punks on the internet

I’m rarely jealous of the version of myself who drank, the drugstore costume of a life, all bluster and subterfuge. The drinking Niko wasn’t Niko at all, she was someone else, a different name, a different look. Different voice, different walk. That Niko yelled “all shots are whiskey” and took one or maybe two for herself working as a bartender when she was already a little too drunk to be on the labour side of the bar. She was confident, until she wasn’t, and when she was alone, she dreamed only of the end. But I am jealous of her ability to let go and let the idea of her desired perception drive for a night that sometimes bled into the daytime and often continued for days on afterwards. A life run entirely on fumes, drinking and singing and dancing in bars and shitty basements. That version of Niko would not really give a shit about the line everybody’s so punk on the internet from “Eldest Daughter” by Taylor Swift, but that version of Niko didn’t give a shit about anything.

I understand that, to a certain degree, this isn’t for me. Pop music is for us all, of course, and not everyone will cherish it the same. Like shredded coconut and the films Ethan Coen makes on his own, not everything has to be good for everyone, and it is fine that we all don’t agree. A healthy society disagrees on the merits of superfluous little things. I have long described myself as Taylor Swift agnostic, which is not really true because I do believe she exists, and the truth is that I always misuse agnostic when I really mean atheistic. The real truth about it is, I’m more of a centrist on her, but Taylor Swift Conscientious Objector is a bit of a walk. This is all to say when a new record comes out I don’t have any expectations of it, I don’t need anything from her and I have never gotten anything out of the experience of listening to her music so in many ways we have a very healthy relationship built on well-earned respect and a lack of any real intimacy. That all being said, everybody’s so punk on the internet is the kind of line a billionaire should be embarrassed to have committed to the record.

It’s not that the line isn’t steeped in some kind of truth. People act a certain way on the internet, the same that ragged costume version of me drank whiskey behind the bar, which is to say there’s a performance when the curtain is drawn. That performance often becomes this blustery display of false bravado. When she says everybody’s so punk on the internet, I think she means tough, and really it’s a performance of toughness. Like a peacock in a boxing ring, all bright feathers and shadow jabs in the red corner. I don’t think she knows what punk really means, as it asks her to have an understanding of a culture she is not party too and never really has been. That the prancing punks of the internet bother her from whatever heights she looks down upon us from is more an indictment of her inability to let go of a world that no longer is hers. And this is the larger issue taken with the whole endeavour. We do not live in the same world, the streets that know her will never remember my name. She does not check her bank app on her phone when she buys coffee and has never said yes to something that will scar her forever just to ensure the balance stays above zero when she does. It is this desperate desire to remain connected to the world that shines her name on religious icons, while no longer being part of it. She goes on to sing sad as it seems, apathy is hot, everybody’s cutthroat in the comments, every single take is cold as ice and on first listen I had to stop this song entirely and just wait for it—either my life or this song—to end.

I can’t take earnestly bemoaning generalized apathy over a soft and tender piano from someone who has spent the better part of the last few years saying nothing at all. To look at the world and say nothing unless it serves you is the worst kind of apathy, and despite scores of Swifties with Free Palestine in their bios on the internet that seemingly plagues her, Swift has said nothing with her own voice about anything of much importance. I understand that the song itself is about expectations, the eldest daughter of it all, but it rings hollow, and feels selfish in its own way. This wringing out of the cloth that once held so many hardships that has long since run dry and musty. The world is not as hard for Swift as it once was, although I’m sure she shares her failures despite her fame and enterprise. I don’t think her being a billionaire means she can no longer write or be considered a great performer, but there is a humility and joy lacking in this work. She has worked so hard and earned so much, and still the world at her feet seems to pale in the face of her desires from it.

Thing is, this all used to feel different, even when I wasn’t fully on board. Her world felt funny, intentionally or not. A line that was cut from my review of Midnights in 2022 was that the marketing for the record made her look like an influencer from the Black Lodge. I fought hard for that line because I thought it was important to note the cultural touchstones she seemed to be at minimum aware of, but I was told me via email “I asked around the office, and no one here at the culture desk understands your esoteric little references” when I told her it was a very popular reference from Twin Peaks. I was annoyed partially because, look, none of my precious little darlings deserve to be killed, but also because it feels relevant to note. Swift revelled in her little references, esoteric or otherwise, and it feels like part of the fun of her world. The careful framing and the hints dropped in photos and stage costumes. The announcement for The Life of a Showgirl was revealing the record on her boyfriends podcast streamed on YouTube, and it felt less a mystery to be unravelled and more a lead-in to an ad for sports gambling, and another for help with sports gambling addiction.

There appears to be a bitter thread binding The Life of a Showgirl together. On “Actually Romantic”, over a guitar that shares chords with The Pixies “Where Is My Mind?”, she sings to the media-fuelled feud between her and Charli XCX, opening with I heard you call me “Boring Barbie” when the coke’s got you brave with a self-righteous lilt in her angelic voice. There is something I cannot shake here, the way she drops the line about coke making her (Charli) brave, that feels like a contrast to this desired perception of Swift as a porcelain doll. As if the blood in Charli’s veins runs different when thickened by white powder. Swift is someone who is flawed, same as anyone, but her flaws feel inward and self-serving. How hard it is to not be loved enough or the right way, flaws that are real and earned but out of touch with reality all the same. If you lose yourself down the rabbit hole of Swiftie subreddits and Genius lyric annotations, you’ll know that this song is easily read as a response to Charli’s “Sympathy is a Knife”, which is just as much about her feelings about Taylor Swift as it is about her insecurities and inner fears. It’s vulnerable while being as otherworldly a pop song can be, a complicated mess of bitterness and yearning that ruminates on how eagerly the brain can turn against you regardless of your fame or stature. Swift, in turn, seems to almost revel in a feud that has seemingly not been kept in the air, as Laura Snapes, writing for the Guardian,

there is no way to interpret Swift, the biggest pop star of all time, attacking another female pop star as anything but punching down.

What centres me again with The Life of a Showgirl is the undeniable Swiftness of it all, as each strike hits every ball clear of the park. If this record was just the first four songs, “The Fate of Ophelia”, “Elizabeth Taylor”, “Opalite”, and “Father Figure” it would be untouchable. Even when, and often especially so, when the lyrics are slightly too self-indulgent—her sliding doors' moment of either being the woman who loses her mind and drowns in a creek or marries a famous football guy is honestly extremely funny—it’s a good record that is never fully great. I’m not sure if she has made a fully great record in a long time, which is understandable given this is her 12th and to keep up the momentum that built her name must be an astronomical feat. She has said she is tired after nonstop touring and re-releasing records and that same tired feeling crackles in the wax of the record.

It’s a shame that the record loses itself along the way, feeling tired and almost bored with itself, and at times bitter about the stones thrown at the world of wealth and wild disconnect that she inhabits. Midway towards the back there’s an entire song about her best friends being people who are cancelled and it is a wild ride given the state of so many things, especially given her lamentations of the apathy of people. But her work has rarely been about the desire for some kind of collective project. It feels more like a walled garden, one which protects itself from all perceived intruders while promising to let you in.

There are theories, wild threads, ideas, and protective pushbacks on the critiques levied at Swift. Hers is a name that conjures intensity, and this record will be no different from any others. It is impossible to talk about her without knowing what will happen when you do. Her fans and enemies both will emerge from the woods to compare the sharpness of their pitchforks. Her records should be fun, but they are often only fun if they are approached the right way, if the listener is pious and studied, steeped in the lore of it all and careful to never trample the flowers or if they are ready to burn the whole thing to ash and cinder. Detractors will throw insults and claim they have never liked her, heard her music. The righteousness of the outsider, better than all this.

So many of her songs are beautiful and indelible creations. She has made work that will outlive us all, but as her wealth and fame built her into this untouchable public figure, I have to wonder how long the tenderness that seems to bring her fans to her work can hold. Even when she sings with awkward prose about how much she loves her husband-to-be’s dick—calling it a magic wand, which is honestly the most I have ever understood why Gaylors think she’s a lesbian—it never feels like she’s having the fun she desperately wants you to see

On the Life of a Showgirl, Swift's life seems to be more of an act than ever before, the joy stripped back and replaced with the blustery performance of someone who only wants you to see the mask they have slipped on in the dark. I'm jealous of her in my own way, jealous of her ability to keep the performance going no matter how exhausting it might become, but only a little, because I know how it feels when that mask finally falls.

I recommend taking time to read my friend Rax King's excellent newsletter on this all

When she sings "I'm not a bad bitch," is she even aware that she's lying, that she's worshipped by more girls and women than almost anybody else?