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    EldritchDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:08am

    I don’t have any horse in this race but it’s FASCINATING how quickly the mob turns. Within the space of one tweet and fifteen minutes Taylor Swift went from America’s Sweetheart to the most hated woman on the internet. It’s mindboggling how fast the internet outrage machine moves.

    This reminds me of a quote from Terry Pratchett: the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.

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      JohnandMolEldritch
      7/22/15 11:16am

      To be fair, she’s pretty much put herself in this position though. She uses hypocritical faux-feminism arguments like “girls/ women have to support each other” when someone jokes about or criticizes her, but then releases slam tracks about other women (including her most recent).

      Simply, she's been overexposed and overpraised. The internet was inevitably going to grow tired of it eventually.

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      VwolfEldritch
      7/22/15 11:20am

      Because people like women more when they’re damsels in distress. Sweet, innocent and in need of protection. The minute a woman shows serious strength, ambition, a competitive spirit, and basically any quality that is associated mostly with men, people will immediately call her problematic. She’s “ruthless.” She’s a “capitalist”! She wants to make MORE MONEY. Why the hell not? I would’ve loved Britney Spears to have been more well rounded, more in control and more stable so she could have become the biggest popstar yet, instead of watching her struggle with mental illness and addiction, and basically lose what made her special. This is what has kept Madonna going for 30 years.

      Yeah, Taylor is still mentally in high school, and she loooooves parading her famous friends and her cool table. But she’s 100% focused and driven, and those business instincts should be admired. The minute Taylor showed more ambition than a girl is allowed go have is when people turned their backs on her. Even so called “feminists.” I don’t see what she does any different than whay Jay Z has done.

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    HoldenCashDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:13am

    Taylor Swift is not “Taylor Swift”

    She doesn’t make any decisions for herself, and any notion she is a role model for young women is bad for feminism.

    Taylor Swift is a commodity. She was trained and is handled by a small army of personnel.

    She isn’t trusted to make any important decisions about herself, and hasn’t been for most of her existence.

    Maybe you feel sad for her (I do for Katie Perry, not Swift), but she hasn’t really suffered or had to work especially hard (like Katie Perry).

    Before you try to tell me Taylor Swift works hard, you need to compare her to other 25 year old women who are Med Students, graduate students, middle school teachers, etc...compared to other career women she’s had everything handed to her.

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      thereisnodogbutdogHoldenCash
      7/22/15 11:15am

      “She doesn’t make any decisions for herself”

      [Citation needed]

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      JaMarcusHussleHoldenCash
      7/22/15 11:25am

      was 9/11 also an inside job? what else ya got?

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    amgarreDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:07am

    Sometimes I feel like Taylor Swift’s popularity is a whole elaborate joke that I’m not in on. Like in movies when they vote for the nerd for prom queen as a joke.

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      diddyknuxamgarre
      7/22/15 11:30am

      When do we get to the part where they dump a bucket of pig blood on Taylor?

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      amgarrediddyknux
      7/22/15 11:35am

      LOL. Next album.

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    EtruscanRaiderDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:25am

    I don’t understand the bringing of friends on stage just for an appearance. Musicians are people and people have friends in similar industries. Its unsurprising when musicians bring other musicians on stage and have jam session or sing along. What’s odd in my estimation is that Taylor’s invitees aren’t there to contribute to the show itself as a musical showcase. Which makes me wonder exactly what these ladies are receiving from her.

    I don’t hold this against her, after all she’s not known to me. I just feel perplexed.

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      AssFault on the Highway to HellEtruscanRaider
      7/22/15 11:52am

      It’s like that part in Madonna’s song “Vogue” that she was wildly criticized for— “Greta Garba. And Monroe. Deitrich and Dimaggio...” Long before the age of tags, hashtags, Google searches, and nonsequitur onstage cameos, Madonna’s critics accused her of aligning herself with much higher-tier stardom with that spoken word bit in one of her biggest hits. It kind of worked. Perhaps what we’re seeing here with TS’s “friends” is a twist on that experiment. It appears to be working.

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      EtruscanRaiderAssFault on the Highway to Hell
      7/22/15 12:03pm

      Perhaps. What’s different to me is that Madonna was incorporating names into a piece of art, not unlike Swift’s use of her friends in music videos. I don’t see how Karlie Kloss or Heidi Klum are a part of the performance in this case. If you want to bring them out to sing or dance along, terrific (Jimmy Buffet even brought out Patrick Kane to sing along).

      It seems more of “You should like me because these attractive people also like me.”

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    EvanrudeJohnsonDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:08am

    This last excerpt shows exactly the part of Taylor’s persona that doesn’t get talked about enough: she is a ruthless, publicly capitalist pop star. To think of her as womanhood incarnate is to trick oneself into forgetting about “Bad Blood” and “Better Than Revenge.” Swift isn’t here to help women—she’s here to make bank.

    Yet point out that Beyonce and Jay Z are ruthless capitalists, one is told to fuck off.

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      MantiMeowEvanrudeJohnson
      7/22/15 11:21am

      Why? Jay Z raps constantly about being a ruthless business man. Is this a real thing or just some Gawker commenter bullshit?

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      phunkshunEvanrudeJohnson
      7/22/15 11:21am

      No, everyone knows that about the both of them and even the music heads were pointing out that Jay Z’s last fare was basically middle of the road, don’t want to get outside on the margins, pap.

      That was said a lot, actually...especially when contrasted with what Kanye West tried to do with his release.

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    dothedewDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:04am

    Taylor Swift is Not Your Friend

    Are you sure Dayna? Because she sure feels like my friend.

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      DarthPumpkindothedew
      7/22/15 11:07am

      You won’t feel that way when she’s boring through your skull with her laser vision!

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      toothpetarddothedew
      7/22/15 11:08am

      Was it netflix that has the categories read ACTION / DRAMA / COMEDY / SCI FI / TAYLOR SWIFT?

      One of them does, and I think it’s great move.

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    BendypantsDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:55am

    Thank you for summing up what bugs me about the TS act: “By using other women as tools of her self-promotion, she is distilling feminism for her own benefit.” I have nothing against her, per se, but she is the ultimate representative of what sells music today (requirement #1: look like a model, minimal musical talent needed), and I worry about my nieces holding her up as a role model. Where are the Joan Jetts and Cyndi Laupers of today?

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      #notallgraysBendypants
      7/22/15 12:34pm

      Team Courtney Barnett, the lovable goofball.

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      EDXKBendypants
      7/22/15 1:02pm

      I just said this, but Haim, her opening act, is a badass, 3 sister trio. They’re there, but rock is less popular than it was 4o years ago.

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    BIlllingtonDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:12am

    What I got out of this article is that we as a society need to stop taking our cues on equality/intersectionality/etc from pop stars who don’t really give a damn about those things beyond his easily those things can be monetized.

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      Cherith CutestoryBIlllington
      7/22/15 11:48am

      LOL so who am I supposed to take my clues from? Academics? My brain? Lolololololololololol be real.

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      Cam/ronBIlllington
      7/22/15 12:02pm

      Indeed, many critics are taking a bubblegum pop singer waaay too seriously.

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    2DollarzDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:01am

    You got your Jezebel in my Gawker.

    Well you got your Gawker in my Jezebel.

    Uuummm...delicious

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      Max Can't Read (or write on Gawker)2Dollarz
      7/22/15 11:04am

      You got your Jezebel in my Gawker.

      Well you got your Gawker in my Jezebel.

      Uuummm...delicious

      You spelled disgusting wrong. At least Weinstein had the moral backbone to quit Gawker Media when this rag showed its true colors, did any of the self-righteous Jezebel writers?

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      MantiMeowMax Can't Read (or write on Gawker)
      7/22/15 11:22am

      According to Weinstein’s own account, he was fired.

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    Taint NuttinDayna Evans
    7/22/15 11:07am

    This last excerpt shows exactly the part of Taylor’s persona that doesn’t get talked about enough: she is a ruthless, publicly capitalist pop star.

    Yes... if only there were some wannabe-shit-talking website who posts about her every fucking day who would dare to speak on such things.

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