Taylor Swift is a phenomenal artist who works hard in her career, is creative with her music by making songs of different genres like poetry, storytelling, country, pop, etc., and enjoys interacting with her fans whether it’s through social media or personally like inviting her top Spotify listeners to an exclusive watch party to the Era’s Tour movie. People either love or strongly dislike her, and those who hate her feel she’s annoying, braggy, fake, petty, and always playing the victim. However, what the haters don’t understand is her ability to have musical sensibility in the way she carefully describes instances that make fans deeply relate to her music and how resilient she is from overcoming many challenges in her career.
In the past, she’s been in feuds with many artists like Kanye West over misogynistic song lyrics, Kim Kardashian manufacturing an illegally recorded phone call, and Scooter Braun for selling the rights to her music without her knowledge. Most recently she’s been getting backlash from attending NFL games and her actions at the Grammys.
When Taylor hard launched her relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce by attending his football game in Kansas City, the couple quickly went viral and stirred a lot of controversies. According to variety.com, the next game she attended, “Brought the NFL 27 million viewers.” The NFL noticed this peak in female viewers and quickly reacted by broadcasting more of Taylor on the network.
“I think it’s annoying seeing Taylor broadcasted in the NFL so much…” says Derek Leong, third-year communications and media studies major, “It’s okay to broadcast the celebrities in attendance, but don’t prioritize them over the intended broadcast, the game.”
Many fans are irritated that Taylor is shown in every other play, but they don’t understand that the NFL uses her to get their viewers up. Sean Conlon from CNBC reported after Taylor attended the first game, and left hand in hand with Travis, his jersey sales went up nearly 400 percent.
In a speech after winning Times Person of the Year, Taylor said, “I’m just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of me being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.” Many fans can understand the frustration with Taylor being shown too much but don’t believe she deserves the hate from being broadcasted since the NFL is using her for free publicity.
At the 2024 Grammys Taylor was nominated for six Grammys and won two, Best Pop Vocal Album and Album of the Year. Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey were in the same category for Album of the Year, and Taylor won. They recently made a song together called “Snow on the Beach” which is featured on Taylor’s Midnights album. Since the artists are friends, in excitement, Taylor took Lana’s hand and brought her on the stage to give her credit for her hard work.
Natalia Casas, a third-year, early childhood education major said, “People love to hate on her for anything, I don’t see an issue with Taylor bringing Lana up on stage when she helped co-produce it.” Many people only saw Lana’s perspective of how uncomfortable she looked getting dragged up on stage and thought Taylor only did it for pity.
People expect Taylor to be perfect and even when she does a pretty good job of it people will find ways to criticize her, for just about anything. Taylor threatens many artists because she has released nine albums since 2019. She has broken 17 records throughout her entire career, some of those being the youngest artist to receive Album of the Year and the first artist to win Album of the Year four times. This is why many faces shifted or showed fake enjoyment when she announced her album because she continuously sets new expectations that artists now have to compete with. People don’t have to like music or even support her but they can’t deny that she’s a groundbreaking artist.
