There Goes "The Last Great American Dynasty" Dynamic...

The rats are absolutely going to hate this. (The rats are my fellow Swift fans.)

The rats in question, btw. To listen to this post, scroll to the bottom for directions.

Too much.

It is the middle of April, and we are on a walk with two friends visiting from Virginia. We saunter through the streets of Cobble Hill, away from the water that borders Brooklyn, toward ice cream. My husband (I’ve been married for almost one year and I’m famously obsessed with him, yet “husband” is still weird to say publicly because, truly, I’m just a girl), Dan, asks what topic — any topic — we each know “too much” about. 

It was a nice collection of answers. Dan’s was theme songs. Jake’s was U.S. history. Jessie’s was backyard ornithology. Dan and I took one look at each other and he immediately knew what I was thinking. I couldn’t say mine, because that meant I would have to say “Taylor Swift” out loud.

For those who don’t know me, let me paint you a picture. I will argue about how dangerously egocentric Miss Americana can be one minute and perform the entirety of her God-tier album reputation the next. I will tweet (R.I.P) about how “the last great american dynasty” rubs me the wrong way (more on that soon), but listen to it on repeat later — and probably dance a little! I refuse to call myself a Swiftie, but got first place in Taylor Swift Trivia night (her character’s name in Valentine’s Day is Felicia — oop). I will dip into my emergency fund to see the Eras Tour live in Dallas, but also complain to anyone who will listen that she has gone too far in the name of capitalism (five versions of “willow” and 11 physical variants of one album is unhinged behavior, I’m sorry).

The reason I winced before admitting that my “topic” was Taylor Swift, an actual person whom I do not actually know at all, is because that is objectively so cringe.

It’s complicated.

One week prior to the aforementioned jaunt, my phone was swimming with texts, and for a good reason. It was April 19th, 2024, the day Taylor released her 11th studio album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, also known as TTPD for short. Everyone in my phone (read: definitely not everyone in my phone) was consulting me for my thoughts. Famously, I gave them.

This is very Taylor Swift of me to post screenshots of messages that praise myself.

“Mia,” my friend, Landon, replied. “I thought you were a T Swift fan? Are you out now?” Every time I open my mouth about Miss Taylor Alison Swift, I get this question. It’s my favorite question. The answer is also my favorite answer: It’s complicated.

I will not unapologetically support everything Taylor Swift says and does. I will criticize her — not despite loving her — but because I love her.

I like Taylor Swift because she is a conundrum. She is a conundrum, like all of us —but perhaps more interestingly and unlike most of her peers due to her level of fame, power, and criticism — Taylor Swift, as a topic, is the perfect microcosm for where we are as a society today.

In her newsletter, Culture Study,

Anne Helen Petersen

said it best, like she always does:

“I get it: if you’re not a fan, if her music is not for you, you too might be tired of the ongoing Taylor Swift Conversation. But I’m ultimately less interested in Taylor Swift herself and more interested in the shape of that conversation: what are we actually talking about when we talk about Taylor Swift? We’re talking about work and scarcity, we’re talking about aesthetics and whiteness, we’re talking about the performance of authenticity and narratives of romance…”

“I’m ultimately less interested in Taylor Swift herself and more interested in the shape of that conversation: what are we actually talking about when we talk about Taylor Swift?”

Exactly.

This is not to say that all that is said about her is fair. Because it isn’t. I will fight anyone who says Miss Swift “just” writes about “breakups” (read: factually not true, sexist), or needs to “move on” (it is the job of artists and storytellers, moron!), or dances “badly” (listen…that is none of my business), or “dates too many people” (I love that for her???), or isn’t talented (you write, “I dress to kill my time/I take the long way home/I ask the traffic lights if it'll be all right/They say, "I don't know").

But then, she opens her mouth again.

A text from the morning of July 24th, 2020 and a folklore bracket completed sometime thereafter. If I filled this bracket out today, "peace" would probably win out. "invisible string" and "mad woman" as rivals is so unfair.

July 24.

July 24th, 2020 is a day that I — unfortunately — will never forget. It was the day Taylor released her eighth studio album, folklore, without warning (an ode to Beyoncé).

I was immediately dazzled. It was lyrically INSANE in the best way. It was a sound she had never attempted, but nailed. She was experimenting and taking risks all while, in some ways, going back to her musical roots. Out of all her albums that are “critically” acclaimed, to me, this one deserved the Grammy it earned. 

But then track three came on and I spit out my drink.

“Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train, it was sunny

Her saltbox house on the coast took her mind off St. Louis

Bill was the heir to the Standard Oil name, and money

And the town said ‘How did a middle class divorcée do it?’

The wedding was charming, if a little gauche

There's only so far new money goes

They picked out a home and called it ‘Holiday House’”

I simply could not stomach it. In the Lord’s year 2020? Girl. There is a pandemic raging outside! People are imagining a better world! Unarmed Black people are being killed in the street in broad daylight for existing! And we’re going to talk about Rebekah?

This song, standalone, is one thing. But in the context of all in which she lives and what came before her, it was particularly delusional by her own standards. Why? Because this is the same girl, who, one album earlier, wrote the protest song “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” following the 2018 U.S. midterm elections to “capture her disillusionment with the American political climate” and ”depict the struggles navigating through a flawed system.”

This is the same woman, who, in her documentary Miss Americana that debuted earlier that same year, said that she wanted to become more socially engaged. “I’m saying right now that this is something that I know is right,” she says to a room full of men on her team, including her father. “You guys, I need to be on the right side of history.” But I guess, this time, let’s talk about Rebekah and her oil money, girl.

“It’s not that I want to step into this,” Taylor says about the political climate earlier in the documentary on her private jet, “I just—I can’t not at this point.” What makes something worth stepping into?

Down bad.

I don’t know why it hit me so hard, but it did. I couldn’t believe it. This was an unprecedented time in our country. And after all she said she’d do in terms of speaking up, she opted for escapism instead.

The final paragraphs of a letter from Swift following the surprise release of folklore

I spent so much of lockdown gleaning joy from doing Taylor Swift song and album rankings with friends over Zoom, and making this powerpoint for a virtual powerpoint party in which every attendee does a presentation on something they are passionate about or interested in. I had defended her artistry and humanity and her success as a woman a number of times. On the folkore album, she was vocal about themes like mental health, double standards, and even the pandemic itself. But nothing that I could decipher — not even one line — was about what was happening to people who looked like me.

I was surprised by how much it hurt. Down bad, as they might say. “It’s really basic human rights,” she said in the documentary about women getting paid equally to their male counterparts as well as couples — who happen to be the same sex — staying legally protected from being asked to leave restaurants for being…happy together? “It’s right and wrong at this point.” But in speaking up about wanting to speak up, she set a trap for herself. And I set one up for myself in thinking she — especially someone I didn’t even know — would speak up for my community when I most longed for her to.

A tweet from Swift nearly one month after George Floyd was killed, three months after Breonna Taylor was killed, and one month prior to the folklore release. Was the privilege she mentioned used?

After assessing what was happening in the world in this very “delicate” time, she could have saved this song for another album (tell me this wouldn’t be a perfect “From the Vault” track on the 1989 re-record, a decision she announced in 2019 and was also her life era most linked to this house). She could have added a song to folklore about her aforementioned reflections (God knows she has enough bonus tracks and deluxe editions), or even included an acknowledgment of these issues in her letter about the album, or pointed to educational resources. But she didn’t.

Of course, celebrities don’t have to be activists (It’s dangerous to conflate the two, anyway). No one does, technically. But she actively chose to thrust herself into this spotlight — this very specific spotlight — then dropped the mic. She adapted a socially aware and politically active identity, then shed it entirely.

I like Taylor Swift because she is a conundrum. I am angry with Taylor Swift because she is a conundrum. But can’t so many of us say the same thing about ourselves? What we say we’ll do and then don’t do? What we earnestly and authentically try on and — intentionally or unintentionally — leave behind?

Whenever I was asked about my thoughts on this particular album, I explained this extremely personal undercurrent I couldn’t un-feel. Some defended her nonaction, angry with me for expecting something more; something different. “She needs to stay in her lane,” devil’s advocates argued. “She can’t speak to every single issue.” Light bulbs went off for others.

“The Last Great American Dynasty (LGAD) Dynamic,” my friend Laura lovingly and jokingly called it when I told her my many thoughts and feelings from my lens. It’s the idea that what Taylor speaks to or acts on at any given time is dependent on one thing: herself. It’s the idea that something has to happen to Taylor Swift (or any of us, really) — or perhaps someone she personally loves and knows deeply — for her to act on it or speak on it. It’s interesting what she chooses to be brave about. Are you and I any different?

Part two is here.

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