I Would Love To Go Just One Day Without Hearing About Taylor Swift

Please. Enough!

Photo by Lionel Hahn/Getty Images

A disclaimer: I do not have anything remotely resembling a vendetta or ill-will toward Ms. Taylor Alison Swift, and in fact, wish her—and her legions of fans—all the best. Really, I mean it. I have on many occasions hummed along to Ms. Swift’s tunes, marveled at her showmanship, appreciated her canny business sense, gawked at her squad photos, and watched her music videos. I even interviewed a Swift superfan once for refusing to join the IDF, which with all the sincerity in my heart, I have to say is the mark of a person with very sound judgment and admirable strength, as I imagine all Taylor Swift superfans are. Additionally, I have the utmost respect for Ms. Swift’s power publicist, Tree Paine, and her work. Long may you reign, Ms. Paine. I hope Amy Adams does indeed play you in a movie someday, though frankly if we’re going for an awards-contender vibe, I think someone transforming into a redhead for the role would be more powerful. Just a thought, idk.

Taylor Swift has been slowly driving me insane. When I say slowly, I mean over the course of about 10 years, give or take. I’m not totally sure, because it wasn’t always this way. Like, it didn’t simply begin when she first entered the mainstream consciousness. That would be far easier to track. No, in the beginning, she was a pop girlie like any pop girlie, and I’m always happy to have another one of those. I bopped along to “Love Story,” and I stopped scanning channels on the car radio if I heard "You Belong with Me.” In the pantheon of late-aughts and early 2010s hitmakers, she had a secure and welcome place.

But then, at some point, a quiet frenzy started to take over. Her power grew. Her fans became die-hard. My insanity started to lose its already tenuous footing. Did Kanye West’s VMAs outburst rip a fabric in spacetime that took several years to fully reveal itself? How did this woman, talented as she may be, become the most famous person in the entire world? Why do people spend their lives trying to decode innocuous details from and about her? Why, all 2023 long, did I watch everyone in my life spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars to see her live?? What is going on!! Help me!!

So now, I am here to say: enough. I want to go at least 24 hours without having to contemplate Taylor Swift.

(Swifties, please consult the disclaimer at the top of this blog before burning me in effigy.)

Let me explain.