I Am Going To Say Something That Might Piss People On This Site Off, And That Is That The Stabbing At

I am going to say something that might piss people on this site off, and that is that the stabbing at a Taylor Swift themed event in Southport does not exist in a vacuum.

It exists in a world where a joke about bringing a nail gun to the Eras tour to shoot fans gets 400k likes on TikTok, or where a reel about crashing a plane full of Swifties gets 200k likes on Instagram. It exists in a world where, on this very website, the one that promotes itself as rational and reasonable, someone says that "Taylor Swift and her fans should all die violent horrible deaths" and people applauded it. It exists in a world where, during TTPD release week men were in Swifties' comment sections declaring they would beat their daughters and girlfriends if they ever so much as listened to one of her albums. And it exists in a world where this week, fans of a TV show (which I will not name because that is not the point) sent death threats to a girl on Twitter for daring to be a fan of both their beloved show and Taylor Swift.

I don't give a fuck what your opinion of Taylor Swift is. I don't care if you think her music is grating, I don't care if you think she is the worst thing to happen to humanity since Eve ate the god damn apple. This is the dark side of stan culture that no-one talks about; where dislike of an artist becomes so obsessive that it becomes normal, even funny, to joke about killing their fans, because "it's just online, it's just a joke". It isn't. It is rarely ever "just online".

And yes I am going to be That Person and say that you can complain about Swift's brand of feminism and debate her position as a feminist icon all day long, at the end of the day, her name is still synonymous with girls. It doesn't take a genius to work out who this event was geared at.

I am not going to sit and claim that by simply not liking Taylor Swift you directly caused this. I would encourage you to step back, look at the bigger picture of stan culture, including obsessive dislike of an artist, and ask yourself how much this culture has enabled this. If making jokes on tiktok about killing someone over a pop star is normalised, how much of a leap is it to attacking kids with a knife at a fan event?

and of course there is the fact that the british media didn't even wait until those kids were buried before using this event to spread their racist, anti-immigrant agenda despite the race of the attacker not being known. all I can say to that is I am sickened and disappointed but not shocked.

the beauty of this album is that it really fully encapsulates what it’s like going from the devastating loss of a long term relationship, to the rebound you think is gonna fix it all, only to ultimately realize that you were using the latter to process your feelings about the former. the songs are so muddled, and the lyrics are relevant to both muses because her feelings were muddled and she had no idea where to put them or what to do with them. the rebound promised her everything she couldn’t get from the ex-love and she fell for it because she was so desperate to be really seen.

Anybody else ever think about how convenient it is that cold sinks and ice floats

as a CSA survivor I honestly think that the number one way to prevent child abuse is to surround kids with adults who treat them with respect. partially because it means there are people for kids to turn to in times of crisis. but also it makes kids way less vulnerable to the magnetism of “wow this adult is the first person to treat me as a human being. better do whatever I can to keep their respect”

the original lyrics for my boy only breaks his favorite toys:

“oh, here we go again, the voices in his head, ring out louder than our midnight sighs”

“i’m queen of the kingdoms he destroys”

“there was a litany of reasons why it could’ve been different this time”

“he said forever, then he blew it up”

“he was my best friend and that was the worst part”

“‘cause he took me out of my box, left all these broken parts, and kept my tortured heart”

“I’ve never been sexually assaulted in a drag show, but I have been in church. Twice.” — local Tennessee mom Jessee Graham GOES OFF on far-right extremists banning books & targeting LGBTQ+ human beings. God is not pleased.

She's a great ally.