Taylor Swift denominates herself an “English teacher” and the Swifties across the world eat it up. To me, this seems like a distasteful joke for a plethora of reasons. It could all be fun and games if it weren’t for the astounding distance between her socio-economic status and that of the average English teacher; and honestly, even if she weren’t a billionaire or if she acknowledged the challenges that educators face, I would still feel odd about it.

The Taylor Swift phenomenon is honestly as fascinating as fandoms get. The opulence of the influence this woman wields is maddening, even more when we talk about the decreasing in critical thought. It also has become increasingly interesting as I recall my contributions to this phenomenon and how I worshipped the ground she walked on when I followed her music. As a middle schooler, Taylor Swift lyrics felt so profound and relatable—peak modern poetry and my inspiration to write poetry of my own. It is no wonder she has adapted this English teacher label when that is the core of her public persona, she advertises herself as just one of the people, someone who writes lyrics that everyone can relate to because everyone goes through heartbreak and everyone falls in love and everyone kind of deals with this pressure, internal or external, of succeeding and overcoming limiting contexts. Yet, she’s not necessarily the greatest example of a limited context, considering the privilege she enjoyed from the beginning of her career, coming from an affluent family. Maybe it made more sense when she mainly appealed to a younger audience. Preteens and teens easily gravitated to the descriptive, approachable narratives of her lyrics. Now, as she has aged, it seems her lyrics did not undergo the same process of growth. It appeared they did when folklore and evermore were released, but now… regression is an understatement. Her last two albums gave the impression that she wanted to put on a mature, highbrow label, but the results were forged and insincere. Swift’s lyricism in most of The Tortured Poets Department was a wanna-be intellectual project. The aesthetic of the record wanted so hard to portray a sense of maturity that was just not there.

Obviously, I cannot ignore the legitimate challenges of being a woman in a male dominated industry that is known for its predatory consumption of non-male artists. Swift learned to embody the product the industry wanted to consume, and that is not totally her fault. It is normal to try hard to be taken seriously as an artist and as a woman. However, at this point in her career, the efforts presented in The Tortured Poets Department and in The Life of a Showgirl, only come off as pretentious.

As I advanced into high school, I started to notice a lot more things that I didn’t pay attention to when I was in middle school. That was when her lyrics started to appear more superficial. The complexity I attributed to them blurred as I diversified my bookshelves and playlists. I also became more engaged in politics, and I kept wondering where the Swift who firmly declared her determination to be on the right side of history during a one-hour-and-twenty-five-minutes-long documentary was. Why was she completely silent when bad things kept happening?

I became vastly aware of my experience with intersectionality, and I began to see the limits of her relatability. I graduated, and so many political events irrevocably altered my perspective of myself, the world, and the people I gave my money and time to. The way Swift capitalized on her art was no longer a demonstration of empowerment; she was just another millionaire more, spewing random words without structure that people consumed aimlessly to reinforce a parasocial relationship.

I was dedicated in my time as a Swiftie. I attended the second Kansas City show of her Eras Tour (a financial commitment from which I will never recover), which was honestly an incredible experience that I do not regret as a whole. Yet, looking back and noticing the extent of my parasocial interactions and my investment in her personal life, I realize the weight of those personal details in my past opinion of her writing. There was so much context that was public, and as a nosy teenager, I wanted to tie all the loose ends between lyrics and public relationships. It was easy to empathize and connect. I was a consumer, yes, but the confessional aspect of her writing added a sense of certainty—it made the narratives solid and tangible.

Nevertheless, as I mention the more that I diversified the things that I read, listen to, and more recently, the more I advance my English degree, Swift’s writing just seems so… lacking. The songs and verses I used to adore appear no deeper than a children’s pool.

The marketing of the last two records she released did not aid my renewed vision of Swift’s work. It just made the “poet” image seem even more forced than before—another character to inhabit only when it is convenient. This sounds pretentious on my part, I know. But it does take me back to the other character she inhabits only when it is beneficial to her capitalistic pursuits: the Activist.

In 2024, during the presidential election campaign, Swift came out of her mansion to deny and refuse any alignment with the now current administration and that she condemned the use of her image and music to promote Donald Trump’s campaign on social media. Yet, after months of silence, her disclaimers appear to only defend her money. Do her activism-led disagreements with the Trump administration still hold in current times?

I doubt Donald Trump’s team asked or paid Swift to use her face on an AI-generated campaign poster, but I also doubt Swift came out to defend herself mainly because of ideals—ideals that had been absent for a while.

More recently, I’ve wondered where the Activist is, the Creative, the Artist, the Poet, the English Teacher, when the administration actively guts out the education department. Where is the devoted feminist when women continue to be encouraged to give up their rights? Where is Taylor, the Ally, when the Queer and Trans community continue to be attacked with government policies?

She’s at her husband’s games, hanging out with people who think marginalized groups should not exist, closing street after street to have more space for her wedding guests, which allegedly included an ICE detention facility director. The audacity you have to have to tell a city so incredibly known for being active day and night, to tell likely entire sectors of workers stay home, I’m having my wedding. I’m sure it’s great that you have that kind of money, and I’m sure that having that power really does give you a rush of something, but it does break the image of relatability—It doesn’t seem very Ordinary Girl Next Door, and most importantly, it doesn’t seem very considerate.

Again, the relationship with a lot of fans is a fascinating thing because they will excuse every single action or inaction, and they will get nothing out of it. The only one benefiting from that is Swift, and she is completely indifferent to everyone else.
Taylor Swift has become just another white billionaire, out-of-touch celebrity with no integrity in my eyes, whose lyrics hold as much substance as the people she associates with.

I do not give as much thought to the increasingly mediocre lyrics of her latest records as would have years ago, but they will be brought to my attention once in a while, and I cannot escape the stream of consciousness that leads to the “reimaginings” of Shakesperean characters that have irked me for nearly a decade and a half, even when I still followed her.

Her use of Hamlet’s Ophelia felt incredibly demeaning to the character’s literary context. It also felt like another jab at the literacy crisis, but I could write another article about that. My only declaration regarding this subject at the time present is this: Art is subjective, and interpretations are unlimited, but there are truths in the text (Shakespeare’s Hamlet) that are immovable.

At the end of the day, people are free to interact with texts however they want, but in this case, Swift’s platform does put her in the position of spreading misinformation through such shallow interpretations of a literary classic. The influence of her words and music can be problematic in this sense. In a time where simplification is the norm and critical thought is disregarded, suggesting that Ophelia, a complex character in the incredible intricate exploration of grief, mortality, and societal expectations that is Hamlet, died because of love is an interesting choice. It feels like a devaluation of the text that is being referenced.

Essentially, Taylor Swift is at the center of the discourse around whether it’s worth to or why so many people give up ethics for money. At this point, it just seems like she focuses mainly on profit with the way that she advertises her merchandise and the million different CD and vinyl record editions. The primary consumerist appeal does not stop at the merchandise, though. People consume her image, as celebrities often experience. This is where the parasocial aspect is frustrating, because she releases an album and her fans run to buy and buy and buy like their lives depend on it. They listen like their lives depend on it… But are they really listening? Is her past credibility with albums like folklore and evermore enough to be noncritical of everything else she sells, including herself? Why is this group of people so determined to fight to the death when someone dares to make an objective critique to Swift’s work or character? What do they get?

I realized I got nothing out of it. I will always defend Taylor Swift and other female artists from misogynistic claims about an absolute lack of talent and ability, but I will not defend her for objectively mediocre writing or hypocrisy.

Capitalizing on art is difficult. Making money from what you enjoy the most almost seems like a death wish for creatives, financially speaking. But Swift’s abuse of her own fanbase with the low-quality merchandise products does seem like a stretch and a sign that she has, indeed, “girl-bossed too close to the sun.” Even more so when the writing she is selling is as shallow as that in The Life of a Showgirl. The attempted cleverness in some of the lyrics containing innuendos feel unoriginal, and I think maybe it’s the fatigue of the effort to stay relevant, as well as an apparent unfortunate coincidence, if one wants to give her the benefit of the doubt. Or just straight-up plagiarism if one considers the absence of a similar pattern of cleverness in her previous work. It did not help that the innuendos and word play she tried to include in her writing were released after Sabrina Carpenter’s success with that song-writing strategy.

Maybe I’m tired of the high school comparisons, and the mean girl songs that are borderline homophobic and uncreative, but I am also tired of the hypocrisy. She owes me nothing, obviously, and I don’t expect her to care about me. I don’t know the woman, but I decided a while ago that giving my time, money, and energy to someone who does not care about any relevant issue unless her profit is compromised is far from worthwhile.

Ultimately, “the [silence] that was the key that opened my [eyes].” I know I am not entitled to a celebrity’s opinion or political views, and they are not required to think exactly as me for me to like them. But I do prefer not to be associated with apathetic people, be it a person I know in real life or a public figure I spend time and money supporting. I do not debate human rights. Nonetheless, another huge factor has been the lack of creativity and out-of-touch attitudes in the label “English teacher.” I am not an English teacher, but I have had many of them—be it that I am literally studying English, and one thing I have learned from all of them, throughout my studies is that using big words in your writing does not equate to being clever, even less so when they are used arbitrarily in attempts to prove your writing abilities.

One could say association does not mean she shares the same problematic beliefs. Sure, but in the era we live in, neutrality equates with complacency because if you are not against it, you stand with it. Inaction does not make you an ally. It makes you a hypocrite.

Edited by Shaylie Muehl