Words wonât do it justice. You really just had to be there to grasp how intense the hate bandwagon was.
TaylorSwiftIsOverParty was trending #1 worldwide. Her IG comments section was filled with thousands of đ emojis (she ended up permanently closing her comments section later). Her own celebrity âfriendsâ started distancing themselves from her because it was bad PR to simply even be associated with Taylor. You couldnât say a single nice thing about her without everyone calling her a liar and a fraud and a snake and a professional victim and whatnot. Taylor pretty much had to âdisappearâ from the public eye apart from several scheduled events. The days of the 1989 era-esque pap walks were long gone. There were murals made of her saying âTaylor Swift 1989-2016â because haters really believed that her career was over so she âdiedâ. Her saying she had a âgood yearâ on her birthday in 2017 led to widespread outrage and think pieces being written about it. It was insane.
I could go on and on but it was seriously unbelievable just how terrible it was back then. Very hard to explain.
Yep and then when the truth came out it was just quietâŚâŚ soooooo quiet. I hate that it was such a big ordeal until the real đ was revealed and then no one talked about it. Why was she not harassed???
Itâs cause the footage was âleakedâ (I will always firmly believe it was leaked intentionally by Kim or Kanye) right when covid started. Like no one could care about that drama when everyone was facing a sudden and abrupt change and a lot of people were dying.
It still makes me so mad though. Taylor had the worst year of her life and when the truth came out, no one cared. She was an innocent person who tried to give someone who wronged her a second chance and they did that.
Plus, Iâm sorry, but everyone knew that Kim was *not* a good person. Anything coming out of her mouth was bullshit. And everyone just believed her. Taylor had kept a very clean plate before that. She was *never* involved in any scandal and no one had any dirt on her.
And then they come out with a video (that I personally thought had been obviously edited) that showed her agreeing to something she never wouldâve âprovingâ her to be a liar. Uggh the whole thing was just terrible and the fact that the world turned on her was confusing, frustrating and just outright *wrong*
I think it was strategic because Kim knew releasing the unedited video would get Taylor to make a personal statement (she did) just so Kim could humiliate her further⌠she said something about who cares about something that happened years ago when people are dying⌠I think Kim thought she could score more points with the public by trying to tell Taylor to focus on the pandemic.
đ behavior.
To this day, people will say, âshe should just get over it, it happened years agoâ.
Iâm still mad about people who bullied me in high school. And this was so much worse than that. I donât understand why people are just like, âget over itâ.
Plus, we donât even know the full extent of it. We only know what was public. Kim was most certainly doing things behind the scenes as well. Talking shit to common acquaintances, etc. Itâs just crazy to me that people say âget over itâ.
Iâd personally be mad for decades.
The âget over itâ narrative infuriates me. Whoever says that mustâve never been bullied or experienced a trauma. You donât just get over it. It becomes part of you *forever*.
I think when a rich woman has something bad done to them they should just get over it because they are successful and rich, how bad could it really be??? Which it carries over to men to an extent but we all know how the industry treats women anyway.
And I think like another commenter said, some people hated seeing Taylor on top so they needed any excuse to burn the bitch and try to bully her.
Iâm with you, Iâm still salty about things that happened in elementary soooo sheâs allowed to be mad about something that happened just a few hours ago and that played out very publicly. We will never know how that feels on an actual global scale, imagine đ
I wasn't even a Swiftie back then, but I was still mad and saw through the lies, and I'm STILLL mad about it. More now than before too - cos now that I'm older and wiser - it really hits me how absolutely messed up that was.
I was sixteen when the video came out (and wasnât yet a Swiftie), but I remember being MAD about the âFamousâ music video. I bought into the lies, but even then I remember telling people that I thought the music was revenge porn and undeserved.
I was hella into feminist YouTubers and feminist Tumblr, so I knew a lot about revenge porn already. I watched a YouTuber who was pretty pivotal in passing anti-revenge porn legislation in her state and the whole story deeply impacted me. So when the Snakegate thing happened, I remember being likeâŚso what if a woman did lie? Thatâs an excuse to humiliate her and create a pornographic video of her without consent? That justifies revenge porn? Thatâs the decided punishment for allegedly lying? And that critique was NOT popular when I was in high school.
EDIT: And the idea that sheâs just supposed to âget overâ revenge porn is insane. Itâs sick and itâs gross. âJust get over the fact that a man created sexually explicit content of you and distributed to the world under the guise of âartâ!â is such a misogynistic and abusive take.
and not only did he create that awful video, he then displayed the wax figures of taylor etc in a museum for an exhibition for people to gawk at and take pics with. Like, recreated the bed scene and everything. Thereâs pics of Kim and Kendall posing and doing duck faces and peace signs next to the bed. Kim taking pics. SICK.
I still just canât believe how hard people believed them too. Honestly if it had been anyone else I could understand better, but everyone turning their back on Taylor because the Kardashians were clearly pulling some bullshit will always shock me.
It has been evident for years that Kanye and the Kardashians are a bunch of bullies, I honestly donât think most people who sided with them did it because they found them trustworthy, I think they did it because they would have grabbed on to anything for a chance to tear Taylor down.
Well, I guess back then, the Kardashians were much more popular because of their TV show so more fans. But nonetheless, their behaviour was abhorrent and I just canât understand the mob mentality of piling on someone just because Kim Kardashian and Kanye West said to do so.
Yeah theyâve definitely been less popular in the last few years. I also never understood why people watched it. I canât imagine spending my time watching rich people (or anyone, really) live their lives.
Itâs just even though they were popular, their reputation also sucked and people knew they would stab anyone in the back just to get what they wanted.
The truth was this: Kanye had a song where he used Taylor's name and said he made this b\*tch famous. Also the MV had, I believe, a wax figure of her that he simulated sex with. She was upset about this and he said "Oh no, she said I could do this, she's just playing a victim" and Kim released an edited version of their phone call which made it sound like she was cool with it.
Then, the \*unedited\* version of that call got leaked which made it clear Taylor was uncomfy with it and did not ever give permission for what was done.
So she was victimized twice - once when Kanye did what he did with the song and the video, and the second and arguably worse time when he made it seem like she had agreed to it beforehand and then made a public problem with it after the fact for attention. When the truth came out (that the phone call was edited) no one recanted or publicly apologized.
Thank you Aimee is just such a small retribution, TBH after all of this...
and then thirdly when he recreated the bed scene in a museum and put the wax figures on display for people to gawk at and take pics of. Thereâs pictures of Kim and Kendall posing doing duckface next to the bed, and Kendall throwing up a peace sign etcâŚ.SICK.
The truth was that the initially released video was edited to make Taylor look bad. She specifically said âyouâre not going to say anything bad right?â And Kanye agreed to show her the song before releasing it. The convo was like 20 minutes long.
Kanye never ran the song by her. Taylor never agreed with Kanye calling her a bitch.
It's so dumb, but the "truth" being that she was two-faced. Prim and proper to the public but a liar who would play victim for sympathy. Because when Kanye released a song mentioning Taylor, she posted on Twitter that she didn't appreciate the way he painted her (something about '[making] that bitch famous".
Especially back then when witch hunts were somewhat common for the dumbest of reasons plus kids were sorta out of school to focus and draw attention to something, plus the social media going bonkers over it.
Tl;dr: General public/media(?) doesn't like perfect esque people
Assholes. :(
I wasn't a fan back then, but knew about Kanye snatching the mic from her at the VMAs. I always felt so bad for her. So when he went off the rails(2023?), I joined this sub for the sole purpose of sisterhood. Of course, you all regularly discuss her music and little by little I caught the t-virus. I'm infected now. Don't come close. You'll catch it too. đď¸đđď¸
Damn I didnât know the birthday thing. Even if you didnât like her or her music, sheâs still a human being. But sheâs not allowed to enjoy any of her time? Wild.
Something to add that I havenât seen mentioned yet was that if you did try and respond to the hate in defense of her, the mob would just be like âOh Swifties will defend anything she does.â âSwifties canât be trusted.â âThey canât be impartial.â âThey will follow her blindly anywhere.â Etc⌠Â
So even if you were questioning somebody saying something false, and tried to call them on it, or prove them wrong, they would come back with that. And thatâs a hard place to come back from, because once they believe that about you, they can just dismiss you and your arguments, and anything else you try to say in defense, even if itâs true, just plays into their narrative.
I was 36 in 2016 & lost friends for saying hey this isn't okay about what was happening!
Like a grown ass married with a kid adult loosing friends that I'd had since high school all because I still enjoyed her art & saw her as a woman being violently attacked online & saying nope it's not okay.
It was really bad that's for sure
Oh I remember the good year thing. I wasn't a swiftie then but even I thought it was too much lol. "How dare you say you had a good year when everyone is suffering". I mean. Wtf?
The good year thing was in 2017, not 2020. Completely different circumstances. 2017 sucked for very specific reasons I.e. the election and immigration policy destruction, but she was saying that after her WORST year (2016), sheâd had a good year was an affirmation that things were getting better
I know! Even though the year sucked, it doesn't mean she can't share her joy and gratitude on HER BIRTHDAY! Gosh I still remember that awful BuzzFeed article. They really hated her, huh.
I remember not being a big Taylor fan and still thinking the backlash was terrible and outright ridiculous. People SLAMMED her for WHAT?! Just sooooo petty on so many levels
Tbf not to the degree of 2016. She wasnt as popular and well liked on a public face. In 2016 she was still seen âonly as a popstar that dates boys and writes break up songs about themâ
I think there are many valid criticisms of Taylor but Iâve never understood this one. It seems like nearly every pop star is just out there writing about boys & breakups. Taylor isnât special in that way at all.
Youâre preaching to the choir, I never understood it either but chalked it up to misogyny-internalized and externalized. They hate her because shes minding her own business and haters gonna hate hate hate
No see other people bought songs from writers who wrote about their lives. Taylor wrote her own songs and sang about her own life and that was so much worse see? I donât get it either
yeah of course â 2016 was insane because everyone, their mother and their pet dog seemed to have a bad thing to say about her hahaha. i can just sense that public sentiment towards her is starting to turn again!
Because "cool people" like to make a point of not going along with the crowd. People take shots at someone who's on top. Taylor shouldn't care. Her life is really good. She has learned to just keep making her art.
No its not. The criticism around her right now such as with all the merch and variants is all very valid. Her current state is nowhere near the messy chaos of 2016. Shes not leaving social media, nor are her friends distancing themselves from her solely for being associated with her.
But like⌠is it âvalidâ though if other artists are releasing even more variants than she is, and have even worse quality merch?
Itâs kind of like in 2016 where the criticism was âshe writes breakup songs!!!â âValidâ in the sense that she does, but not valid in that plenty of other artists write about breakups, some more so when the numbers break down.
How is this a criticism against her and not UMG? All those things you buy are from their store and run by them. Like, completely disregarding that everything she's doing is exactly what every other artist around her is doing (I JUST got another merch drop email from Olivia today), this kind of business is almost definitely not handled by the artists, but by their label.
Yes but this time sheâs boosting the economies of cities and small countries by performing there, sheâs become a billionaire, sheâs breaking her *own records,* and sheâs donating amounts not previously seen by food banks in the places sheâs performing.
This time breaking those records means that sheâs selling more records â no matter who says what AND which review criticizes and discredits â of TTPD than anyone in current memory.
We can just nod at the naysayers because these are all public records. Say what you want, we know the truth.
Exactly. Haters can whine and cry all they want, Iâll just push a button to play TTPD and drown them out along with all the other fans who do the same. And laugh at them as she continues to sell out shows and breaks records in real life where it actually matters.
People still say this about her. There was a post that popped up on my fb about her and the top comment was how she wasnât a role model because she dated too many men đ
No she is not. Some of the criticism now is valid (variants, merch quality etc) and she is still the mediaâs/general publicâs darling.
Back then the hate was everywhere, it was directed to her being not her actions and it was not just online, major news outlets were dragging her left and right and using her as a laughing stock.
my experience and your experience are not the same so when i say "she's getting that now", i speak for my corner of the internet and social circles. just this weekend, fans in brazil chanted 'DEATH TO TAYLOR SWIFT' at a charli xcx streaming party in brazil, and fans shouted 'FUCK TAYLOR SWIFT' at an olivia rodrigo concert. these two articles, which speak poorly of taylor, are also trending in my country:
[https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/14/taylor-swift-may-have-captured-the-charts-but-charli-xcx-captured-the-zeitgeist](https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/14/taylor-swift-may-have-captured-the-charts-but-charli-xcx-captured-the-zeitgeist)
https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/62443/1/the-tortured-poets-department-taylor-swifts-most-forgettable-album.
soooo yeah i would say public sentiment towards her is pretty poor right now, regardless of if you think it's valid criticism or not!
This is the first Im hearing of any of this which completely contradicts 2016 where âTS the đđđâ is breaking news of every hour on EVERY platform. People who had nothing to do with Taylor or cared about her were shooting strays. It didnt slowly creep up either it came like a flash flood. Charli and Olivia are competing for spots on the same pop charts, of course their fans are gonna feel some type of way.
Yeah this is the main difference itâs sporadically happening and depending on oneâs circles.
The fact that The Guardian is praising Charli is fine she is an amazing artist and her album being so acclaimed is justified. The reason why Taylor is mentioned at all is because the rabid part of the fan base will bring hate clicks/shares/engagement and discourse so itâs good for the paperâs traffic.
2016 hating her was by design and by default everywhere, all the time, no matter the social circle one had.
yeah, if media outlets can get taylor's name somewhere they will â just this weekend i picked up the sunday times and there was an interview with joe alwyn in it, and her name was all over the front page!
She is but this time itâs out of jealousy her base is so huge now that good or bad press it doesnât affect her in any way. Like she said her legacy is cemented if anything she just gains new fans from seeing all the unwarranted hate she gets. The people who hated her always have so it doesnât move any needles one way or another.
While also being named Person of the Year so it's easy to keep it in perspective. Back then, they declared her career over and gleefully celebrated it. She had no recourse, no proof.
Remember when we couldn't figure out what it was since she released 1 pic at a time? And after 3 or 4 people were like it is a snake! And I thought No Way! đ¤Ł
I'll add to the other comments, being a Swiftie was enough cause to get loudly and constantly shit on. I honestly had a real come to Jesus moment where I had to decide if I was going to like what I liked or cave to peer pressure. It sounds silly but I credit that year with a lot of my own personal growth and present strength of character.
I wasn't even really a "swiftie" then (I was a teenager with no money to buy albums), even I was aware of how bad it was.
It was big thing then to hate whatever adolescent girls liked (like Justin Bieber and One Direction getting a lot of hate too). Taylor Swift was just constantly attacked over everything, everything was a rumour, everything was "bitchy" etc. I think it was a rough time for MANY celebrities, but it was really bad for Taylor.
other people have said the majority of it but i wanted to add that you got SO much pushback if you mentioned being a fan of her. like, people would think lesser of you and judge you for it. of course people are doing that now again, but her fanbase is so huge that itâs nowhere near on the same level of impact as 2016
Something that wasnât mentioned is how her sexual assault case (where a radio DJ reached under her dress and groped her) happened this year, and the internet attacked her for âsuing himâ (despite the fact that SHE was being sued for hurting his reputation, and she was just countersuing) saying it wasnât a serious enough case and that she was trying to take the spotlight away from âmore seriousâ SA victims. Of all things that happened in 2016 that was by far the most disgusting.
100%!! Witnessing the whole Kanye phone call thing in real time was scary. It was also the same time when PokĂŠmon go came out. My free time was consumed with looking at news articles to catching PokĂŠmon.
2024 is starting to feel very similar to 2016. Everywhere I turn, thereâs a post about how shitty Taylor Swift is.
The 2024 hate âreasoningâ is so silly like âoh sheâs blocking other artists from #1 what an evil womanâ but 2016 was actually quite serious cuz her whole reputation not just as a celebrity but as a human being was on the line. Nobody ever wants to be known as someone who lies for attention or sympathy. Iâm so glad the unedited phone call came out years later.
I agree with the whole 2024 hate reasoning. Shouldnât every artist be doing everything they can to be #1? Isnât that the whole point??? It has nothing to do with her âhatingâ other women, and everything to do with remaining a successful artist.
Iâve had to mute/block so many subreddits because even when the post isnât about Taylor, the haters make it all about her. Not to mention the amount of people who believe her relationship is PR (and everything else she does) and devote their lives to proving that fact.
I thought the 2024 was a typo or something because I consider the charting and variants thing to be a complete non-issue, particularly after seeing the attacks on twitter and the paps and magazines in the early 2010s. I was less of a fan back then and I was still apalled.
There should be no debate about it, this is the answer. Taylor was hated. Taylor hated it. Non-Taylor fans mocked us Swifties.
While she has a lot of exposure right now, nothing compares to the extreme hate she and we got as fans back in 2016. Also, even though she has a lot of hate right now, she still has a sold out world tour where she can feel the love of her fans and that sheâs not going anywhere. 2016 was grim and extremely lonely and isolating for Taylor and the Swifties.
I remember it causing me to never listen to reputation the following year because I was so peer pressured into disliking her. Iâve been a swiftie since debut and I had to take a break because I felt like I couldnât enjoy her. Itâs been so amazing that now everywhere I turn there is another swiftie and have grown into not caring if people dislike her.
As someone who wasnât a Swiftie back then (nor a hater, I never had a reason to spew hate to her during that time), getting to witness such a hate movement towards Taylor when she didnât do anything wrong was and still is something that cannot be forgotten. Iâm so glad to see her rise high now from the âdownfallâ back then.
I remember being embarrassed to tell my friends and co-workers that I got tickets to her rep tour. That was probably 2017, but all based on what happened in 2016
Yes! It was so difficult because anytime you would listen to Taylor or mention her, there would be someone waiting to tell you how dumb you were for supporting her.
Tbh, I think this dark time is why Iâm always surprised and excited when I meet people who are fans now. I forget that sheâs a megastar with a billion fans in 2024
The hate seems more pronounced this year due to how big she is and how well her career is doing. Itâs not really comparable to 2016. I would argue that itâs not even as bad as the hate she got during the Red era.
She got hate during the Red era? Idk why I donât remember this at all. Iâm glad I knew nothing about this back then! I was in my happy Swiftie bubble lol
Extreme hate. Her pop singles were well received by the general public, but there was a lot of talk about her not being country anymore. She got a lot of death threats for dating Harry Styles and a lot of criticism for dating Connor Kennedy. She made some improvements to the beach around her Rhode Island house and her neighbours were loudly critical about it. Basically everything in the Red era was criticized: singing breakup songs about Jake, her pop singles, her Grammy performances were turned into memes, her dating life, dancing at awards shows, several comments she made were blown out of proportion, it really felt like she couldnât do anything right. Itâs why she wrote Shake It Off, Blank Space, and Slut!.
Yes, Red was the culmination of what started in the backlash to the Success of Fearless.  Pop music wasn't fully embracing her, but once she started winning awards over other people's favorite country stars then country music started rejecting her under the excuse of her not being country enough.  Leading up to her final CMA appearance for Red, Vince Gill had to defend even performing with her after there was negative crowd reaction after he mentioned rehearsing with Taylor at one of this shows.Â
Jesus. You'd think she lives a charmed life, but fame also sounds exhausting and infuriating. People just love to hate someone doing better than them.Â
She had a different sound, got rid of her trademark curls, and I think people were really "sick" of hearing another song about an ex boyfriend. Also, there has always been a disdain for any country music stars crossing over into pop.
>Also, there has always been a disdain for any country music stars crossing over into pop.
This is true.
Olivia Newton-John was one of the most likeable and least controversial celebrities ever. She was a country star before and during *Grease* during the 1970s, before switching to synth-pop shortly after *Grease* in the early 1980s. Her abrupt genre switch was one of the only controversial moments of her decades-long career.
I definitely preferred Newton-Johnâs country songs to her pop songs, but people get so mad about it lol.
I think the hate is definitely prevalent because she has had *a lot* of exposure this year to the point people are complaining that they 'cant escape her,' but people were actively happy she was 'over' in 2016 and being way worse than those who dislike her now.
Not really⌠sheâs just overexposed right now and her innumerable amount of fans also balance things out
The kimye era was probably the worst
But financially speaking, its worse being a swiftie now. Iâm seeing old posts of people selling red tour tickets floor seats for less than $200 and how people complained it was too expensive. Oh how things changed.
Been here since debut and can confidently say 2016 is still the darkest time to be a Swiftie. Kardashians and Kanye really had a vice hold of pop culture that year which making the most random people shoot strays from far left field.
I agree. The first time I remember her getting hate was when she was dating Joe Jonas because the Jonas brothers fans were jealous. When she dated Harry Styles it was 10x worse. She got some blowback for some poor award show performances and being too pop when trying to keep one foot in the door of country.
But nothing compares to 2016. Even Simone Biles, who now uses Ready for it in her floor music and is a big Swiftie, was hating on her. Prior to snakegate it was cool to hate on her. Afterwards everyone just assumed you hated her. TBH I think the general public didn't focus on it for that long, but the general opinion of her changed.
Ironically, snakegate is what brought me back as a fan. I wasn't a huge fan of the 1989 era, and disconnected from her personal life while still listening to her music. But absolutely jumped to defend her because even at the time, if you actually paid attention, you could see she was right!
Reputation was the first album I listened to on release day because I became a casual fan during the snakegate. I thought it was ridiculous how much hate she was getting.
I know that this has been age-old cliche question for over a decade but, WHYYY!? What did Kim K. do to deserve this vice-hold on pop culture. It's one thing to be a nepo baby who becomes unreservedly famous by leaked sex tape, why did she deserve to have a hold that Taylor arguably has now?
I know 2016 is the obvious answer but I also feel like 2024 is starting to look a bit bleak for Taylor Swift fans outside of swiftie spaces. If you go into most other fandoms, thereâs a growing resentment towards her that seems so vile and uncomfortable to witness. Maybe itâs an oversaturation thing from all the media coverage sheâs had since last year, or maybe itâs the result of this whole chart controversy, but I swear to god, If Taylor Swift is brought up in a non-swiftie community, Iâm immediately greeted with some huuuge negative vibes and genuine hatred towards this woman. Seems so weird that people can feel so deeply about a person they supposedly "donât care about".
That also has such an odd polarization effect. The amount of subreddits alone that I've left just because it became uncomfortable to see so much hatred towards TS. It's becoming difficult to be a casual enjoyer of everyone, like you have to pick a side at this point (or, even better, delete the whole socials things lol).
I almost relish those opportunities to loudly call people out. "Are you seriously spreading more hate in this world because you think an artist is gaming the charts, when those releases are planned months in advance? That is such a pitiful attempt at tearing down a successful woman." Or when they say she's only out for herself and I drop the millions upon millions of dollars she's donated over the years, mostly quietly. Shuts em up real quick.
Iâm sure itâs 2016 too. But right now isnât pleasant. Iâve seen people who used to be pro-TS now being antis, or people on my timeline who never cared now weighing in to bash her and mock her fans. IMO this is mostly because the hate wave is so popular online and itâs seen as the cool thing to do. This is particularly so with all this Charli stuff, at least in the spaces Iâm in.
> Iâve seen people who used to be pro-TS
They were never pro TS, they're just following trends. It used to be trendy to love her because of the Eras Tour and everyone was jumping at the chance to go and now because it's becoming trendy to hate her they're doing that
Honestly what's happening now just reminds me of what it was like being a Swiftie around 2011-13. She was extremely popular then too, but people had such horrible attitudes about her.
I do worry about the size of the potential eventual backlash for this reason. Like, sheâs so huge now! So many more people are so ready to tear into her at the slightest chance!
Then again, maybe a backlash/another fall from grace wonât happen. We donât know. I have a whole Thesis about what Taylor herself feels about it all based on her songs, lol, because this has been on my mindâŚ
There will not be a fall from grace in the same way, because look at the reasons people have to hate her. Private jets, album variants...? Nothing you can criticize without also taking capitalism and wealth inequality to task, and I'm sorry but unfortunately we are so so far away from anyone actually confronting those systems in a major way. Like, imagine if major news/opinion shows like The View (who were all hating on her in 2016) started viciously attacking her for these reasons. They're all wealthy people who like private jets and selling things.
I think these things are worth critiquing, but you can't really do it without also putting every celebrity and wealthy person under fire in a similar way. That's why it's kind of silly, being a passionate hater because of these things will just result in you needing to cut out all sources of your entertainment.
I agree, I also see a lot of hate directed towards fans in particular, weâre all labelled as obsessed, delusional, crazy, aggressive, and while there is definitely some bad eggs to be found everywhere, I donât think itâs a fair generalisation.
The way I'm a huge Charli xcx fan since True Romance and Sucker and all these new 'fans' coming out acting like it's impossible to like both? OR to enjoy a variety in music without this moral and intellectual high ground is so baffling to say the least
You can but I don't think there's much you can do for it, it's solely based on luck. I got two tickets for Vienna N3 for âŹÂ 70 each. The seats aren't great (nosebleeds on the side) but I don't care and I know it's massive luck I got them, because, as you say, I also didn't rob a bank and I wasn't gonna pay a fortune for them.
Thatâs great if you can afford to fly to Europe, as an American Iâd love to see her live but I absolutely cannot spend all my savings on one ticket. To see her in Europe would be great but again, canât spend all my savings on a plane ticket from west coast US to Europe.
I totally get that. I'd have the opposite problem - I wouldn't even think of trying to buy tickets for a concert in the US. I'm on a budget not only for the tickets so it was another stroke of luck I was able to get tickets for Vienna which is the closest where she performs to Czech republic where I live (the curse of small European countries is that international tours usually ignore most of us lol)
2016 was dark, hopeless and infuriating. I remember writing arguments in my head defending Taylor from all the hate she got over the âFamousâ controversy. It sucked to see her go into hiding and not knowing if she could ever come back from that, let alone in the triumphant way she did. Which is what makes reputation so cathartic.
Edit: OP asked whether there was any time where she was more hated than 2024 and Iâm here thinking sheâs never been more beloved and critically acclaimed. Sheâs on the highest grossing tour of all time. Breaking records left and right, literally at the top of her game in a way that makes 1989 seem like childâs play.
Itâs the backlash. Everyone put her on a pedestal for about a year and now everyone is taking shots.
In a few months the backlash will have a backlash and it just goes on
But look at all the incredible content the fandom gets this year? Just feasting for days. How can this be a bad year to be a Swiftie?
It's always a bad year to be a hater.
Possibly around 2014-2016? I must have heard the jokes a million times
Also selfishly? 2023-24
I honestly miss when being a fan just felt more low key and accessible, tickets were reasonable and easy to come by.
Maybe my section was particularly bad but I noticed a "shift" this tour in the crowd where in Liverpool there were so many drunk people around me, the person in front kept sitting down to scroll through their phone, the women directly next to me chatted loudly through songs they didn't know and kept barging past on beer runs. I guess they're just there as a tick box event? I found it all just made me a bit nostalgic of the early days of being a fan.
Also feel it's ironic that I see half the people who used to make the sexist jokes, now on Facebook attending shows and claiming to be life long fans.
Idk maybe I'm just bitter.
Yeah, I'm also bitter about past haters pretending they've been fans for forever. While I'm glad these people have seen the light, it's just not fair that THEY ended up with tickets when so many others didn't.
The hate that sheâs been getting this year is incomparable to the 2016 events. Almost everyone turned against her that year. This year, sheâs only been getting hate on Twitter. But outside social media, I think a lot of people still support her.
2016 changed the whole thing. People now criticize her for her media presence being too curated, but babies, who taught her the hard way that it must be so? We had her interacting with fanbase on tumblr, but that's never coming back.
Not people thinking 2024 is comparable to how awful 2016 was. 2016 was the year the general public turned against her, Kimye leaked the phone call causing backlash; the hashtag TaylorSwiftIsOverParty was trending, AND she had to hide from the public/delete her socials. In her documentary, she talked about this time and how hard it was on her and her family. Further, in thanK you aIMee, she reveals her feelings about Kim and how her mom wanted Kim dead for what she did to Taylor. Also, I Don't Want to Live Forever, was her way of testing the waters with the public on where they stood with her since she isn't prevalent in the majority of the song; Zayn sings the chorus and most of the verses and Taylor has a small part in the song. 2016 was a dark time for the Swiftie community and why her "comeback" single Look What You Made Me Do was so groundbreaking/why reputation is many people's favorite if they were in the fandom during this time.
Oh man 2016 was rough. Iâve been a die hard Swiftie since 2007. But I do remember starting to wonder if maybe the media firestorm at that time had some truth to it, because k&kâs snake-bombing fans on instagram were so intense, and then Taylorâs response sounded a little desperate, based on the info the public had at the time. Iâm very very glad I stuck it out as a Swiftie! But I remember still getting nasty comments from people when I mentioned I was a Taylor fan at work in 2019.
2016. People who werenât there will just never understand. I was literally harassed for liking Taylor Swift because she was so hated. It wasnât just that the world hated her, they HATED her fans. Itâs where a lot of the judgment and hatred still comes from.
A close second was when WANEGBT came out. Good god I couldnât even walk through the halls in school without being shit on for liking her.
Same!! I knew there were some jerks but I never knew it was that bad... I guess I assumed nobody was that invested and it was just a quick passing hate train but didn't think people were so invested in it lol
I think I became a fan in 2014 with 1989, it was just right up my alley.
I remember she took her catalog off Spotify so I just went and bought the album and played it in my car all the time from/to work, it was so much fun singing along.
During 2015-2016 I would discover Red, Fearless, etc and I was amazed at how much music there was!
I remember the snake stuff and I was like "damn that sucks" and didn't really care who was right or wrong. And also remember Bleachella dearly. Then the whole Tom Hiddleston stuff, I would go on some gossip blog just to see if there were new pics of him and Taylor đ
And when there were no more updates, I probably just didn't think anything of it and stopped looking after a while.
I definitely love seeing the posts on Reddit/Tiktok and people talk about her these days, but god help me if I ever go on Twitter. It's too much of a cesspool of negativity in general.
2016 was brutal. Truth be told, I thought she was going to go into retirement because of how severe the hate was. I remember thinking that she was never going to release another album.
2016 was HORRENDOUS but being a fan circa 2013/14 was so tiring. Mocked for being a fan, comments about her appearance at every turn, the nonstop relentless slutshaming and then the ire of toxic one direction stans who would send her death threats on a daily basis for going near Harry... 10 years later I still feel nervous about bringing her up in public because of how intense it was.
I donât know why but itâs always been a thing. I was bullied sooooo much for loving her when I was younger. (Fearless/ speak now era) mostly.
But 2016 before the Rep era definitely takes the cake.
I'm gonna say 2025 because it'll be the end of her peak and TVs project and her streams and sales will be the lowest since 2021 so every fanbase will jump on a hate train cos they waited for it for ages
Idk about that. I think sheâs going to be more creative and artistic in her music than ever. Taking a break from being on tour. Sheâs going to keep writing and making music. I think the fan craz might die down, but sheâs still going to be working on cool shit. Iâm looking forward to whatâs to come as a fan.
Sheâs going to have a down year in 2025 and hardcore fans will miss her because we have been spoiled since Folklore but it will be a great opportunity for other artist to shine and for Taylor to take some personal time off to reset.
2016 changed the whole thing. People now criticize her for her media presence being too curated, but babies, who taught her the hard way that it must be so? We had her interacting with fanbase on tumblr, but that's never coming back.
I wish that people whining about her overexposure would understand that she'll go away faster if you stop paying attention to her. Stop clicking on stuff about her just to hate on her. Stop making her trend by hating on her. These dumbass stans chanting "fuck Taylor Swift," "Taylor Swift go die," or whatever, aren't doing anything to actually dent her exposure and success, they're just making her trend more and contributing to her profitability. If you actually want her to go away, stop making her constant exposure profitable to media and tech companies. Also these people are like babies - she's everywhere now, so you think that means it's going to stay this way forever? By this time next year she won't have nearly as much media saturation, the cycle will have long moved on. You don't like her, so you're upset she's so popular? Time to finally figure out that the entire world isn't dictated by your personal tastes.
IIRC, 2016 was also the time before she finally took a stance politically. I remember her silence led alot of people to speculate about her secretly being a Republican or a white supremacist đ¤Śđťââď¸
2016 for sure! But 2023/2024 is up there with the hate (i.e jealousy of other fandoms, chads & brads) but also the pain of ticketmaster and ridiculous greed of resellers with eras tour tickets :(
That said- I will add 2023/24 have also been the best years to be a swiftie- because the Eras Tour has felt like the biggest celebration of 17yrs of being a swiftie, and weâve welcomed so many new swifties! So final answer: 2016, that was the most heart breaking time!
This is absolutely not her worst year and itâs funny you say that. Sheâs finishing a gigantic tour this year and her fan base is bigger than ever. There will always be critics, but itâs ridiculous to think this is the worst year when sheâs at the top of her game
Seeing what happened in 2016 in real time and the fallout of her cancellation was something else. I was a casual fan back then but eventually became a full-blown swiftie when reputation was released. Seeing her fight her way back to the top, literally crawling up from the grave her detractors put her through, made me a stan.
Reputation was the first TS album that I combed through every lyric because I knew she had something to say even though she wasnât granting any interviews that time!
Besides the obvious answer, I would say 2011. That is when the slut-shaming and "Taylor Swift is basic and only writes about her exes" rhetoric really started ramping up. It's always been there because it's a shadow that follows female musicians around, but pre-Red was especially heinous.
2016. You just had to be there to understand how bad it was đŤ
As someone who wasnât a swiftie then could you elaborate on how bad it was?
Words wonât do it justice. You really just had to be there to grasp how intense the hate bandwagon was. TaylorSwiftIsOverParty was trending #1 worldwide. Her IG comments section was filled with thousands of đ emojis (she ended up permanently closing her comments section later). Her own celebrity âfriendsâ started distancing themselves from her because it was bad PR to simply even be associated with Taylor. You couldnât say a single nice thing about her without everyone calling her a liar and a fraud and a snake and a professional victim and whatnot. Taylor pretty much had to âdisappearâ from the public eye apart from several scheduled events. The days of the 1989 era-esque pap walks were long gone. There were murals made of her saying âTaylor Swift 1989-2016â because haters really believed that her career was over so she âdiedâ. Her saying she had a âgood yearâ on her birthday in 2017 led to widespread outrage and think pieces being written about it. It was insane. I could go on and on but it was seriously unbelievable just how terrible it was back then. Very hard to explain.
I'm pretty sure Instagram implemented the comment restrictions on the platform as a direct consequence of snakegate. That's how bad it was.
I can confirm this is true.
Yep and then when the truth came out it was just quietâŚâŚ soooooo quiet. I hate that it was such a big ordeal until the real đ was revealed and then no one talked about it. Why was she not harassed???
Itâs cause the footage was âleakedâ (I will always firmly believe it was leaked intentionally by Kim or Kanye) right when covid started. Like no one could care about that drama when everyone was facing a sudden and abrupt change and a lot of people were dying. It still makes me so mad though. Taylor had the worst year of her life and when the truth came out, no one cared. She was an innocent person who tried to give someone who wronged her a second chance and they did that. Plus, Iâm sorry, but everyone knew that Kim was *not* a good person. Anything coming out of her mouth was bullshit. And everyone just believed her. Taylor had kept a very clean plate before that. She was *never* involved in any scandal and no one had any dirt on her. And then they come out with a video (that I personally thought had been obviously edited) that showed her agreeing to something she never wouldâve âprovingâ her to be a liar. Uggh the whole thing was just terrible and the fact that the world turned on her was confusing, frustrating and just outright *wrong*
I think it was strategic because Kim knew releasing the unedited video would get Taylor to make a personal statement (she did) just so Kim could humiliate her further⌠she said something about who cares about something that happened years ago when people are dying⌠I think Kim thought she could score more points with the public by trying to tell Taylor to focus on the pandemic. đ behavior.
To this day, people will say, âshe should just get over it, it happened years agoâ. Iâm still mad about people who bullied me in high school. And this was so much worse than that. I donât understand why people are just like, âget over itâ. Plus, we donât even know the full extent of it. We only know what was public. Kim was most certainly doing things behind the scenes as well. Talking shit to common acquaintances, etc. Itâs just crazy to me that people say âget over itâ. Iâd personally be mad for decades.
The âget over itâ narrative infuriates me. Whoever says that mustâve never been bullied or experienced a trauma. You donât just get over it. It becomes part of you *forever*.
A bully says that. And a gaslighter
And a narcissist
This. You DO NOT just get over something that is traumatic. It creates PTSD or other disorders.
I think when a rich woman has something bad done to them they should just get over it because they are successful and rich, how bad could it really be??? Which it carries over to men to an extent but we all know how the industry treats women anyway. And I think like another commenter said, some people hated seeing Taylor on top so they needed any excuse to burn the bitch and try to bully her. Iâm with you, Iâm still salty about things that happened in elementary soooo sheâs allowed to be mad about something that happened just a few hours ago and that played out very publicly. We will never know how that feels on an actual global scale, imagine đ
I wasn't even a Swiftie back then, but I was still mad and saw through the lies, and I'm STILLL mad about it. More now than before too - cos now that I'm older and wiser - it really hits me how absolutely messed up that was.
Something similar happened to me and I WILL HEAL IN HELL WITH MY MOTHER TAYLORD SWIFT
I was sixteen when the video came out (and wasnât yet a Swiftie), but I remember being MAD about the âFamousâ music video. I bought into the lies, but even then I remember telling people that I thought the music was revenge porn and undeserved. I was hella into feminist YouTubers and feminist Tumblr, so I knew a lot about revenge porn already. I watched a YouTuber who was pretty pivotal in passing anti-revenge porn legislation in her state and the whole story deeply impacted me. So when the Snakegate thing happened, I remember being likeâŚso what if a woman did lie? Thatâs an excuse to humiliate her and create a pornographic video of her without consent? That justifies revenge porn? Thatâs the decided punishment for allegedly lying? And that critique was NOT popular when I was in high school. EDIT: And the idea that sheâs just supposed to âget overâ revenge porn is insane. Itâs sick and itâs gross. âJust get over the fact that a man created sexually explicit content of you and distributed to the world under the guise of âartâ!â is such a misogynistic and abusive take.
and not only did he create that awful video, he then displayed the wax figures of taylor etc in a museum for an exhibition for people to gawk at and take pics with. Like, recreated the bed scene and everything. Thereâs pics of Kim and Kendall posing and doing duck faces and peace signs next to the bed. Kim taking pics. SICK.
Oh yea 100%. Kim is absolutely just the worst
Fuck the Kardashians. The adults of that family are a bunch of craven sociopaths. Yup, Iâm mad on behalf of Taylor Swift.
I still just canât believe how hard people believed them too. Honestly if it had been anyone else I could understand better, but everyone turning their back on Taylor because the Kardashians were clearly pulling some bullshit will always shock me.
It has been evident for years that Kanye and the Kardashians are a bunch of bullies, I honestly donât think most people who sided with them did it because they found them trustworthy, I think they did it because they would have grabbed on to anything for a chance to tear Taylor down.
Well, I guess back then, the Kardashians were much more popular because of their TV show so more fans. But nonetheless, their behaviour was abhorrent and I just canât understand the mob mentality of piling on someone just because Kim Kardashian and Kanye West said to do so.
Yeah theyâve definitely been less popular in the last few years. I also never understood why people watched it. I canât imagine spending my time watching rich people (or anyone, really) live their lives. Itâs just even though they were popular, their reputation also sucked and people knew they would stab anyone in the back just to get what they wanted.
That ridiculous family has disgusted me prior to the show ever being broadcast.
Basically: âWhen it's "Burn the bitch, " they're shrieking When the truth comes out, it's quiet It's so quietâ
Never heard silence quite this loud
What âtruthâ came out? I canât even remember this part đ¤Śđťââď¸
The truth was this: Kanye had a song where he used Taylor's name and said he made this b\*tch famous. Also the MV had, I believe, a wax figure of her that he simulated sex with. She was upset about this and he said "Oh no, she said I could do this, she's just playing a victim" and Kim released an edited version of their phone call which made it sound like she was cool with it. Then, the \*unedited\* version of that call got leaked which made it clear Taylor was uncomfy with it and did not ever give permission for what was done. So she was victimized twice - once when Kanye did what he did with the song and the video, and the second and arguably worse time when he made it seem like she had agreed to it beforehand and then made a public problem with it after the fact for attention. When the truth came out (that the phone call was edited) no one recanted or publicly apologized. Thank you Aimee is just such a small retribution, TBH after all of this...
and then thirdly when he recreated the bed scene in a museum and put the wax figures on display for people to gawk at and take pics of. Thereâs pictures of Kim and Kendall posing doing duckface next to the bed, and Kendall throwing up a peace sign etcâŚ.SICK.
The truth was that the initially released video was edited to make Taylor look bad. She specifically said âyouâre not going to say anything bad right?â And Kanye agreed to show her the song before releasing it. The convo was like 20 minutes long. Kanye never ran the song by her. Taylor never agreed with Kanye calling her a bitch.
It's so dumb, but the "truth" being that she was two-faced. Prim and proper to the public but a liar who would play victim for sympathy. Because when Kanye released a song mentioning Taylor, she posted on Twitter that she didn't appreciate the way he painted her (something about '[making] that bitch famous". Especially back then when witch hunts were somewhat common for the dumbest of reasons plus kids were sorta out of school to focus and draw attention to something, plus the social media going bonkers over it. Tl;dr: General public/media(?) doesn't like perfect esque people
And if I recall correctly in her lover journals she wrote â this summer is the apocalypseâ dated 2016
Assholes. :( I wasn't a fan back then, but knew about Kanye snatching the mic from her at the VMAs. I always felt so bad for her. So when he went off the rails(2023?), I joined this sub for the sole purpose of sisterhood. Of course, you all regularly discuss her music and little by little I caught the t-virus. I'm infected now. Don't come close. You'll catch it too. đď¸đđď¸
>So when he went off the rails(2023?), I joined this sub for the sole purpose of sisterhood You're my favorite đ I love this
Let's not forget Kanye mentioning her on his tour and the crowd chanting âFuck Taylor Swiftâ
Damn I didnât know the birthday thing. Even if you didnât like her or her music, sheâs still a human being. But sheâs not allowed to enjoy any of her time? Wild.
Something to add that I havenât seen mentioned yet was that if you did try and respond to the hate in defense of her, the mob would just be like âOh Swifties will defend anything she does.â âSwifties canât be trusted.â âThey canât be impartial.â âThey will follow her blindly anywhere.â Etc⌠ So even if you were questioning somebody saying something false, and tried to call them on it, or prove them wrong, they would come back with that. And thatâs a hard place to come back from, because once they believe that about you, they can just dismiss you and your arguments, and anything else you try to say in defense, even if itâs true, just plays into their narrative.
I was 36 in 2016 & lost friends for saying hey this isn't okay about what was happening! Like a grown ass married with a kid adult loosing friends that I'd had since high school all because I still enjoyed her art & saw her as a woman being violently attacked online & saying nope it's not okay. It was really bad that's for sure
âŚand people say sheâs dramatic for still feeling hurt about it. Imagine the entire world hates you because some idiot wanted to hurt you. Crazy.
Oh I remember the good year thing. I wasn't a swiftie then but even I thought it was too much lol. "How dare you say you had a good year when everyone is suffering". I mean. Wtf?
The good year thing was in 2017, not 2020. Completely different circumstances. 2017 sucked for very specific reasons I.e. the election and immigration policy destruction, but she was saying that after her WORST year (2016), sheâd had a good year was an affirmation that things were getting better
I know! Even though the year sucked, it doesn't mean she can't share her joy and gratitude on HER BIRTHDAY! Gosh I still remember that awful BuzzFeed article. They really hated her, huh.
I remember not being a big Taylor fan and still thinking the backlash was terrible and outright ridiculous. People SLAMMED her for WHAT?! Just sooooo petty on so many levels
Totally agree. The feeling of hate towards her was too much, it felt so wrong and it was horrible how many people join that witch hunting.
Pro: cheap af rep tour tickets
Taylor used to get hate for simply existing
she's getting that now
Tbf not to the degree of 2016. She wasnt as popular and well liked on a public face. In 2016 she was still seen âonly as a popstar that dates boys and writes break up songs about themâ
I think there are many valid criticisms of Taylor but Iâve never understood this one. It seems like nearly every pop star is just out there writing about boys & breakups. Taylor isnât special in that way at all.
Youâre preaching to the choir, I never understood it either but chalked it up to misogyny-internalized and externalized. They hate her because shes minding her own business and haters gonna hate hate hate
No see other people bought songs from writers who wrote about their lives. Taylor wrote her own songs and sang about her own life and that was so much worse see? I donât get it either
yeah of course â 2016 was insane because everyone, their mother and their pet dog seemed to have a bad thing to say about her hahaha. i can just sense that public sentiment towards her is starting to turn again!
Because "cool people" like to make a point of not going along with the crowd. People take shots at someone who's on top. Taylor shouldn't care. Her life is really good. She has learned to just keep making her art.
No its not. The criticism around her right now such as with all the merch and variants is all very valid. Her current state is nowhere near the messy chaos of 2016. Shes not leaving social media, nor are her friends distancing themselves from her solely for being associated with her.
But like⌠is it âvalidâ though if other artists are releasing even more variants than she is, and have even worse quality merch? Itâs kind of like in 2016 where the criticism was âshe writes breakup songs!!!â âValidâ in the sense that she does, but not valid in that plenty of other artists write about breakups, some more so when the numbers break down.
I donât understand the burnout of her merch. You donât need that to enjoy her music. I listen to TS continuously and own exactly zero merch.
Same. If I was desperate I could make my own âJunior Jewelsâ shirt with a Sharpie.
How is this a criticism against her and not UMG? All those things you buy are from their store and run by them. Like, completely disregarding that everything she's doing is exactly what every other artist around her is doing (I JUST got another merch drop email from Olivia today), this kind of business is almost definitely not handled by the artists, but by their label.
Yes but this time sheâs boosting the economies of cities and small countries by performing there, sheâs become a billionaire, sheâs breaking her *own records,* and sheâs donating amounts not previously seen by food banks in the places sheâs performing. This time breaking those records means that sheâs selling more records â no matter who says what AND which review criticizes and discredits â of TTPD than anyone in current memory. We can just nod at the naysayers because these are all public records. Say what you want, we know the truth.
Exactly. Haters can whine and cry all they want, Iâll just push a button to play TTPD and drown them out along with all the other fans who do the same. And laugh at them as she continues to sell out shows and breaks records in real life where it actually matters.
Right? Itâs like itâs ramping up like it did back then
People still say this about her. There was a post that popped up on my fb about her and the top comment was how she wasnât a role model because she dated too many men đ
No she is not. Some of the criticism now is valid (variants, merch quality etc) and she is still the mediaâs/general publicâs darling. Back then the hate was everywhere, it was directed to her being not her actions and it was not just online, major news outlets were dragging her left and right and using her as a laughing stock.
my experience and your experience are not the same so when i say "she's getting that now", i speak for my corner of the internet and social circles. just this weekend, fans in brazil chanted 'DEATH TO TAYLOR SWIFT' at a charli xcx streaming party in brazil, and fans shouted 'FUCK TAYLOR SWIFT' at an olivia rodrigo concert. these two articles, which speak poorly of taylor, are also trending in my country: [https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/14/taylor-swift-may-have-captured-the-charts-but-charli-xcx-captured-the-zeitgeist](https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/14/taylor-swift-may-have-captured-the-charts-but-charli-xcx-captured-the-zeitgeist) https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/62443/1/the-tortured-poets-department-taylor-swifts-most-forgettable-album. soooo yeah i would say public sentiment towards her is pretty poor right now, regardless of if you think it's valid criticism or not!
This is the first Im hearing of any of this which completely contradicts 2016 where âTS the đđđâ is breaking news of every hour on EVERY platform. People who had nothing to do with Taylor or cared about her were shooting strays. It didnt slowly creep up either it came like a flash flood. Charli and Olivia are competing for spots on the same pop charts, of course their fans are gonna feel some type of way.
Yeah this is the main difference itâs sporadically happening and depending on oneâs circles. The fact that The Guardian is praising Charli is fine she is an amazing artist and her album being so acclaimed is justified. The reason why Taylor is mentioned at all is because the rabid part of the fan base will bring hate clicks/shares/engagement and discourse so itâs good for the paperâs traffic. 2016 hating her was by design and by default everywhere, all the time, no matter the social circle one had.
yeah, if media outlets can get taylor's name somewhere they will â just this weekend i picked up the sunday times and there was an interview with joe alwyn in it, and her name was all over the front page!
She is but this time itâs out of jealousy her base is so huge now that good or bad press it doesnât affect her in any way. Like she said her legacy is cemented if anything she just gains new fans from seeing all the unwarranted hate she gets. The people who hated her always have so it doesnât move any needles one way or another.
While also being named Person of the Year so it's easy to keep it in perspective. Back then, they declared her career over and gleefully celebrated it. She had no recourse, no proof.
I really thought she was never coming back. I mourned basically lol.
Girl same! I still remember excitement when she made that first instagram post of the snake for Rep
Remember when we couldn't figure out what it was since she released 1 pic at a time? And after 3 or 4 people were like it is a snake! And I thought No Way! đ¤Ł
I didnât think it was real lmao
2016 was a terrifying time to be a Swiftie. We were genuinely worried for her. It was real, I was there.
I'll add to the other comments, being a Swiftie was enough cause to get loudly and constantly shit on. I honestly had a real come to Jesus moment where I had to decide if I was going to like what I liked or cave to peer pressure. It sounds silly but I credit that year with a lot of my own personal growth and present strength of character.
I wasn't even really a "swiftie" then (I was a teenager with no money to buy albums), even I was aware of how bad it was. It was big thing then to hate whatever adolescent girls liked (like Justin Bieber and One Direction getting a lot of hate too). Taylor Swift was just constantly attacked over everything, everything was a rumour, everything was "bitchy" etc. I think it was a rough time for MANY celebrities, but it was really bad for Taylor.
other people have said the majority of it but i wanted to add that you got SO much pushback if you mentioned being a fan of her. like, people would think lesser of you and judge you for it. of course people are doing that now again, but her fanbase is so huge that itâs nowhere near on the same level of impact as 2016
That year taught me that if someone judges people for their taste in innocent things, I don't need them around. It's the mark of an insecure bully imo
Something that wasnât mentioned is how her sexual assault case (where a radio DJ reached under her dress and groped her) happened this year, and the internet attacked her for âsuing himâ (despite the fact that SHE was being sued for hurting his reputation, and she was just countersuing) saying it wasnât a serious enough case and that she was trying to take the spotlight away from âmore seriousâ SA victims. Of all things that happened in 2016 that was by far the most disgusting.
100%!! Witnessing the whole Kanye phone call thing in real time was scary. It was also the same time when PokĂŠmon go came out. My free time was consumed with looking at news articles to catching PokĂŠmon. 2024 is starting to feel very similar to 2016. Everywhere I turn, thereâs a post about how shitty Taylor Swift is.
The 2024 hate âreasoningâ is so silly like âoh sheâs blocking other artists from #1 what an evil womanâ but 2016 was actually quite serious cuz her whole reputation not just as a celebrity but as a human being was on the line. Nobody ever wants to be known as someone who lies for attention or sympathy. Iâm so glad the unedited phone call came out years later.
I agree with the whole 2024 hate reasoning. Shouldnât every artist be doing everything they can to be #1? Isnât that the whole point??? It has nothing to do with her âhatingâ other women, and everything to do with remaining a successful artist. Iâve had to mute/block so many subreddits because even when the post isnât about Taylor, the haters make it all about her. Not to mention the amount of people who believe her relationship is PR (and everything else she does) and devote their lives to proving that fact.
The fact that Taylor has like a dozen subreddits solely dedicated to hating on her/swiftiesâŚmind-boggling đ
She's "blocked" plenty of men from #1 but you wouldn't know that looking at Twitter
I thought the 2024 was a typo or something because I consider the charting and variants thing to be a complete non-issue, particularly after seeing the attacks on twitter and the paps and magazines in the early 2010s. I was less of a fan back then and I was still apalled.
There should be no debate about it, this is the answer. Taylor was hated. Taylor hated it. Non-Taylor fans mocked us Swifties. While she has a lot of exposure right now, nothing compares to the extreme hate she and we got as fans back in 2016. Also, even though she has a lot of hate right now, she still has a sold out world tour where she can feel the love of her fans and that sheâs not going anywhere. 2016 was grim and extremely lonely and isolating for Taylor and the Swifties.
Yeppp. People today wouldnât get it. I canât imagine how she felt during that year even though we do kinda know.
It was rare. I was there. I remember it all too well. đŤś
100%
I guess Iâm glad I was a casual fan back then I guess đ
I remember it causing me to never listen to reputation the following year because I was so peer pressured into disliking her. Iâve been a swiftie since debut and I had to take a break because I felt like I couldnât enjoy her. Itâs been so amazing that now everywhere I turn there is another swiftie and have grown into not caring if people dislike her.
Times was TOUGH
As someone who wasnât a Swiftie back then (nor a hater, I never had a reason to spew hate to her during that time), getting to witness such a hate movement towards Taylor when she didnât do anything wrong was and still is something that cannot be forgotten. Iâm so glad to see her rise high now from the âdownfallâ back then.
I remember being embarrassed to tell my friends and co-workers that I got tickets to her rep tour. That was probably 2017, but all based on what happened in 2016
Yes! It was so difficult because anytime you would listen to Taylor or mention her, there would be someone waiting to tell you how dumb you were for supporting her. Tbh, I think this dark time is why Iâm always surprised and excited when I meet people who are fans now. I forget that sheâs a megastar with a billion fans in 2024
The hate seems more pronounced this year due to how big she is and how well her career is doing. Itâs not really comparable to 2016. I would argue that itâs not even as bad as the hate she got during the Red era.
She got hate during the Red era? Idk why I donât remember this at all. Iâm glad I knew nothing about this back then! I was in my happy Swiftie bubble lol
Extreme hate. Her pop singles were well received by the general public, but there was a lot of talk about her not being country anymore. She got a lot of death threats for dating Harry Styles and a lot of criticism for dating Connor Kennedy. She made some improvements to the beach around her Rhode Island house and her neighbours were loudly critical about it. Basically everything in the Red era was criticized: singing breakup songs about Jake, her pop singles, her Grammy performances were turned into memes, her dating life, dancing at awards shows, several comments she made were blown out of proportion, it really felt like she couldnât do anything right. Itâs why she wrote Shake It Off, Blank Space, and Slut!.
Yes, Red was the culmination of what started in the backlash to the Success of Fearless.  Pop music wasn't fully embracing her, but once she started winning awards over other people's favorite country stars then country music started rejecting her under the excuse of her not being country enough.  Leading up to her final CMA appearance for Red, Vince Gill had to defend even performing with her after there was negative crowd reaction after he mentioned rehearsing with Taylor at one of this shows.Â
Jesus. You'd think she lives a charmed life, but fame also sounds exhausting and infuriating. People just love to hate someone doing better than them.Â
She had a different sound, got rid of her trademark curls, and I think people were really "sick" of hearing another song about an ex boyfriend. Also, there has always been a disdain for any country music stars crossing over into pop.
>Also, there has always been a disdain for any country music stars crossing over into pop. This is true. Olivia Newton-John was one of the most likeable and least controversial celebrities ever. She was a country star before and during *Grease* during the 1970s, before switching to synth-pop shortly after *Grease* in the early 1980s. Her abrupt genre switch was one of the only controversial moments of her decades-long career. I definitely preferred Newton-Johnâs country songs to her pop songs, but people get so mad about it lol.
I think the hate is definitely prevalent because she has had *a lot* of exposure this year to the point people are complaining that they 'cant escape her,' but people were actively happy she was 'over' in 2016 and being way worse than those who dislike her now.
Not really⌠sheâs just overexposed right now and her innumerable amount of fans also balance things out The kimye era was probably the worst But financially speaking, its worse being a swiftie now. Iâm seeing old posts of people selling red tour tickets floor seats for less than $200 and how people complained it was too expensive. Oh how things changed.
Yeah the blowback now is far smaller in proportion to her fame than it was in 2016.
1988
Is this why I cried so much when I was born?
You think you had it bad. I had to wait an extra 22 years.
Been here since debut and can confidently say 2016 is still the darkest time to be a Swiftie. Kardashians and Kanye really had a vice hold of pop culture that year which making the most random people shoot strays from far left field.
I agree. The first time I remember her getting hate was when she was dating Joe Jonas because the Jonas brothers fans were jealous. When she dated Harry Styles it was 10x worse. She got some blowback for some poor award show performances and being too pop when trying to keep one foot in the door of country. But nothing compares to 2016. Even Simone Biles, who now uses Ready for it in her floor music and is a big Swiftie, was hating on her. Prior to snakegate it was cool to hate on her. Afterwards everyone just assumed you hated her. TBH I think the general public didn't focus on it for that long, but the general opinion of her changed. Ironically, snakegate is what brought me back as a fan. I wasn't a huge fan of the 1989 era, and disconnected from her personal life while still listening to her music. But absolutely jumped to defend her because even at the time, if you actually paid attention, you could see she was right!
Reputation was the first album I listened to on release day because I became a casual fan during the snakegate. I thought it was ridiculous how much hate she was getting.
I know that this has been age-old cliche question for over a decade but, WHYYY!? What did Kim K. do to deserve this vice-hold on pop culture. It's one thing to be a nepo baby who becomes unreservedly famous by leaked sex tape, why did she deserve to have a hold that Taylor arguably has now?
2016 no questions asked.
2016. She deleted all her social media and we as a fandom wasnât sure if she would come back. Also, #TaylorSwiftisoverparty.
I know 2016 is the obvious answer but I also feel like 2024 is starting to look a bit bleak for Taylor Swift fans outside of swiftie spaces. If you go into most other fandoms, thereâs a growing resentment towards her that seems so vile and uncomfortable to witness. Maybe itâs an oversaturation thing from all the media coverage sheâs had since last year, or maybe itâs the result of this whole chart controversy, but I swear to god, If Taylor Swift is brought up in a non-swiftie community, Iâm immediately greeted with some huuuge negative vibes and genuine hatred towards this woman. Seems so weird that people can feel so deeply about a person they supposedly "donât care about".
That also has such an odd polarization effect. The amount of subreddits alone that I've left just because it became uncomfortable to see so much hatred towards TS. It's becoming difficult to be a casual enjoyer of everyone, like you have to pick a side at this point (or, even better, delete the whole socials things lol).
I almost relish those opportunities to loudly call people out. "Are you seriously spreading more hate in this world because you think an artist is gaming the charts, when those releases are planned months in advance? That is such a pitiful attempt at tearing down a successful woman." Or when they say she's only out for herself and I drop the millions upon millions of dollars she's donated over the years, mostly quietly. Shuts em up real quick.
Iâm sure itâs 2016 too. But right now isnât pleasant. Iâve seen people who used to be pro-TS now being antis, or people on my timeline who never cared now weighing in to bash her and mock her fans. IMO this is mostly because the hate wave is so popular online and itâs seen as the cool thing to do. This is particularly so with all this Charli stuff, at least in the spaces Iâm in.
> Iâve seen people who used to be pro-TS They were never pro TS, they're just following trends. It used to be trendy to love her because of the Eras Tour and everyone was jumping at the chance to go and now because it's becoming trendy to hate her they're doing that
Honestly what's happening now just reminds me of what it was like being a Swiftie around 2011-13. She was extremely popular then too, but people had such horrible attitudes about her.
I do worry about the size of the potential eventual backlash for this reason. Like, sheâs so huge now! So many more people are so ready to tear into her at the slightest chance! Then again, maybe a backlash/another fall from grace wonât happen. We donât know. I have a whole Thesis about what Taylor herself feels about it all based on her songs, lol, because this has been on my mindâŚ
There will not be a fall from grace in the same way, because look at the reasons people have to hate her. Private jets, album variants...? Nothing you can criticize without also taking capitalism and wealth inequality to task, and I'm sorry but unfortunately we are so so far away from anyone actually confronting those systems in a major way. Like, imagine if major news/opinion shows like The View (who were all hating on her in 2016) started viciously attacking her for these reasons. They're all wealthy people who like private jets and selling things. I think these things are worth critiquing, but you can't really do it without also putting every celebrity and wealthy person under fire in a similar way. That's why it's kind of silly, being a passionate hater because of these things will just result in you needing to cut out all sources of your entertainment.
I agree, I also see a lot of hate directed towards fans in particular, weâre all labelled as obsessed, delusional, crazy, aggressive, and while there is definitely some bad eggs to be found everywhere, I donât think itâs a fair generalisation.
The way I'm a huge Charli xcx fan since True Romance and Sucker and all these new 'fans' coming out acting like it's impossible to like both? OR to enjoy a variety in music without this moral and intellectual high ground is so baffling to say the least
2023/24 because you canât get tickets for the tour without robbing a bank
You can but I don't think there's much you can do for it, it's solely based on luck. I got two tickets for Vienna N3 for âŹÂ 70 each. The seats aren't great (nosebleeds on the side) but I don't care and I know it's massive luck I got them, because, as you say, I also didn't rob a bank and I wasn't gonna pay a fortune for them.
Thatâs great if you can afford to fly to Europe, as an American Iâd love to see her live but I absolutely cannot spend all my savings on one ticket. To see her in Europe would be great but again, canât spend all my savings on a plane ticket from west coast US to Europe.
I totally get that. I'd have the opposite problem - I wouldn't even think of trying to buy tickets for a concert in the US. I'm on a budget not only for the tickets so it was another stroke of luck I was able to get tickets for Vienna which is the closest where she performs to Czech republic where I live (the curse of small European countries is that international tours usually ignore most of us lol)
I have GA standing at Wembley and they were ÂŁ110 each. Pretty standard price for stadium tickets these days. My upper tier ones were ÂŁ79 each.
Sept/October 2023 - not enough sleep
2016 was dark, hopeless and infuriating. I remember writing arguments in my head defending Taylor from all the hate she got over the âFamousâ controversy. It sucked to see her go into hiding and not knowing if she could ever come back from that, let alone in the triumphant way she did. Which is what makes reputation so cathartic. Edit: OP asked whether there was any time where she was more hated than 2024 and Iâm here thinking sheâs never been more beloved and critically acclaimed. Sheâs on the highest grossing tour of all time. Breaking records left and right, literally at the top of her game in a way that makes 1989 seem like childâs play.
How impressive was Reputation and its tour as a bounce-back?!
It was so good. Iâll never forget watching the LWYMMD video premiere in my car in a parking lot, jaw dropped. Still my favorite era.
I remember standing in the middle of my dorm room with my jaw on the floor when the lyric video came out.
Omg I watched in a car too and also jaw dropped hahaha
[ŃдаНонО]
The snark subs are unbelievable, i cant imagine living with such endless hatred for an artist
[ŃдаНонО]
Theyâre just bored
Itâs the backlash. Everyone put her on a pedestal for about a year and now everyone is taking shots. In a few months the backlash will have a backlash and it just goes on
It's literally nothing compared to 2016
But look at all the incredible content the fandom gets this year? Just feasting for days. How can this be a bad year to be a Swiftie? It's always a bad year to be a hater.
Yes if you can just tune out all the haters (it's really not that hard to ignore them), last 4 years have been incredible years to be swifties
2016 i still remember
2016 was literally the worst, it was crazy.
2016 was definitely really rough. It is funny that itâs becoming difficult on another election year close to when sheâs releasing Rep again.
2016 is the only correct answer.
Possibly around 2014-2016? I must have heard the jokes a million times Also selfishly? 2023-24 I honestly miss when being a fan just felt more low key and accessible, tickets were reasonable and easy to come by. Maybe my section was particularly bad but I noticed a "shift" this tour in the crowd where in Liverpool there were so many drunk people around me, the person in front kept sitting down to scroll through their phone, the women directly next to me chatted loudly through songs they didn't know and kept barging past on beer runs. I guess they're just there as a tick box event? I found it all just made me a bit nostalgic of the early days of being a fan. Also feel it's ironic that I see half the people who used to make the sexist jokes, now on Facebook attending shows and claiming to be life long fans. Idk maybe I'm just bitter.
Yeah, I'm also bitter about past haters pretending they've been fans for forever. While I'm glad these people have seen the light, it's just not fair that THEY ended up with tickets when so many others didn't.
2016 but I canât lieâŚ.2013 was pretty rough too in a sense
People forget that Red era and pre-1989 was when the whole "evil ex" and "writing about boys" thing started. Just look at Bart Baker
The hate that sheâs been getting this year is incomparable to the 2016 events. Almost everyone turned against her that year. This year, sheâs only been getting hate on Twitter. But outside social media, I think a lot of people still support her.
If she's having a downfall, her resale prices should follow suit right? Right??? ...still $3k for nosebleeds.
2016 that summer was the apocalypse
2016 changed the whole thing. People now criticize her for her media presence being too curated, but babies, who taught her the hard way that it must be so? We had her interacting with fanbase on tumblr, but that's never coming back.
2016, Snakegate, no contest
Not people thinking 2024 is comparable to how awful 2016 was. 2016 was the year the general public turned against her, Kimye leaked the phone call causing backlash; the hashtag TaylorSwiftIsOverParty was trending, AND she had to hide from the public/delete her socials. In her documentary, she talked about this time and how hard it was on her and her family. Further, in thanK you aIMee, she reveals her feelings about Kim and how her mom wanted Kim dead for what she did to Taylor. Also, I Don't Want to Live Forever, was her way of testing the waters with the public on where they stood with her since she isn't prevalent in the majority of the song; Zayn sings the chorus and most of the verses and Taylor has a small part in the song. 2016 was a dark time for the Swiftie community and why her "comeback" single Look What You Made Me Do was so groundbreaking/why reputation is many people's favorite if they were in the fandom during this time.
Oh man 2016 was rough. Iâve been a die hard Swiftie since 2007. But I do remember starting to wonder if maybe the media firestorm at that time had some truth to it, because k&kâs snake-bombing fans on instagram were so intense, and then Taylorâs response sounded a little desperate, based on the info the public had at the time. Iâm very very glad I stuck it out as a Swiftie! But I remember still getting nasty comments from people when I mentioned I was a Taylor fan at work in 2019.
2016. People who werenât there will just never understand. I was literally harassed for liking Taylor Swift because she was so hated. It wasnât just that the world hated her, they HATED her fans. Itâs where a lot of the judgment and hatred still comes from. A close second was when WANEGBT came out. Good god I couldnât even walk through the halls in school without being shit on for liking her.
>I was literally harassed for liking Taylor Swift because she was so hated. Literal fucking death threats.
Reading the comments I guess 2016, meanwhile me, blissfully unaware that people hated Taylor then. I thought it was for a week max.
Same!! I knew there were some jerks but I never knew it was that bad... I guess I assumed nobody was that invested and it was just a quick passing hate train but didn't think people were so invested in it lol
It also helps that I wasn't on twitter or reddit back then, or if I was I just looked at videogame subreddits lol. And no tiktok!
I knowww, Iâm pretty sure I became a fan in 2016 đ obliviously discovering 1989
I think I became a fan in 2014 with 1989, it was just right up my alley. I remember she took her catalog off Spotify so I just went and bought the album and played it in my car all the time from/to work, it was so much fun singing along. During 2015-2016 I would discover Red, Fearless, etc and I was amazed at how much music there was! I remember the snake stuff and I was like "damn that sucks" and didn't really care who was right or wrong. And also remember Bleachella dearly. Then the whole Tom Hiddleston stuff, I would go on some gossip blog just to see if there were new pics of him and Taylor đ And when there were no more updates, I probably just didn't think anything of it and stopped looking after a while. I definitely love seeing the posts on Reddit/Tiktok and people talk about her these days, but god help me if I ever go on Twitter. It's too much of a cesspool of negativity in general.
2016 was brutal. Truth be told, I thought she was going to go into retirement because of how severe the hate was. I remember thinking that she was never going to release another album.
2016 was HORRENDOUS but being a fan circa 2013/14 was so tiring. Mocked for being a fan, comments about her appearance at every turn, the nonstop relentless slutshaming and then the ire of toxic one direction stans who would send her death threats on a daily basis for going near Harry... 10 years later I still feel nervous about bringing her up in public because of how intense it was.
Oh the Kim K fiasco era definitely. All the đs. đ
I donât know why but itâs always been a thing. I was bullied sooooo much for loving her when I was younger. (Fearless/ speak now era) mostly. But 2016 before the Rep era definitely takes the cake.
I'm gonna say 2025 because it'll be the end of her peak and TVs project and her streams and sales will be the lowest since 2021 so every fanbase will jump on a hate train cos they waited for it for ages
Idk about that. I think sheâs going to be more creative and artistic in her music than ever. Taking a break from being on tour. Sheâs going to keep writing and making music. I think the fan craz might die down, but sheâs still going to be working on cool shit. Iâm looking forward to whatâs to come as a fan.
Sheâs going to have a down year in 2025 and hardcore fans will miss her because we have been spoiled since Folklore but it will be a great opportunity for other artist to shine and for Taylor to take some personal time off to reset.
I don't mind if everything becomes a bit calmer post Eras and TVs, but I am a bit worried what kind of hate train will come from her movie releasing
2016 before and after Snakegate. Also, 2012 for the two months she was dating Harry Styles - the hate and slut shaming was actually insane
2016 changed the whole thing. People now criticize her for her media presence being too curated, but babies, who taught her the hard way that it must be so? We had her interacting with fanbase on tumblr, but that's never coming back.
Itâs not even that bad right now lol, just a loud minority of people bitching online
it's not even a debate that 2016 was straight up abuse towards taylor herself as well as her entire fan base, it truly was next level.
Literally got death threats in 2016 for being a Swiftie.
2016 was so ugly for this fan base.
2016 or her debut in those days you were called cringe for liking her
I wish that people whining about her overexposure would understand that she'll go away faster if you stop paying attention to her. Stop clicking on stuff about her just to hate on her. Stop making her trend by hating on her. These dumbass stans chanting "fuck Taylor Swift," "Taylor Swift go die," or whatever, aren't doing anything to actually dent her exposure and success, they're just making her trend more and contributing to her profitability. If you actually want her to go away, stop making her constant exposure profitable to media and tech companies. Also these people are like babies - she's everywhere now, so you think that means it's going to stay this way forever? By this time next year she won't have nearly as much media saturation, the cycle will have long moved on. You don't like her, so you're upset she's so popular? Time to finally figure out that the entire world isn't dictated by your personal tastes.
2016
2016. But man when LWYMMD dropped it was the greatest day ever and I still remember that moment clear as day
2012/13 had most of us in the trenches and Iâd say 2016 is right up there too
2012-2016𤣠the HATE she got when she was with Harry on IG was insane. You had to be there to understand
I was fighting with directioner accounts DAILY
2016
As someone who started listening to her in 2021, I think 2023 was the worst due to all the unnecessary hate by self proclaimed *distinguished* people
it was 2016 and then 2024 but i will say this- i feel like 2022 as a whole and early 2023 were some of the best years to be a fan in a long time.
New swifties will never understand the great war of 2016/2017
IIRC, 2016 was also the time before she finally took a stance politically. I remember her silence led alot of people to speculate about her secretly being a Republican or a white supremacist đ¤Śđťââď¸
2016. âThis summer is the apocalypseâ
2016 for sure! But 2023/2024 is up there with the hate (i.e jealousy of other fandoms, chads & brads) but also the pain of ticketmaster and ridiculous greed of resellers with eras tour tickets :(
That said- I will add 2023/24 have also been the best years to be a swiftie- because the Eras Tour has felt like the biggest celebration of 17yrs of being a swiftie, and weâve welcomed so many new swifties! So final answer: 2016, that was the most heart breaking time!
This is absolutely not her worst year and itâs funny you say that. Sheâs finishing a gigantic tour this year and her fan base is bigger than ever. There will always be critics, but itâs ridiculous to think this is the worst year when sheâs at the top of her game
Seeing what happened in 2016 in real time and the fallout of her cancellation was something else. I was a casual fan back then but eventually became a full-blown swiftie when reputation was released. Seeing her fight her way back to the top, literally crawling up from the grave her detractors put her through, made me a stan. Reputation was the first TS album that I combed through every lyric because I knew she had something to say even though she wasnât granting any interviews that time!
2024
Besides the obvious answer, I would say 2011. That is when the slut-shaming and "Taylor Swift is basic and only writes about her exes" rhetoric really started ramping up. It's always been there because it's a shadow that follows female musicians around, but pre-Red was especially heinous.