I was never a Swiftie growing up. I just didn’t see the appeal. I thought her songs were all whiny breakup songs. I thought that she was just “dating around” to profit off the relationship and to get some song inspiration. It took me until I was 15 to realize that this was a horrible outlook on Ms. Swift and it took me until freshman year of college to really become a Swiftie
I think a lot of the time we put celebrities on pedestals for personal reasons. We want to look like them, we want to be as rich as them, we want to be as loved as them, and so on. For the longest time, I put Taylor Swift way down on the opposite of a pedestal. A hole in the ground more like it. Sure, I would sing along to the singles on the radio, but I claimed that I “hated” her. Was it because I was jealous? Did I have a crush on one of the men she was supposedly dating? Did I crave the affection that she was seemingly getting from these flings? No.
I hated her because I actually really admired her. She always had this air about her like she didn’t care. She knew that she had haters and that they wanted to see her fail. She knew that she would get slut-shamed for being seen with different guys and that there would be rumors. She just never seemed to let it get to her. Not only that, but she paved the way for so many young girls to be who they wanted to be and embrace whatever it is that they liked. Taylor started as a country artist and topped the charts, moved onto a more pop sound, and topped there too. She somewhat changed genres again in her two most recent albums, having more of a folksy pop vibe to them, not at all stopping her from selling millions of copies.
After a long enough time I realized this front I was using was pointless. Who cares that I actually really liked Taylor Swift? Who cares that I wanted to seem cool for saying that I didn’t like her? If anything, I was less cool for putting her down. I didn’t want to admit that someone who got such a bad rap from men and from a lot of adults in general, was so important to shaping who I was and who I want to be. She is an inspirational woman, a great songwriter, and someone who I truly admire and strive to be more like.