Crystal Aura Gaze

I hesitate to post this because I don’t like putting too much negativity on my blog. But this is something that’s been bothering me for a while. Ive already made several blog posts about Taylor Swift, both about her music and her personal life, so I feel like I need to say something.

If you are a huge fan of Taylor Swift (aka “swiftie”), then please click away. Please don’t come after me!

This isn’t about hating on someone who I don’t like. There’s plenty of artists I don’t like — and I just don’t pay attention to them. This is about feeling deceived, played, and taken advantage of by an artist who thrives on creating parasocial relationships with their fanbase.

The only reason why I know so much about her is because I was once obsessed with her and completely in love with her music. If I didn’t like her from the start, I wouldn’t know all of these details that have stuck in my head.

The false image that made her success.

The first time I felt deceived by her was when she switched from country to pop and released “1989” in the year 2014 — not for the reason you’d think. I was not a country fan at all, so it had nothing to do with the genre switch. It was more so the first time I realized that she built her fame on a fake persona. And then she went against everything she initially stood for.

Many people may not realize that for Taylor’s debut, she spoke (and sang) with a very thick, country accent. She sounded like a girl who was born and raised in the Deep South. In reality, she was born in Pennsylvania (right outside of the city) and moved to Nashville for a couple years when she was a teenager.

I was thirteen years old when her career took off, so I became very invested in her. I was born in the suburbs, right outside of NYC, the type of kid who made fun of country music. And yet, I was hooked on Taylor, the only country music exception.

And that’s why I couldn’t be terribly upset when she began to drop the country thing — it was more so the principle of it. It was the fact that she built her whole career on this rural, sheltered, naive, innocent image that was completely manufactured. In interviews, and in her song lyrics, she spoke of being bullied, being an outcast, and being poor. And none of this was true.

The main reason why I was so drawn to her as a teenager was because I believed that she was different from your average Hollywood pop star — she represented girls who struggled to fit in with the crowd, who were laughed at for having big emotions. It seemed like she wasn’t interested in fortune or fame — she genuinely loved to write and sing. And I think that’s a great role model for young girls to have.

I was rooting for her when she switched from country to pop. But then she turned around and became the exact person who she preached against. She started surrounding herself with an army of Victoria’s Secret models and other super famous women. She kept on hosting parties and hangouts, kept posting photos with them, and declared it “girl squad.” And she was their leader.

This is the image of a rich, skinny, blonde, conventionally attractive woman surrounding herself with the same type of women (most of them white, too.) She took any opportunity to throw it in people’s faces. It’s like she finally got to be that popular girl who makes the awkward kids feel left out.

And it made me wonder… if she started her career as the cool city girl, would she still have had the same success? Or did she reach a certain level of success and then determine that it was safe to burn down everything she built her career on?

I think that people loved 1989 so much because it was this moment of “the underdog made it!” It was like the dirt poor, hillbilly, uncool, naive girl from the Deep South chased her dreams and became the rich, popular, clever woman in Hollywood. But the narrative is false. She was born in a mansion, raised by business-professional parents (her dad with a background in stocks), and she had several boyfriends all before debuting her first album.

Let’s compare to Britney Spears for a moment. Britney was legitimately born in the Deep South. Her parents were actually dirt poor. And her family had no experience whatsoever with business — which is how they fell apart so easily.

Now, having said all of that, I still won’t hold it against Taylor. It was probably her parents and her team who really pushed this curated image. And when you’re that young, you’re still figuring out who you are. In your teen years and early twenties, you’re still discovering yourself. So while all of this is frustrating, it’s still excusable.

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Using politics for self-gain.

This is the part in which her actions are no longer excusable. Taylor built her career on the image of someone who stays out of politics. She refuses to discuss politics, whether in interviews or song lyrics. That’s her way of playing it safe.

As a country artist, she naturally floated into a more republican and conservative crowd. But unlike most country artists, she was mainstream enough to have many democratic and liberal fans. By mentioning politics, she risked losing part of her fanbase.

Once she switched from country to pop, moving from Nashville to NYC, it’s clear that her fanbase became much more liberal. And it’s known that Hollywood is very democratic and liberal. So, it was safe enough for her to embrace that. At the same time, she didn’t want to embrace it so much that she lost fans. It’s all about popularity with her.

In her late twenties, after the massive success of 1989, her popularity started going down a bit. Maybe people were getting sick of this act. Her next album didn’t get any Grammy nominations — which she cried on camera about in her documentary. So for her next album, she finally spoke out on politics in her Miss Americana doc.

It’s clear that her involvement with politics had nothing to do with trying to make the world a better place — and everything to do with benefitting herself. I know this because there was A LOT of criticism at the time that blamed her public neutrality. She reached a point where speaking about politics would make her lose less fans than not speaking about it.

Also around this time, she started speaking out on the politics of the music industry. She had lost ownership of her first six albums (which is actually common for many artists, but still not fair.) And then she announced that she would be re-recording all of these albums with additional bonus songs.

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Becoming a “victim” once again

As mentioned before, the entire persona of being a victim (country/rural, sheltered, naive, innocent, uncool, etc.) is what built her career. She shed this image once she reached mainstream success.

I believe that the entire drama of losing ownership of her albums helped revamp her career and reboot her success. I agree that it’s not fair to lose rights of your own music, but I also see how it benefitted her. It allowed an extremely rich, successful, beautiful artist to once again become a victim — and gain pity from the whole world.

She went on to re-record four of her previous albums with new bonus songs. When I look back now, I do find it to be a little crazy to think of how much money she made selling essentially exact copies of old albums (with a few new songs, sure.) Her fans weren’t thinking about money — it was the principle of it. It wasn’t about giving Taylor more money, it was about taking away money from the man who stole it from her.

In retrospect, did she need to sell these re-recordings at a full album price? Did she need to sell several variants of each one? But I also don’t want to downplay how much work was put into the rerecordings.

The re-recordings also gave longtime fans a sense of nostalgia. I hadn’t listened to her old music in many years — disconnected from those teenage feelings. But by re-releasing them, it created a new energy around it. And then she turned it into the Eras Tour, her biggest show ever. Older fans could relive their youth, while new and younger fans could find connection to her early music. It really brought everyone together.

And then one day… she got her music back. She was able to buy back all of her music. She ended up profiting from the entire situation. The Eras Tour, the re-recordings, and the reclaiming of her old music made her a billionaire.

Did her loyal fans get anything? The ones who refused to play her stolen music before she got it back, who bought all of her re-recordings, who spent entire paychecks on Eras tickets. To me, her fans should get some kind of discount or reward, but that’s not realistic.

And now that Taylor has once again gone silent on politics (even when Trump is directly targeting her or using her music in his propaganda… not a peep from her), she won’t stop talking about getting her masters back. Why? Her direct quote is “because it’s an issue that directly affects me.”

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Billions of dollars is not enough…

As a billionaire with record-breaking Grammys, her greed is really showing now. I was disgusted with her sales tactic for The Tortured Poets Department. She sold a total of 85 variants of the same exact album. The only changes were album artwork, or form of media (CD, digital, vinyl, etc), or an additional track (acoustic version or voice note.)

Nobody is forced to buy this many versions of the same album — but why is it even an option? If you wanted to hear a voice note, you had to re-buy the entire album at full prices just to hear a thirty-second clip. It’s downright greedy and unnecessary. But her fanbase is dedicated enough that they will spend thousands and thousands on her without hesitation.

She’s doing the same thing with her most recent album. And she releases the variants in phases. She puts countdowns on her website for variants, building suspense for the swifties, just so they can give her more money.

And then there’s her merch. She’s selling extremely low quality merch for ridiculous prices. And she’s also falsely advertising. Her towels claim to be the cotton on her website, but people who bought them found the tag says acrylic.

“My pennies made your crown.”

This is a quote from her song, “Karma,” which is loosely about her masters being stolen. But I find it to be incredibly ironic. Taylor is using our pennies to make her crown.

Her team continues to cut corners and use clever sales techniques to make a billionaire more rich. But this is the thing about money — it’s never enough. It doesn’t matter if she occasionally donates to some charities. From her POV, she’s throwing a couple dollars at organizations that help her with tax breaks.

Yet it’s not just about money. She wants power and status — Grammys and other awards, record-breaking sales, and so forth. Her behavior at award shows is telling.

For the Grammys, artists have to actively submit their music in order to get nominated. Several artists have purposely boycotted Grammys. You also see a lot of artists win awards and give humbling speeches, like “I don’t deserve this.” But you’ll never hear Taylor say that. I’d like to see her give other artists a turn.

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But what about the music?

Okay, but can we look past the greedy and strategic business moves, in favor of talent? Is Taylor Swift actually talented? Can we separate the art from the artist?

Taylor has referred to herself as a “poet” and an “English teacher.” She compares herself to Shakespeare. But she doesn’t deserve these titles.

I do think that she had songwriting talent as a child with her ability to turn her life into cohesive storytelling that makes catchy songs. But I don’t think her writing ever evolved past this. All of her songwriting abilities rely on experience alone. In her twenties, she never earned a bachelors degree, masters degree, or any type of formal education.

Don’t get me wrong, people can be smart without degrees or formal education. But with her money and resources, why not pursue it? If not traditional education, at least some type of professional training in writing and literature? It seems like her abilities halted in her early twenties, when she became surrounded by “yes men” who aren’t allowed to criticize her.

Folklore and Evermore had phenomenal writing — why did her following albums fall short of that? It’s because she works with very talented cowriters and then takes credit.

I think that her early career success was a mix of talent and business technique. Overtime, it changed into pure business technique. She’s a billionaire who is still cutting corners to make money.

As someone who once felt so strongly connected to her music, I’ve had to purposely shut it down. I still feel nostalgia from her old music, I still love Folklore and Evermore, and I even enjoy a lot of TTPD. But I can’t let myself listen to her music anymore. It feels like cutting off an ex — it’s not easy, but it’s too toxic to keep in my life.

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No identity.

Who is Taylor Swift? What is her identity? She changes her personality with every album, every boyfriend, and every friend group. She goes with the trends. It’s anything to be liked by everyone.

I fully understand that people change. In my teen years and early twenties, I was constantly evolving. I was exploring so many things to figure out who I was. But by my mid to late twenties, I felt my personality stabilizing. I’m still changing all the time, but I have this sense of stability now.

Meanwhile, Taylor is nearing her late thirties, and she’s still trying on personalities like clothing. There was the country girl, the city girl, the hopeless romantic, the anti-men girl-squad leader, the poet, the showgirl, the snake, the butterfly, the badass, the softie. She was the good girl who never even showed her belly button — now she’s the bad girl who poses half naked. She was country, then pop, then alternative, then back to pop.

To me, this is yet another business strategy. It keeps people invested because they do not know what’s coming next. Her latest album went on presale for weeks without even releasing a lead single, or even a snippet, of her new sound.

This screams lack of authenticity. You’re old enough to know who you are, old enough to find a sense of stability. Your entire personality is keeping people invested in your music. It’s not about people pleasing — she doesn’t want anyone’s satisfaction, she just wants their attention.

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Why should I care?

A normal person wouldn’t care enough to write such a long post about this. I care so much because I was once so emotionally invested in her.

This is what she does — she knows how to develop parasocial relationships with fans. She lets them in on her love life, her personal life and all its juicy details.

I feel betrayed because I fell for it. I genuinely believed that she was a victim who needed pity. I fell for the fake southern accent, the manufactured background story, the multiple identities, the politics, and so forth. And despite still loving some of her music, I can’t listen anymore. It’s not easy, but that’s really how mad I am. When a person is that powerful, you can’t just ignore them… you have to actively push them away.

I do believe that she is causing psychological damage on her fans. They see her as a god. Swifties in massive debt and living paycheck to paycheck genuinely believe that this billionaire deserves their money. She is not only stealing their money, she is stealing their energy like a vampire.

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And yet… she keeps on winning.

Despite heavy criticism against her latest album, it’s been number one on the charts for 6+ weeks (so far.) The numbers keep telling us that her new album is so successful. But I don’t understand.

I haven’t met a single person in real life who loves her new album. At most, I’ve heard some say that it’s grown on them. But the album was clearly a big disappointment.

For example, when 1989 came out, the lady working at Wawa randomly told me how she liked it. It clearly had some cultural impact. But the only success I’ve seen for TLOASG has been in the charts.

It’s not so hard to think that a billionaire can buy her way to the #1 chart. I don’t think that any of this is organic. And I also think that there’s a lot of swifties who feel forced to listen to her music just to fight against the backlash.

To finally end this — ultimately, I’m just a girl. I’m not a billionaire, or famous, or massively successful. Taylor is never going to read this post. So if a swiftie finds this and needs to defend her, don’t worry, I don’t think she cares!