Taylor Swift debuted her music video for her new song “Look What You Made Me Do” on Sunday at the MTV Video Music Awards and began a new era in her music career. It’s not the video I disliked, but rather the concept of “New Taylor” as a whole. From her marketing tactics to the musicality of the song itself, she is once again capitalizing on what critics call her “victim complex.”
Swift ran into hiding once her reputation shifted from “classy girl-next-door” to “snake.” According to Vanity Fair, she hasn’t made a public appearance since February, and her last album release was three years ago. Right before she released her single, Swift erased her entire Instagram feed and replaced it with a single video of a glitching snake in attempt to raise hype around her new single. The internet negatively responded to her new single and persona. It almost seems that if you make art out of spite, people will echo that negative energy back to you.
Swift’s entire concept seems to be lacking originality, beginning with her reclaim of the “snake” title. According to The Wow Report, this move was ripped off from well-known drag queen Alaska Thunderfuck who “appropriated the serpent symbolism” first. Additionally, Vanity Fair says the song itself is also copied and credited to Right Said Fred’s 1992 “I’m Too Sexy.”
YouTube user “Genius” creates a guide for us in decoding Swift’s hidden and not-so-hidden jabs at Kanye West and Katy Perry. It seems all too convenient that Swift gets to act miserable as she makes millions off of other people’s ideas, both musically and aesthetically.
Delving into Swift’s relationship with Kanye West, the victim role is exponentially highlighted. If Swift wanted everyone to know how she genuinely felt about the “death of her reputation,” she would give speeches, agree to interviews and even speak to her followers directly via social media. However, we know she is using her victim complex for capitalistic gains because not only is she releasing a multi-million dollar album, but also publishing two Reputation magazines featuring her personal poetry, photos and artwork. Genius also points out that Swift is releasing her album on the day West’s mother passed. Whether this is intentional or not, a celebrity with as much money and public relations resources as Swift would be notified about the coincidence.
Her breakthrough single is literally entitled “Teardrops on my Guitar.” I won’t deny what Kanye West did at the VMAs in 2009 was wrong when he interrupted her acceptance speech, but it seems like Swift never got over it. In her latest video, Swift has her 2009 VMAs dress on and says, “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.” If you or I were still talking about the time someone bullied us eight years ago, we’d have no friends.
Swift has been playing the victim role since day one, building her fame early on as the girl who only writes songs about boys who have disappointed her. In songs like “Dear John,” “Hey Stephen,” and “You’re Not Sorry,” Swift uses people who wronged her to further her career.
Though Swift has often played into her victim complex in the past, songs like “Mean” and “Shake It Off” showed the encouraging side of Swift’s message. Now, her new single is just plain negative. It doesn’t look like the rest of the songs on her upcoming album are going to be any less petty.
Taylor Swift is 27 years old, and no one made her do anything. Maybe feeling sorry for herself is just a facet of Swift’s personality, but that doesn’t mean we as consumers should buy into it. As a human being, I legitimately do feel bad for her, but only because that’s what she wants us to do.
Kate Roy is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Lafayette, Louisiana.
