The T Swift Critical Thinking Challenge

Many have taken it, most have failed

The world hasn’t stopped talking about Taylor Swift since she kicked off her infamous Eras Tour in March, but the chatter became an inescapable deluge when — as so often happens with Swift — she had a major Relationship Event. Mere weeks into the tour, she shockingly ended her lowkey six-year romance with British actor Joe Alwyn and, almost just as suddenly was linked to The 1975 frontman Matty Healy in a much more high-key courtship.

The 1975 have long been the underdogs of indie rock, if not in reality then at least in demeanor, and they bear the spotlight uncomfortably. Healy himself is the very portrait of indie sleaze, self-described as “quite feminine, a little bit flamboyant, and I occasionally get the piss taken out of me a bit,” and allegedly the inspiration for the rat from Flushed Away. Coming from a place of privilege (Nepo Baby alert!) but with a sizable chip on his shoulder, he also has a nasty habit of saying things he probably shouldn’t — then complicates the matter by publicly wrestling with his persona, whether that’s performing toxic masculinity by eating raw meat on stage or telling Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg that his least attractive trait is “probably my personality.”

He’s definitely amped up the controversy as the band’s profile rose with their most recent release, last year’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language, accumulating quite a bit of baggage by the time he began romancing Swift. As a fanbase, the Swifties are not known for neither their media literacy nor critical thinking skills, and collectively imploded at this coupling. Though it lasted only about a month, the relationship generated so much Discourse that it’s taken me this long to wade through and make some semblance of it, apologies for the delay. Without further ado:

I know a rebound when I see it

Without even touching the “problematic” allegations yet, it was clear from the start that this was not something to take seriously. I’ve never understood the serial monogamist urge to jump from relationship to relationship (I like to take at least a 6 month hiatus after a single bad Tinder date), but I have to believe the time to find true love is not immediately after leaving your live-in boyfriend of six years while also orchestrating a monthslong stadium tour.

Add in uncharacteristically public declarations of love and a man who looks like a half-smoked cigarette, and baby, you’ve got a certifiable rebound! If you’re looking for something hot and heavy and a little bit messy, you could do worse than the greasy lead singer of the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest band.”

With both parties headlining their own international tours, the logistics alone seemed too great for even Swift’s penchant for private jets. This was confirmed following the breakup:

“She will not be writing albums about this one. It was a summertime thing. Does everyone have amnesia about Tom Hiddleston? Jesus Christ.” - via Page Six

So there I was, ready to let my girly have her fun, when the Twitter army swept in.

Dissecting the “problematic” discussion

I’m admittedly uncomfortable with how many words I’m about to use to somewhat justify Healy’s behavior, but if we’re going to have the discussion, let’s actually have the discussion. You see, before we could even come up with a cheeky couple name for the two, fans were digging up soundbites from Healy and using them to quickly brand him “racist,” “antisemetic,” “homophobic,” etc etc and demand Swift break things off. In doing so, I fear we’ve completely lost the plot and the ability to speak about important issues with any sort of nuance.

I mean, did we not all read “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo in Summer 2020?

I thought that was the one baby step we all took toward committing to have better conversations? Anyway, as I recall, DiAngelo draws a distinction between saying “Matty Healy is a racist” and the more constructive “that was a racist thing Matty Healy said/did.” The latter is more conducive to opening a dialogue, and considering whether or not the action of the person in question truly represents their beliefs and/or intentions.

For example: at a concert in January, Healy appeared to give a Nazi salute while performing — not good! Should he have done that? No! Is it understandable if Jewish fans felt offended or unsafe? Yes! Does it make Healy — and Swift, by association — an antisemite? Well, that’s a much heftier allegation. Watching the video, you’ll see that Healy performs the action while performing Trump-era social anthem “Love It If We Made It,” during the line “thank you Kanye very cool.”

When the song was written in 2018, the line was a reference to a Trump tweet recognizing Kanye’s support for his “dragon energy.” In 2023, combined with this clumsy, clumsy bit of choreography, it was likely intended to prod at Kanye’s explicitly antisemitic politics over the past couple years. Again, should it have been done? Was it an effective message? No! But to suggest that it implies allegiance to the ideology it was intended to (however clumsily) critique misses the mark. It’s easy to label Healy a racist and move on, but far less honest.

Another high profile controversy was when Healy guested on his friends’ podcast “The Adam Friedland Show,” in which the hosts cracked jokes about rising rapper Ice Spice’s racial background. It’s not funny and quite offensive, made especially sad as Spice had previously said she was a fan of The 1975. However, in the interest of specificity, I think it’s important to note that Healy himself didn’t say anything or participate in the “bit.” A lot of articles popped up in the following weeks discussing “Healy’s comments on Ice Spice,” which isn’t an accurate representation of what happened. We can talk about the harm of white silence and of being a bystander, but that’s a completely different conversation from the one that was had at length.

We can go down this list for days — people were digging up quotes from at least as far back as 2016 — and ultimately it’s up to you to decide where to draw the line, and how much forgiveness is worth your while (I have a personal policy of not scrutinizing what kind of porn people watch, which yes, unfortunately was part the discourse too). But what I hope to point out is the shift that pop culture conversations are taking away from nuance toward a competition of who can compile the most damning list of cancellable offenses.

The politics of Taylor Swift

Much of the dismay among Swifties was that her allegiance with Healy erased her feminist credentials and the political progress that her persona had made in recent years.

This is funny to me because Taylor’s “political era,” which largely started and ended with her 2020 documentary Miss Americana, was largely a center-left, white feminist campaign that had little overlap with the Healy’s more racially-tinged controversies.

Swift is quick to point out discrepancies in how she is treated compared to her male counterparts, and this occasionally colors policy conversations about women’s rights, abortion, and equal pay. She is also an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community, making public donations and questionable songs (sorry but “You Need to Calm Down” is bad). Healy, for his part, is uhhh an equal-opportunity kisser of fans of all genders at his concerts.

Swift performing at the Stonewall Inn

What she has not done is take such a firm stance on any of the issues that Matty is accused of violating so that association with him shatters her “activist” credentials. This is what happens when you let “problematic” or even “progressive” mean everything; it ends up meaning nothing.

Normalize hating your fans

Honestly I thought that in our post-John Mulaney era, we had divorced ourselves a bit from parasocial relationships with celebrities. But the Swift-Healy romance, however brief, had fans crying, penning lengthy Twitter threads justifying their Eras Tour attendance, and plotting crowd campaigns to express their disapproval.

On the spectrum of controversies, I generally don’t mind a problematic couple because it’s usually good for the plot (Bill Murray and Kelis?)! But also, as someone who has a bit of a reputation for being a boyfriend-hater (sorry to my friends), I’ve been working on learning that it’s not my business to interfere. In the New York Magazine 2023 etiquette guide (aka my Bible), Rule #19 states “If your friend is dating someone you seriously object to, you have one shot to sit your pal down and say so.”

“The conventional wisdom has been that unless your friend is being hurt, keep your opinion to yourself because it will damage your relationship. Our feeling is that you can share your reservations — but you have only one shot. After that, your friend decides what they want to do and you can’t bring up your grievances again unless they ask (no eyebrow raises or passive-aggressive observations, either).”

So there you have it, fire your one tweet off into the ether, and then calm down and order another CD variant from taylorswift.com or something.

Taylor would never turn on her fans because she loves their money too much, but I almost do wish she would take a page from friend Phoebe Bridgers’ book and start openly shitting them. Bridgers has recently called out bullying from “people with my picture as their Twitter picture, who claim to like my music” and in speaking with the Wall Street Journal said:

“There’s a higher chance that you’ll meet a fan that you hate than a fan that you love…You’re way more likely to be confronted with someone who just violated your privacy.”

With concert etiquette in decline industry-wide, I think the fans could use a little tough love.

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Idk I hope this didn’t come across as me defending harmful behavior from people in positions of power! But as much as I believe in conscious consumption, I also believe in context and being realistic about what we expect and are owed from people who create art we like.

And if you’re still so upset that you want to sell your Eras Tour ticket…let me know.

Be well,

Derek