Taylor Swift and the Tortured Poets Aesthetic

Culture Study Podcast

Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A listener submitted a question earlier this week that was basically: Why are we talking about Taylor Swift again???? And I get it: if you’re not a fan, if her music is not for you, you too might be tired of the ongoing Taylor Swift Conversation. But I’m ultimately less interested in Taylor Swift herself and more interested in the shape of that conversation: what are we actually talking about when we talk about Taylor Swift? We’re talking about work and scarcity, we’re talking about aesthetics and whiteness, we’re talking about the performance of authenticity and narratives of romance… and we’re talking about all of those things today with Sarah Chapelle, the fashion journalist behind the enormously popular Instagram account Taylor Swift Style.Show Notes:Follow Sarah on Instagram, and pre-order Taylor Swift Style (out October 8)!Read the NYT review one listener referenced: “On ‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ Taylor Swift Could Use an Editor”And as a counterpoint, how about this Bloomberg op ed: “Taylor Swift Is Proof That How We Critique Music Is Broken”As a reminder, here’s Taylor’s Grammy look the night she announced TTPDRevel in the aesthetic of the “Fortnight” music videoHere’s the YouTube short of snippets from Taylor’s life in the past few monthsAnd of course, revisit our third ever episodeWe’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:How we talk about the royals today (especially looking for some questions from people outside of the U.S. here!)The State Of The Food Blog in 2024Your strong opinions on things that, in the grand scheme, don’t matter muchFor our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORESThe future of reality TVWhat’s the deal with JEANS right now (alternate title = Jeans: Help)The Contemporary Jennifer LopezBen Affleck (specifically within the framework of Ambition)The cultural force that is nostalgia (especially interested in how it functions in different generations)Anything you need advice on!You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)For today’s discussion: What are your thoughts on The Tortured Poets Department? What’s your favorite/least favorite Taylor Swift aesthetic? Do you also think of your life in eras, and are your outfits a part of them?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Anne. We're making today's full episode free for everyone. That means there are no ads and no juicy bits tucked behind a paywall. If you want to join the rings of paid subscribers so you can always get the full ad-free episode plus all the bonus stuff, head to culturestudypod.substack.com. It's only $5 a month or if you're already a culture
0:23.3	study subscriber, it's actually only $3 a month. It's a really great deal. Think of it as like an
0:27.7	add-on subscription. And what you're doing is you're making the show sustainable. The reason we have
0:33.4	this as a separate substack is because everything that we make from the show is divided
0:38.1	straight down the middle between me and Melody and having it on a separate substack
0:42.1	allows us to do that sort of straight profits sharing. It's really awesome. It's not how
0:47.7	most people do it in the business, but it's the way that we wanted to do it. You make it possible
0:52.5	for us not to be connected to a massive media
0:55.7	conglomerate where we might be canceled at any moment and where there's a lot less control
1:01.4	over the types of episodes that we want to do. You make the show possible. And right now,
1:06.5	we have made enough to pay Melody through, I think,, the end of June. So if more of you subscribe,
1:12.7	and you can also do a yearly subscription, that's a lot easier, you'll help us keep making
1:16.9	this pod for even longer. Okay, now on with the show. I think for a lot of people, when she first
1:24.2	appeared on the Grammy's red carpet, obviously with with midnight being the thing
1:30.7	that she was supposed to be, you know, she was nominated for and that was going to be honored for that
1:34.8	evening. And all of these clues that we can now see as red herrings of reputation Taylor's version
1:41.0	kind of looming over her and and lots of people anticipating or thinking
1:44.9	that we would be getting an announcement about that for her to have appeared that night in this
1:50.8	bed sheet tangled up white gown a lot of people were like doing a double take of like
1:59.8	well I guess I can see how that works her reputation
2:03.3	you know trying to like shoehorn it into reputation correct yeah trying to shoehorn it into
2:09.5	you know our expectations of what we thought would happen in the evening but if you know
	...

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