STORY BY STEPHANIE KOCER
People that know me well know that I struggle to find a common ground between Taylor Swift and myself. She’s genius, yet infuriating. She’s smart, yet oh so dumb. She’s wise beyond her years, yet stuck in the world of a 12-year-old.
You either love or hate Swift. The media has made her into a debate of whether or not pop music’s biggest superstar is really all she’s cracked up to be. I stand frozen in the middle of this debate. If I say I like Swift I’m seen as a silly girl. If I say I don’t like her it’s as if I don’t understand pop music at all.
Swift’s newly released video for her next single “Blank Space” hit the Internet hard Monday afternoon. “Blank Space” is arguably the best song on her new album “1989” (way better than “Shake It Off” and less Harry Styles than “Out of the Woods”). The video perfectly sums up mine, and what I assume is the mass culture’s love/hate relationship with the singer.
“Blank Space” takes place in a Gatsby-like mansion with Swift and a really attractive gentleman starting a relationship. They’re shown riding horses, having fancy dinners and enjoying picnics. At one point Swift paints a creepy picture of her new love. You know, normal relationship stuff. Then the relationship seems to go south.
The attractive man is calling other girls. Swift is getting jealous. She starts acting controlling. Boy starts to get really freaked out but can’t seem to find an excuse to get away from Swift. Is this not the same cycle we go through with her? We love her right up until she starts to act like she’s 12. We’re disgusted with her when she starts to talk about how she wrote a song about Katy Perry, yet we can’t stop blaring the song at 2 a.m. just like Swift wants us to.
We are under her annoyingly captivating spell. We resent her for becoming a pop diva, yet we rocked her “1989” album sales to make it the biggest selling album of the year.
Just like the dude in the video, our relationship started off great with Swift back when she was singing about teardrops on guitars, but as the years went on we started to feel uneasy when she turns into the crazy girl that paints pictures of her ex-boyfriends in songs.
The girl she seems to be, whether the interpretation is true or not, is like the girl she plays in the video: sweet and sensible one minute, and crazed the next.
But maybe she isn’t crazy at all. Sure, she dresses like it’s 1955 and wears far too much red lipstick, but behind all the press and debate over her, at the end of the day she’s writing songs that get people talking.
If ever there were a definition for evil genius, it would be Taylor Swift. It’s clear now that we cannot ignore her. Like her character in the “Blank Space” video she’s not going anywhere.
And even worse, Swift knows that even when we hate on her, we’ll always come back for more. She may be insane, but she plays the game so well. Pop music is lucky to have her.
