we are the product. There isn't a simple solution for this as no platform is perfect, but just throwing up our hands and giving in isn't working. We can do better, and we deserve better.

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