Viewpoint by Georgia Phillips/photo editor
I don’t like Taylor Swift. I’ve tried and have also been questioned on why I can’t enjoy her songs. I’ve come to a realization: Taylor Swift does not set a good example for young girls.
I’ve often heard, “You should like Taylor! She’s so cute, young, and just simply writes breakup songs!” That’s exactly it! She plays the cute, young and innocent factor, writes songs about breakups and is 23 years old.
She’s 23 years old and yet found it appropriate to make fun of recent ex-boyfriend Harry Styles during this year’s Grammys. (She faked a British accent during her hit song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”) Honestly, I hope that type of public humiliating behavior never even enters as an idea to one of my future daughters. I don’t want to raise a brat or a hypocritical bully like Swift. She has said, “No matter what happens in life, be good to people because being nice is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”
That’s sweet. But she’s also said in a song, “I’m just another thing for you to roll your eyes at, honey. You might have him, but haven’t you heard? You might have him, but I always get the last word.”
Honestly, Swift will not be played in my household when it’s time for me to raise a family.
I hope to teach my children that they should make their own decisions and won’t always agree with every boy or girl they date. That shouldn’t mean that they can be a bully and write embarrassing songs about personal issues. I personally wouldn’t want to date her because I would feel a lack of trust and confidentiality. If we ever had a problem, I’d be too afraid she’d write about it in a song and publicly showcase it in the rudest way possible.
If a male pop singer, in comparison to a female pop singer, went on stage and publicly humiliated his celebrity exes the way she does, I predict a feminist uproar. Such humiliation is unfair and rude, no matter what gender is doing it.
“I’m not the girl who always has a boyfriend. I’m the girl who rarely has a boyfriend,” Swift said in a recent magazine interview.
Yet between 2008-2013, TMZ reports she has dated six celebrities. Not that this is a bad thing, but if Swift is not taking time for herself, she will be 38 and realize that she spent way too much of her life writing about boys and not showing who she really was. I hope women can be a little bit more independent by that age.
So, the reason why I cannot “get into” Taylor Swift is not because her music is country music or just not my style. It’s really because her life is not my style.
