The very title “Look What You Made Me Do” a new single from Taylor Swift, seems to imply that Swift was driven to hateful acts by malicious forces. That she is being bad because she is being forced to be bad, by the media or perhaps by whatever else is bothering her.
In advance, Swift’s audience is made up of a diverse group of people, but it still tends to be heavily composed of young women. According to Quantcast statistics from 2013, they’re likely to be college students 18 to 24 in age. That is a time when dating and mating and separating is as regular as getting a morning coffee. It is a turbulent, impressionable, painful period when facing conflict and knowing how to deal with it can cause great stress and confusion.
Swift has the potential to empower young women today. She proved as much in her recent trial with DJ David Mueller. During that trial — in which she contended that Mueller groped her while photographers snapped them together at a meet-and-greet event — she asked for $1 and said she went to court to “serve as an example to other women who may resist publicly reliving similar outrageous and humiliating acts,” according to legal documents. She won her case in a brave and dignified matter. The message that people should not grab you without your consent will resonate with thousands of young women.
It’s clear that Swift is a strong woman. And in 2017, a year when everyone seems to be openly yelling at everyone they dislike, it would be refreshing to see an influencer with a huge following (102 million on Instagram) not revel in spite. For someone with as many advantages and privileges as Swift, this is not a brave clap back to the haters. It seems like whining.
She has a very successful career. She is beloved by millions. No one can make her do anything. But if she allowed her music to have a social conscience and embrace forgiveness rather than fury, she could convince an entire generation of young women to take the moral high ground. Look what you could make them do, Taylor.
She has a very successful career. She is beloved by millions. No one can make her do anything. But if she allowed her music to have a social conscience and embrace forgiveness rather than fury, she could convince an entire generation of young women to take the moral high ground. Look what you could make them do, Taylor.
It would be nice to see Swift send out a healthier message to her fans. Instead, her new song endorses the idea that if you’re wronged, you should dwell on it for a very long time. You should come back far later — rising up from the dead if you have to!
Swift has an awful lot of fights with an awful lot of people (her all exes, Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West). And in her song, she offers only one way to deal with a falling out: Smear the other person. Blame them for everything that went wrong. Burn a bridge. Torch the relationship. The only path is scorched earth.
But you really don’t have to. You can forgive people and move on. Being the bigger person and forgiving has its own satisfactory quality. It might be an interesting one to explore in a song.
Reposted and summarized from: Taylor Swift's new song sends a dangerous message to her fans http://nyp.st/2gqhCU6
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