If you were enjoying Canada Day weekend with friends instead of your mobile device, you may have missed the infuriating hot take John Mac Ghlionn and his puzzling editors at Newsweek decided to launch on Taylor Swift. The American Conservative writer shamed Swift for her “12 boyfriends” of the past few years, which he called “a revolving door of relationships” and said that she is a poor role-model for girls because she is 34 and remains “unmarried and childless.”
It’s glittering clickbait for retrograde social policy advocates and Swifties alike. Saying anything negative about Taylor Swift is now an obvious, and unoriginal, way to grab instant attention. See also Dave Grohl’s recent snide quip about Swift that earned him a flash of spotlight. On June 24, both his band Foo Fighters and Swift were playing live in London. Onstage, Grohl said “We were joking about the Taylor Swift tour earlier,” adding that his band’s tour was self-dubbed the Errors Tour, for the number of on-stage flubs they made. Then he added, “That’s because we actually play live,” implying that Swift does not.
Swift responded on stage at Wembley the next night, saying “My band, who’s gonna be playing live for you for three and a half hours tonight, they deserve this so much.” It echoed a debunked claim male musicians have been lobbying at Swift for decades, that she doesn’t write her own songs, doesn’t sing live. Swifties, the most active of fanbases outside of the Beyhive, rose up and dunked on Grohl. But by merely invoking her, he got a ton of ink about a tour that was otherwise wildly overshadowed by The Eras Tour, which is the highest grossing stadium tour of all time. All PR is good PR, as they say.
Mac Ghlionn went further, and more personal, but deployed a devious writing device before sticking in the slut-shaming knife. He began by heaping praise all over Swift for being an economic powerhouse, spurring hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for every stop on her tour; her status as most influential celebrity in America according to digital marketing experts Authority Hackers and her value to the NFL, which has enjoyed a huge upswing of fresh fans since she began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, a man who knows his way around a friendship bracelet as well as a football.
Funnily enough, Kelce is also 34, and has neither a ring on his finger nor a minivan with booster seats yet Mac Ghlionn saw no need to point out how Kelce might be leading young fans astray with his lack of 1950s family values. For context, Swift has been ruffling up right wingers since 2018 by encouraging young people to vote and expressing support for Democrat candidates and values such as LGBTQ rights; Kelce’s endorsement deals with LGBT-supporting brand Bud Light and COVID vaccine manufacturer Pfizer have been similarly ire-inducing.
My own Swift fandom peaked when I had a 10-year-old who would scream “Mine” from Speak Now on her way to basketball practice. But I remain a fierce admirer of the singer for her powerhouse talent and business savvy, particularly for taking back control of her own music masters. She is, in fact, a terrific role model for both young girls and older women who need to be reminded of our power and potential.
She can drop a diss track with a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile on her face. She dates high-profile men and then spills her guts in the recording studio afterwards, making the drama and heartbreak and even mild neuroticism we all experience into acceptable, expressable emotions.
My only criticism of Swift is that she dresses a little young for her age, but that is actually part of her brilliance: she has hit on an image for both on-stage and real life that her fans can aspire to, and emulate, despite the vast fortune she has accrued. If you need proof of the power of the Swift juggernaut, look no further than Princess Charlotte decked out in a glittery little dress at Wembley Stadium, the polar opposite of the crisp navy sailor dress she wore for Trooping the Colour the week before. Taylor freed up the adorable young princess to shake off all that protocol—alongside her father, Prince William, who also let loose and got in some fine Dad dancing.
Friendship bracelet stacks the world over have so much more power than sad men looking to undercut successful women and set the clock backwards half a century. In fact, the effect that Swift has had is to normalize young women having agency over their own lives.
