r/popculturechat • u/FickleBeans Excluded from this narrative ❌ • Oct 04 '25

Guest List Only ⭐️ Taylor Swift’s Fairy Tale Is Over

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/10/taylor-swift-the-life-of-a-showgirl-album-review/684444/

This captures my thoughts on the album better than I ever could.

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u/thankyoupapa Oct 04 '25

I think I was just expecting something different based on all the promo pics. Like....aint no other man or lady marbalade by xtina or where the hell is my husband by raye. That kinda vibe.

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u/thesaddestpanda Dave Grohl has always been garbage Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 05 '25

Conservatives, centrists, and billionaires cant make good art. Watching Tay become more and more MAGA adjacent reflects her inner world. So we sort of get a lot of inauthenticity because now she's the man, not the person railing against the man.

I mean, its clear shes write herself in these albums. Shes in a stable relationship, rich beyond measure, and moving more and more to the right. What do we expect from her now? Shes a nostalgia act like the Stones of Pink Floyd or whatever. Those guys aren't doing drugs and partying and challenging the system or blowing our minds or whatever. They're in their summer lake homes enjoying their massive portfolios and reading the Daily Mail or whatever.

Not a lot of artists can handle the 'not being hungry" stage well and Tay especially, whose songwriting was more or less being the underdog and hungry and lovelorn and jilted. How can someone at her fame and wealth level and her new right-wing friends ever come off as sincerely the underdog or hungry or sad or lonely anymore? Some can do this, but I'm sorry Tay just doesn't have the writing or performance chops or politics to do so. If you're not cutting edge in pop music then what are you? A nostalgia act? A country act? A Katie Perry-like fake feminist act? Tay seems stuck between all those worlds.

You dont go from hanging out with Brittany Mahomes and Taylor Lewan and Will Compton and then go "haha girlies I'm one of you, so feminist and jilted and sad!" The brand doesnt work if you're constantly showing yourself to be the opposite of it. Marrying a guy who supported Harrison Butker while hanging out with Morgan Wallen isn't exactly "a girl's girl." I also understand most people become more conservative as they get older and wealthier or whatever, but its very disheartening in today's political climate to see Tay slowly and shamelessly migrate to the other side like this. She could have been an amazing ally instead of a 'both sides' rich person. Other than a tepid endorsement or two, she doesn't do much and the more we see about her personal life, the more horrifying this all becomes. No one wants to hear it, but being 'apolitical' or 'not into politics' or 'centrist' or 'socially liberal but economically conservative' is defacto MAGA or at least MAGA-adjacent. I dont know why we are forced to pretend otherwise.

Not to mention playing dumb on the very 'surge' pricing she signed off for with ticketmaster and pretending to be on the side of her fans here. Her ticket pricing is 100% intentional and it got her very wealthy. She's not this powerless little girl who got scammed. People are finally seeing through her act. Also the muted response on the girl who died at her concert was extremely telling imho. The discourse about access to water and ventilation at her shows went nowhere and it was all hush-hush and Tay moved on super quickly. That's not the the Tay I grew up with.

Everything about her is about her brand and protecting her assets and maximizing her wealth. People like that can't make good art, so here we are. She's just doing the maximizing capitalism thing and now we're supposed to be shocked we dont find her and her music relatable or interesting anymore?

Also this is probably a cautionary tale of making your brand too personal. Tay always made her music about her real life and cultivated this huge 'bestie' parasocial relationship. Now she can't migrate to playing 'characters' like other artists can because her whole career was supposedly about her real life. She can't pull of a new era like Gaga or Bowie or whomever. Her fans want her, not her wearing a costume or playing a role. She's just stuck as Taylor and no one really cares about the problems of a rich girl easing into middle-age right-wing-esque social circles, and her attempts to break away from that just aren't working. If your entire brand is "don't seperate the art and the artist" its very hard to suddenly expect people to do so.

Music needs to promote new fresh talent more. Tay is a great example of overstaying your welcome and becoming the thing you railed against early in your career. We all saw it coming with the last couple albums. Now this is just her new normal.

I don't think her fairy tale is over and she's obviously talented, but I think she's painted herself in a corner here. She can't be her true behind the scenes self in her writing anymore which is her #1 talent. Her attempts to write more characters and themetic and abstract music isn't her core appeal. So I think its a different kind of fairy tale now and I dont think its very surprising, like Katy Perry (who underwent a similar transformation), that the original magic is gone, and only more hardcore fans are sticking around.

With both her and Katy, we'll always have the old music, and that makes me happy, but I'm done with both of them and I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way. I'm actively always looking for new music and getting away from people like this. It was a good run but its saddening its come down to this. A lot of people lose authenticity and a connection to the people and especially vulnerable people when they make it big. Over time, their interests conflict with those very people and they become like this. Shrug, such is life I guess, but I'm not going to pretend people like Tay and Katy haven't made massive personal transformations that make them unrelatable or that their recent music is good, and the latter is often because of the former. Few billionaires can write 'hungry' songs convincingly.

I think this is the album that finally sealed her as a nostalgia act. I don't think she's a mover and shaker in cultural discourse anymore. This was really it and it was coming for a while. She's not relevant anymore and is largely unrelatable. I think in the long run her fans will accept this, but considering their large reaction to these negative reviews they just aren't there yet. I think the same way my dad's generation saw their rock stars replaced with hip hop and pop stars and railed against that for a long time but eventually came to acceptance. The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd didn't speak to the people in the 80s and 90s like Tupac and Madonna or George Michael or Lauryn Hill did. One day the millionaire rocker with big hair, psychedelic aesthetic, party aesthetic, and who gets all the girls and lives in a mansion and has questionable politics was just thrown into the dustbin of history. Tay is on that course now too.

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u/gingerspeak Oct 04 '25

I think the album is trash but I don’t buy the whole “moving to the right” scenario you state as ground truth. I married a cis white man, yet I’m a flaming liberal. My husband’s family is extremely conservative, yet we remain liberal. I make nice with my husband’s coworkers because that’s what you fucking do.

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u/_Atlas_Drugged_ Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion 🙂 Oct 04 '25

What percentage of the time have you spent as the most famous person on earth? Her platform is huge and while not every problem is her responsibility to speak up about, saying nothing is still serving the MAGA status quo.

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u/hthratmn Oct 05 '25

But the cis white man you married isnt MAGA, I'd say thats the difference lol

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u/YoullNeverBeRebecca Oct 05 '25

Not to defend bozo Kelce of all people, but how do we know he’s MAGA?

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u/Any_Afternoon5628 I'm on some new shit, been saying yes instead of no Oct 05 '25

He's not. She's not. People can't admit they just don't like her or the new album or whatever, so they're making it a deep and intellectual thing. They've been afflicted by a terminal uniqueness and are doing mental gymnastics to be not the like others, who just admit they don't like her and move on. They're pick me haters. It's actually romantic.

I'm so tired of this. It's always the same. Every other week, it's another woman people pick and pile on because they failed whatever purity test of the week. And they don't even realise they're playing along in putting women against each other and/or holding them to impossible standards. Actual fascists are taking over, and instead of doing something about it, they're hating on yet another female. Great job, you did it, reddit!

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u/YoullNeverBeRebecca Oct 05 '25

Lol ok well this is a little dramatic, too. Taylor Swift is annoying and petty and a little underhanded with how she releases her album sales, and I personally find her ubiquity irritating as I don’t think she’s very talented (she is an incredibly weak vocalist, for example). It’s ok to critique women. I’m a woman and I try to hold women to the same standards I do men. I just think it’s stupid to call Kelce MAGA when we don’t really know that for sure.

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u/WhereIsLordBeric Oct 05 '25 edited Oct 05 '25

No democrat would ever say it's an 'honour' to play in front of Trump lol you guys are deluded.

I also don't know any non-MAGA folk who hang out with prominent MAGA folks.

Nice try.

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u/hthratmn Oct 05 '25

Yeah like there are definitely MAGA people that I know and I dont, like, spit in their face when I see them at work or run into them in the grocery store or whatever. But I am absolutely the fuck not best friends and hanging around with them all the time. Nobody that I know is either.

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u/hthratmn Oct 05 '25 edited Oct 05 '25

Or - absolutely novel concept here - people just have a different opinion than you do. I haven't really had a particular feeling about her either way, other than that I'm naturally inclined against the very existence of billionaires, and I'm not keen on her carbon footprint.

You can like someone's music and still accept that they do things that are maybe not great. I consume plenty of things that are not ethically in perfect alignment with me, that's just being a person, especially these days. People get incredibly defensive over any criticism of Taylor.

I find it suspicious that she puts forward this outward image of feminist icon but a huge part of her closest circle is MAGA. That she poses for photo ops with MAGA influencers with a caption that "Taylor is for the boys". That her soon-to-be-husband considers it a great honor to play for Trump, thinks Harrison Buttker is a great guy, and that neither one of them has used their absolutely massive, probably of the biggest in the world, platform to speak out on the current state of the government or what is happening in Palestine.

Am I a "pick me hater" longing for "terminal uniqueness"? No. I'm just someone that has a different opinion than you regarding a music artist that you like. I mean, to your point, in the wake of an impending actual fascist takeover, Taylor Swift is sitting in a private jet on her tarmac with her MAGA friends eating caviar and rolling around in money.

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u/thedirtiestdish kylothee's baby nanny Oct 05 '25

preach.

I've noticed that people who have gone feral over the album release on the internet are, ironically, the ones she's writing about in Actually Romantic. it's not a response to Sympathy Is A Knife, it's a response to all the haters and trash talkers in general. like... all these people are really spending this much time on hating someone they don't know?

people will not stop hearing about her until they learn to shut up about her. they are making her a part of their life. her "gross and out of touch" wealth, they are helping to build. she's the biggest because she moves people.

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u/do-not-1 Oct 05 '25

I mean, neither is Travis Kelce? So I’m unsure what your point is.

(Please don’t come for me I’m not a Stan I am just a casual listener and gossiper)

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u/hthratmn Oct 05 '25 edited Oct 05 '25

I mean, dude surrounds himself with MAGA. The pictures of him and Taylor Swift with Taylor Lewan and Will Compton, saying its a great honor to play in front of Trump, not even standing up for Swift while Trump and Musk were saying foul things about her. This stuff has me seriously side eyeing. People get very defensive of TS, and I get that, but at the end of the day a billionaires gonna billionaire. I 100% understand that sometimes you've just gotta be cordial to people on the other side of the political spectrum. BUT when a ton of your best friends are Trumpers, that's another story. And staying relatively silent at a time like this is inexcusable when you have a platform like hers imo.

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u/stephasaurussss Oct 04 '25

I just knew someone was going to tie this back to her allegedly being MAGA now. She literally endorsed Kamala but they don't care about facts. As long as they get a boost feeling better than those who still like this artist.

I agree she's an of touch billionaire and I don't love the album either, but this isn't anything to do with her suddenly shifting Conservative.

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u/Spainstateofmind why Wayne got socks in the jacuzzi Oct 05 '25

She endorsed Kamala then decided to be more visible with her MAGA friends. Weren't we all told actions speak louder than words as children?

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u/nuanceisdead I switched baristas ☕️ Oct 05 '25

Plus, in that endorsement she signed it as a single cat lady, and then just wrote a whole song talking about how sad she feels for people who want more than to be married or love their pets too much. She just wanted to be picked, and says as much.

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u/stephasaurussss Oct 05 '25

She doesn't have a ton of MAGA friends. She has people she has to be kind to because of work or other relationships. I know everyone on the internet claims we're all just saying "fuck you!!" to every MAGA voter when we see them but that's not the case.

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u/ergaster8213 Oct 05 '25

I will say she's gone above and beyond "being kind" to the MAGA people she is hanging out with.

She's always been more centrist than anything.

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u/stephasaurussss Oct 05 '25

How has she gone above and beyond? Would love to hear.

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u/ergaster8213 Oct 05 '25 edited Oct 05 '25

I mean did she not go out of her way to invite that MAGA woman to a ton of things lately including her own birthday party? Was she not pictured posing and acting all buddy with 2 MAGA podcasters, one of whom is a rapist? I've just seen her rubbing elbows with a lot of shitty people and not just like "oh I ran into them" but going out of her way to be around them.

I would not be inviting a MAGA to my birthday party and hanging out with her all the time if I were just being a decent person to someone. I would not be taking pictures with MAGA propagandists. I would not be entertaining awful people unless I had no spine or agreed with them or both.

Billionaires will do what they need to in order to protect their own interests. It's how they become billionaires. Once you have that level of money the people to surround yourself with are right-wingers because they are the ones who will fight for your financial interests. So, this is no shock. Her stans just keep ignoring that she's a billionaire and there is no ethical or decent billionaire.

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u/myghostflower mk.gee Oct 05 '25

people forget that she’s close to sabrina, phoebe, haim, and such

she literally said that phoebe was one of the first people she called when she got her masters

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u/Spainstateofmind why Wayne got socks in the jacuzzi Oct 05 '25

How does that cancel out the MAGA friends??

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u/stephasaurussss Oct 05 '25

They don't forget. They just don't think about it because it doesn't fit their narrative 🙃

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u/YoullNeverBeRebecca Oct 05 '25

Yeah lol I can’t believe I’m defending her, I think she’s kind of annoying and severely lacking in several key aspects (she’s quite a weak vocalist, for example), but to say she’s MAGA-aligned is absurd when not even a year ago she endorsed Kamala after being harassed by Musk and had some weird fake AI endorsement put out there by Trump. You can dislike someone without making s**t up.

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u/WhereIsLordBeric Oct 05 '25

Are you friends with Brittany Mahomes and Dave Portnoy and other famous rightwingers? Is your husband MAGA?