Taylor Swift and Totalitarianism
泰勒·斯威夫特与极权主义

The system is broken. The celebrity is brighter than the sun. Only she can decide when it is day.
这个系统坏了。那个明星比太阳还耀眼。只有她能决定什么时候是白天。

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There’s a sentiment amongst Swifies that if you wrong Taylor Swift, you will fall. They call it ‘tayvoodoo.’ They say: “tayvoodoo doesn’t work in mysterious ways. it works clearly and bluntly: you’re mean to her, you lose. you’re nice to her, you win. simple.” American football fans booed her, and so their team lost. Kanye West manipulated her, and then his entire public reputation crumbled. Calvin Harris underplayed her songwriting on their song, now he’s irrelevant. Fashioning herself as the moral centre of the universe, she has a map of buried hatchets and is ever-ready to avenge the wronged when she’s “on [her] vigilante shit, again.” Taylor Swift was a girl who felt like a victim – sometimes rightfully so – she has grown into a woman brutally skilled at self-defence, with a solipsistic definition of what that entails. In her quietest moments, she co-opts the worst things people have said about her and turns them into a performance of keening self-awareness. Elsewhere, she spits out her enemies’ unflattering narratives until they glom acidic to the face. This paradox of anti-hero and good girl comes to a head in ‘The Archer,’ when she wonders what to do with herself: “I’ve been the archer / I’ve been the prey.”
在“霉粉”中流传着一种说法：如果你得罪了泰勒·斯威夫特，你就会倒霉。他们称之为“霉霉巫术”。他们说：“霉霉巫术不会以神秘的方式运作，它运作得清晰而直接：你对她不好，你就输了。你对她好，你就赢了。就这么简单。” 美国橄榄球球迷对她嘘声一片，结果他们的球队输了。 坎耶·维斯特操纵了她，然后他的公众形象彻底崩塌。 凯文·哈里斯低估了她对他们歌曲的创作贡献，现在他已经过气了。她把自己塑造成宇宙的道德中心，她有一张埋藏战斧的地图，并且随时准备为受伤害的人报仇，当她“再次以复仇者的身份出现”时。泰勒·斯威夫特曾经是一个觉得自己是受害者的女孩——有时确实如此——她已经成长为一个精通自卫的女性，并且对自卫的定义带有自我中心主义。 在最安静的时刻，她会将人们对她最恶毒的评价据为己有，并将其转化为一种深刻的自省表演。而在其他时候，她会毫不留情地将敌人的贬低之词吐露出来，直到这些词语像酸液般腐蚀他们的面容。这种反英雄与乖乖女的矛盾在《射手》中达到顶峰，当她思考自己该何去何从时，她问道：“我曾是射手 / 我也曾是猎物。” ”

 Except, with a persona as strategically sanitised as hers, we are led to believe that the only arrows she’s slung are at famous ex-boyfriends or evil producers who started it. Certainly, this is the only archery we will hear about in her music and public statements. Dazzled by her shimmering yet opaque self-presentation, we feel honoured to access her vulnerability in romance and art. As far as the rest of it goes (politics, feminism, economy), we work with what we’re given: private jets bad, bonuses to her tour crew good. Taylor Swift has mastered the binarist form of right/wrong public discourse in the attention economy such that it either points in her favour or is drowned out by opalescent fresh music. Reincarnating herself with a new soundscape and matching outfits once a year or so, Swift has continued rotating like the sun, while we seek warmth under her irrefutable aphorisms and elegaic excavations. Over the past 15 years, her star has continued to grow while other celebrities rail against their dwindling shelf-lives. On “Karma,” Swift herself taunts you to “ask me why so many fade, but I’m still here?” Why indeed? Her fans may call it Tayvoodoo. They say she is the embodied moral compass, the last religion we can believe in, a truism of our cultural times, and the music industry itself. Even if she isn’t perfect, they say, to deny Taylor Swift is like denying gravity – you’ll just end up falling. But let me hazard another approach to this question of everlasting legacy and singular dominance. Let me reconstruct her legal mastery, mythology, and cultural totalitarianism.
除了，她的人设经过了精心包装，我们被引导相信她唯一射出的箭是针对著名的前男友或那些恶意挑起事端的制作人。 当然，这将是她音乐和公开声明中唯一提到的“射箭”。 被她闪耀而朦胧的自我呈现所吸引，我们感到荣幸能够接触到她在爱情和艺术中的脆弱。 至于其他方面（政治、女权主义、经济），我们只能根据现有的信息进行判断：私人飞机不好，给巡演团队发奖金很好。 泰勒·斯威夫特已经掌握了在注意力经济中二元对立的正确/错误的公共话语形式，这种形式要么有利于她，要么被她闪烁的全新音乐所淹没。 每年或更短的时间内，她都会以新的音景和配套服装重生，斯威夫特像太阳一样不断旋转，而我们则在她不可辩驳的格言和哀歌般的挖掘中寻求温暖。 过去 15 年，她的星途不断攀升，而其他明星却在抱怨自己日渐衰退的职业生涯。在《Karma》中，斯威夫特本人嘲讽道：“问问我为什么那么多人消沉，而我依然在？” 究竟为什么呢？她的粉丝们可能会称之为“泰勒魔法”。他们说她是化身道德指南针，是我们能相信的最后一种宗教，是我们文化时代的真理，也是音乐产业本身。即使她并不完美，他们说，否认泰勒·斯威夫特就像否认地心引力——你最终只会坠落。但请允许我尝试另一种方法来回答关于永恒遗产和独一无二统治力的这个问题。让我重构她的法律精通、神话和文化极权主义。

Juridification – Taylor Swift, The System?
法律化——泰勒·斯威夫特，体制？ 

In an essay called ‘The Twilight of Legality,’ John Gardner theorises the demise of legality in the modern age. He describes the increasing invasion of legislative regulations in every aspect of life – think, the complicated and mistake-prone process of filling out your taxes, requirements to link government IDs to your bank account, or intellectual property rights and their muddy disputes. Gardner sees this barrage of legal paraphernalia as antithetical to democratic justice and freedom. He calls the current state of affairs, in the twilight of legality, “juridification,” and explicates its two axes: 
在一篇名为“法律的黄昏”的文章中，约翰·加德纳理论化了现代社会法律的消亡。他描述了立法法规对生活的各个方面的日益入侵——想想填写税单的复杂且容易出错的过程，将政府身份证与银行账户关联的要求，或知识产权及其模糊的争议。加德纳认为，这种法律繁文缛节的泛滥与民主正义和自由背道而驰。他将当前的状况称为“法律化”，并阐述了它的两个轴心：

1.  The sheer breadth of laws renders ‘the law’ in its entirety, unknowable.
1. 法律的广度使得“法律”整体变得不可知。

2. This vastness means that the law cannot be enforced evenly. 
2. 这种广度意味着法律无法得到公平执行。

Selective judicial enforcement operates with biases, fears, and vested interests. Powerful groups can exploit the vastness of law to further their particular ends, while marginalised groups are disproportionately vulnerable to eccentric enforcement. In a juridified climate, citizens are turned into large moving targets acting within the omnipotent framework of ever-burgeoning laws. So, the law has become an unwieldy tool of the ruling class. Perhaps it has always been this way, but well, size matters – and in the case of the law, the bigger it gets, the less fair it becomes.
选择性司法执法带有偏见、恐惧和既得利益。强大的群体可以利用法律的广阔性来实现其特定目的，而边缘群体则更容易受到偏执执法的伤害。在司法化的环境中，公民变成了大型移动目标，在不断膨胀的法律框架内行动。因此，法律已成为统治阶级的笨拙工具。也许它一直都是这样，但事实是，大小很重要——就法律而言，它越大，就越不公平。

In Taylor Swift’s 72 Questions with Vogue, back in 2014, when asked “What advice would you give to anyone who wants to become a singer?” she replies, “um, get a good lawyer.” In what follows, I show that juridification is a weapon in Taylor Swift’s arsenal. And metaphorically speaking, juridification has done to legality what Taylor Swift has done to culture.
在 Taylor Swift 的 2014 年《Vogue 72 问》 中，当被问及“你对想要成为歌手的人有什么建议？”时，她回答说：“嗯，找个好律师。” 在接下来的内容中，我将展示司法化是泰勒·斯威夫特武器库中的武器。从比喻意义上说，司法化对合法性所做的事情，就像泰勒·斯威夫特对文化所做的事情一样。

I must first clarify some points before we may talk of ‘singularity’ and ‘scale.’  It is difficult to, either quantitatively (through sales, net worth, or awards) or qualitatively (through an objective hierarchisation of cultural products) provide an indisputable metric for ‘fame.’ First, there are contextually contingent variables like streaming or internet relevance preventing me from drawing transhistorical comparisons with say, The Beatles or Michael Jackson. And then there is the reality that in our postmodern, globalised world, culture has expanded, mutated, and infected our lives without needing a specific mediatic vector to transmit itself. Living in the age of so-called ‘democratised’ content, we consume so much, and so frequently, that culture eludes concretisation; quite like the law in a juridified system, it pervades the everyday. There are indeed other megastars with tremendous influence and institutional legitimacy – say, Beyoncé, Drake, and Bad Bunny. When everyone is a consumer with at least some level of agency in choosing what they will listen to from millions of options, a ‘monoculture’ can hardly exist. This is why it is no use arguing over linear claims (‘Taylor Swift is the most famous person to ever exist’). These lead to the sorts of fights best reserved for Twitter replies. Instead, by creating a framework for Swiftian criticism, we can get to the bottom of an indisputably mammoth phenomenon, and then interrogate other celebrities whose modalities may hinge on different levers. Thus, our focus is on a periodising analysis of what a dominant cultural presence looks like, and its ideological consequences (‘Taylor Swift is prolific and neoliberal presence has led to cultural totalitarianism’). By thinking through a conscious silo, we can plumb at these big ideas of  ‘cultural dominance.’ 
在谈论“奇点”和“规模”之前，我必须先澄清一些要点。无论是从量化角度（通过销量、净资产或奖项）还是从质化角度（通过对文化产品的客观等级划分），都很难为“名气”提供一个无可争议的衡量标准。首先，像流媒体或互联网相关性这样的情境性变量，阻止我与披头士或迈克尔·杰克逊等进行跨历史比较。然后是现实情况，在我们后现代的全球化世界中，文化已经扩展、变异，并感染了我们的生活，而无需特定的媒体媒介来传播自身。生活在所谓的“民主化”内容时代，我们消费如此之多，如此频繁，以至于文化难以具体化；就像法律在法治体系中一样，它渗透到日常生活中。确实，还有其他拥有巨大影响力和制度合法性的巨星——比如碧昂斯、德雷克和巴德·邦尼。 当每个人都是消费者，至少在一定程度上拥有选择从数百万选项中听什么的选择权时，"单一文化"就很难存在。这就是为什么争论线性主张（"泰勒·斯威夫特是有史以来最有名的人"）毫无意义。这些争论只会导致那些最适合在推特回复中进行的争吵。相反，通过为斯威夫特的批评建立一个框架，我们可以深入了解一个无可争议的庞大现象，然后审视其他可能依赖于不同杠杆的明星。因此，我们的重点是分析一个主导文化存在的样子及其意识形态后果（"泰勒·斯威夫特的多产和新自由主义存在导致了文化极权主义"）。通过思考一个有意识的孤岛，我们可以深入探讨"文化统治"这些大概念。’

The Polyester Podcast references a tweet qualifying Taylor Swift’s fame: “how many times a day do you think about taylor swift against your will.” Needless to say, I trust that you have seen the headlines and leotards; you’ve heard the rabid crowds and resplendent hits. Here is some personal context (as to why we can proceed on a first-name basis). I was introduced to Taylor at age 9 or 10 by a friend while we played basketball. I was wearing knee-length checked shorts and some football jersey or other. My friend said I had to listen to this song she heard on the radio – it was about a girl who wears T-shirts, not short skirts! Say less! A few years later, ‘RED’ became the first album I successfully ‘Torrented’ on the family computer. ‘1989’ brought me my first artist merch. I’ve had, at some point, swiftie accounts on Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter. I can do the ‘name the Taylor Swift song in 1-second challenge.’ Easily. I’ve been in the top 0.001% of her Spotify listeners (in a particularly emotionally unstable year for me, but nonetheless). A few months ago, I spent an amount of money I choose not to disclose on Era’s tour tickets, for which I flew to Singapore. When I begrudgingly told people how much I spent on tickets, they said, ‘that’s insane, but it makes sense for you.’  I hope these credentials suffice. Let us move on then to the accusations. 
The Polyester Podcast 引用了一条关于泰勒·斯威夫特名气的推文：“你一天会不由自主地想起泰勒·斯威夫特多少次？” 不用说，我相信你已经看到了头条新闻和紧身衣；你已经听到了狂热的粉丝和辉煌的热门歌曲。这里有一些个人背景（关于为什么我们可以直呼其名）。我是在 9 或 10 岁的时候，在和朋友打篮球时认识泰勒的。我当时穿着及膝的格子短裤和一件足球球衣。我的朋友说我必须听她从收音机里听到的一首歌——这首歌是关于一个穿T 恤而不是短裙的女孩！不用多说！几年后，“RED”成为了我在家里的电脑上成功“下载”的第一张专辑。“1989”给我带来了我的第一件艺术家周边。我曾经在 Instagram、Tumblr 和 Twitter 上拥有过“霉霉粉”账号。我可以轻松地完成“1 秒内说出泰勒·斯威夫特歌曲名”的挑战。 我曾是她在 Spotify 上的顶尖 0.001% 听众（那一年我情绪很不稳定，但无论如何）。几个月前，我花了一笔不愿透露的金额购买了 Era 巡回演唱会的门票，为此我还飞去了新加坡。当我勉强告诉别人我花了多少钱买票时，他们说，“这太疯狂了，但对你来说是合理的。”你。  我希望这些凭据足够。那么，让我们继续讨论指控吧。

Since the Grammys, there’s been a shift in the cultural temperature on Taylor. In part, this is but a standard inflexion of the cyclical relationship of love and hate the public has with Taylor. Yet, this time, the problem is not ex-boyfriends or leaked phone calls, it is more insidious. We learnt that she had an exclusivity deal with the Singaporean government, receiving millions of dollars in subsidies for playing nowhere else in South Asia – forcing fans with means to fly, and fans with none to suck it up. We also learnt that Taylor threatened to sue a 21- year-old college student who was publishing information about her private jet’s movements. How could sharing already-public information constitute the endangerment of life? It gets worse: Elon Musk kicked the student off Twitter last year for the same reason.
自格莱美颁奖典礼以来，公众对泰勒的文化态度发生了转变。部分原因是公众与泰勒之间爱恨交织的循环关系的标准波动。然而，这一次，问题不在于前男友或泄露的电话，而是更加阴险。我们了解到，她与新加坡政府签署了独家协议，获得了数百万美元的补贴，以换取她在南亚其他地方不演出——迫使有经济能力的粉丝飞往新加坡，而没有经济能力的粉丝只能忍气吞声。我们还了解到，泰勒威胁要起诉一名 21 岁的大学生，该学生发布了她私人飞机行踪的信息。分享已经公开的信息如何构成生命危险？更糟糕的是：埃隆·马斯克去年以同样的理由将该学生踢出了推特。

Evidently, these billionaires are being litigious as a form of censorship. Legal action was the chosen course only once there was scrutiny and backlash. When Taylor wasn’t losing favour because of the data, apparently the student’s actions were not illegal. Suddenly, after trends and takedowns for her 13-minute flights, they maybe could be. So what if an addendum to a legal text from somewhere or the other could construe these social media posts as the endangerment of life if she were to sue? Nothing about this is fair. It’s a symptom of a society in the grips of juridification.
显然，这些亿万富翁正在诉诸法律作为一种审查形式。只有在受到审查和反弹后，他们才选择采取法律行动。当泰勒没有因为数据而失宠时，显然学生的行动并不违法。突然，在她 13 分钟的飞行经历了趋势和下架后，这些行动可能就违法了。那么，如果从某个地方或其他地方的法律文本的附录可以将这些社交媒体帖子解释为如果她起诉的话会危及生命呢？这一切都不公平。这反映了一个社会正处于司法化的掌控之中。

The familiar argument goes: criticize systems, not individuals. But can we read Taylor Swift as a system unto herself? On the front of her carbon footprint, despite her being the highest polluting celebrity, she is still far from most corporations in the top 100 polluters. Yet, what makes her footprint newsworthy is that she threatened legal action – against not even a whistleblower – just a student with an Instagram account. She would never have had to sue, the threat was enough of a deterrent. It’s easy to point out why this is disconcerting – power asymmetry, environmental irresponsibility, and institutionalised censorship. Taylor weaponized the law to control the narrative, in a thoroughly undemocratic, unequal machination. But the problem is bigger. It doesn’t matter that this time she used her magic powers of institutional intimidation for wrong. The problem is that she – as an individual – has the capacity to do institutional intimidation at all. 
常见的论点是：批评制度，而不是个人。但我们能把泰勒·斯威夫特看作一个独立的系统吗？从她的碳足迹来看，尽管她是污染最严重的明星，但她仍然远远落后于排名前 100 的大多数公司。然而，让她成为新闻的不是她的碳足迹本身，而是她威胁要采取法律行动——甚至不是针对举报人，而仅仅是一个拥有 Instagram 账号的学生。她本不必诉诸法律，威胁本身就足以起到威慑作用。很容易指出为什么这令人不安——权力不对称、环境不负责任和制度化的审查。泰勒利用法律来控制叙事，这是一种彻头彻尾的不民主、不平等的机器。但问题更大。重要的是，这次她利用了制度恐吓的魔力来做错事。问题是她——作为一个个人——有能力进行制度恐吓本身。

Only to a largesse like Taylor Swift would the juridified legal system be a tool and not a tyranny. This is a cold, winking, ‘bury them in paperwork.’ The average person cannot dream of seeking remedy through the behemoth of law because the cost of entry exceeds their capital. Meanwhile, Taylor has threatened to sue (deep breath): her ex-guitar teacher for buying the domain “itaughttaylorswift.com,” fans on Etsy for selling merchandise bearing her name, an Australian graffiti artist who made an objectively horrific mural, two podcasters, 24 unidentified trademark violators, Microsoft, and Kimye. And, all this research is from 2017, the last time tabloids hated her enough to find this out. Other artists have threatened to sue merchandisers for using their name – like Drake – but they have largely threatened major retailers like Macy’s and Walgreens, not fans barely turning a profit on a website. By 2015, Taylor had applied for 121 trademarks (almost 10 years ago). Yes, other major artists have caught wind of these practices and many have, literally, followed suit. But none with the frequency and fluency of Swift. 
只有像泰勒·斯威夫特这样财大气粗的人，才能将法律体系当作工具而不是暴政。这是一种冷酷、嘲讽的“用文件淹没他们”的做法。普通人无法奢望通过庞大的法律体系寻求救济，因为进入的门槛成本超出了他们的资本。与此同时，泰勒威胁要起诉（深呼吸）：她的前吉他老师，因为他购买了域名“itaughttaylorswift.com”；Etsy 上的粉丝，因为他们出售印有她名字的商品；一位澳大利亚涂鸦艺术家，因为他创作了一幅客观上来说非常糟糕的壁画；两位播客；24 名身份不明的商标侵权者；微软；以及金卡戴珊和坎耶·韦斯特。而且，所有这些调查都来自 2017 年，当时八卦杂志最讨厌她，才会费心去调查这些事情。其他艺术家也曾威胁要起诉使用他们名字的商品销售商——比如德雷克——但他们主要威胁的是梅西百货和沃尔格林等大型零售商，而不是那些在网站上几乎没有赚到利润的粉丝。到 2015 年，泰勒已经申请了 121 个商标（几乎 10 年前）。 是的，其他主要艺术家也注意到了这些做法，许多人实际上也纷纷效仿。 但没有一个人像斯威夫特那样频繁且流畅。 

A few months ago, disgusting, unconscionable, and sexually violent AI-generated photos of Taylor went viral. The promptest response came from the fans, who scraped the images off the internet to protect their star. They mobilised with their usual cultish deft and large-nation-sized population. Next, the general public reacted in outrage, and finally, in response to the outrage, lawmakers began reviewing the scope for legislation to prevent such tragedies.
几个月前，一些令人作呕、令人发指、带有性暴力内容的泰勒 AI 生成照片在网上疯传。粉丝们最先做出反应，他们从互联网上删除了这些图片，以保护他们的偶像。他们以一贯的狂热和庞大的人数动员起来。接下来，公众对此表示愤怒，最后，为了回应公众的愤怒，立法者开始审查立法范围，以防止此类悲剧再次发生。

This is an objectively worthy outcome of a twisted situation. But it does matter that this is what it took. A Guardian article notes that there are upwards of 9,500 sites dedicated to nonconsensual deepfake porn, and that this technology has exploited child sex abuse. Yet, the title of the article documenting historical terrors is: “If anyone can get the US government to take deepfake porn seriously, it’s Swifties.” The author sees the mobilization of fans as a “silver lining.” Indeed, we are transacting in an attention economy, and pressure is always needed to realise any large-scale legislative change. However, when activists have been fighting for years to make better laws for women’s protection, and girls have died by suicide over deepfake porn – it is bewildering that this is what it took. The system is broken. The celebrity is brighter than the sun. Only she can decide when it is day.
这是一个扭曲局面的客观上值得的结果。但重要的是，这是所需要的。一篇《卫报》文章指出，有超过 9,500 个网站专门用于非自愿的深度伪造色情内容，并且这项技术已经利用了儿童性虐待。然而，记录历史恐怖事件的文章标题是：“如果有人能让美国政府认真对待深度伪造色情内容，那就是斯威夫特的粉丝。”作者将粉丝的动员视为“一线希望”。的确，我们生活在一个注意力经济中，任何大规模立法变革都需要压力。然而，当活动人士多年来一直在努力为女性保护制定更好的法律，女孩因深度伪造色情内容而自杀身亡时，这是所需要的，这令人费解。这个系统已经崩溃。这位名人比太阳还耀眼。只有她才能决定何时是白天。

Under the regime of juridification, the notion of injustice has been concentrated onto individual right/wrong, and modified to accommodate said individual’s social and economic capital. This is both a cause and result of the realism with which we encounter broader systems of power. The superstructures of today’s world – capitalism, neo-imperialism, patriarchy – are interwoven into a bureaucratic and ideological hydra whose heads can never be cut off. Power is no longer wielded by a single sovereign against their subjects. Instead, it is diffused and upheld by a host of interacting identities and ideologies. In the brisk air of the internet, through the hot spillages of media, our compasses for morality must cast their gaze everywhere and nowhere, for that is where power thrives. We are beholden to the vagaries of algorithmic ritournelles and post-truth chatter because these are our sources of ideology, morality, and consumption. 
在法治化统治下，不公正的概念集中在个人是非上，并被修改以适应该个人的社会和经济资本。这既是现实主义的起因，也是现实主义的结果，而我们所遇到的更广泛的权力体系正是现实主义的体现。当今世界的上层建筑——资本主义、新帝国主义、父权制——交织成一个官僚主义和意识形态的水螅，其头颅永远无法斩断。权力不再由一个单一的统治者对他们的臣民行使。相反，它被分散并由一群相互作用的身份和意识形态所维护。在互联网的清风中，在媒体的热烈传播中，我们的道德指南针必须将目光投向四面八方，也无处可去，因为权力就在那里滋生。我们受制于算法循环和后真相闲聊的反复无常，因为这些是我们意识形态、道德和消费的来源。

When a singular force such as Taylor Swift rises and grows tall, tall enough to touch the superstructural sky, it is not enough for us to applaud when she forces change in the music industry’s worst habits. These, and most of her moral-legal triumphs, guarantee the victor monetary spoils. Her ‘activism’ is consumer activism – starting and ending with protecting the dominant ideology’s faith in private property, commodified art, and individual ascendency. Her ecosystem sees private ownership as a virtue and critical rhetoric as unlawful. Yes, wrong is wrong. It is disheartening that in our lurid world of so much negative media coverage and so little attention, not all wrongs were created equal.
当像泰勒·斯威夫特这样的单一力量崛起并成长，高到足以触及上层建筑的天空时，仅仅在她迫使音乐行业改变其最糟糕的习惯时鼓掌是不够的。这些，以及她大多数的道德法律上的胜利，都保证了胜利者获得金钱上的回报。她的“行动主义”是消费者行动主义——从保护占主导地位的意识形态对私有财产、商品化艺术和个人上升的信仰开始，也以保护这些信仰结束。她的生态系统将私有制视为美德，将批判性言论视为非法。是的，错误就是错误。令人沮丧的是，在我们这个充斥着大量负面媒体报道和很少关注的世界里，并非所有错误都是平等的。

Taylor Swift has said nothing on Palestine. (I will not count attending a comedy show with proceeds donated to relief efforts and then saying nothing more on the matter as ‘registering dissent’). The actual colonial state of Israel tweeted: “we promise that we’ll never find another like you,” tagging her. Another person tweeted: “i genuinely  think taylor swift could change the trajectory of world politics by tweeting free palestine.” When her undying star has the proven power to shape public opinion on morality (no one in the general public seriously considered it unjust to not own your masters before her), then we have entered a brittle new world. One where Presidents beg Taylor to tour in their silly little nations, historical monuments are renamed to pay her respect, and a single Instagram story from her can increase voter turnout so drastically that it influences the outcome of an election. She’s a recession-proof price-inelastic commodity; she is the hopeful democratic party’s silver bullet. In her Time Magazine interview for being the Person of the Year in 2023, the journalist characterizes Taylor’s deserving of this award primarily on grounds of scale: “To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather—a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.” Well, if we grant her all this power, we must crucify her for its misuse. 
泰勒·斯威夫特对巴勒斯坦问题一直保持沉默。（我不会把参加一场喜剧表演，并将收益捐赠给救济工作，然后对这件事不再发表任何言论，算作“表达异议”。）实际上的殖民国家以色列在推特上写道：“我们保证，我们永远不会再找到像你这样的了”，并@了她。另一位网友在推特上写道：“我真的认为泰勒·斯威夫特可以通过发推文“解放巴勒斯坦”来改变世界政治的轨迹。”当她永恒的明星拥有已被证明可以塑造公众对道德观的舆论的力量时（在她之前，没有人认真地认为不拥有你的主人是不公正的），那么我们就进入了一个脆弱的新世界。在这个世界里，总统们恳求泰勒在他们那愚蠢的小国巡回演出，历史遗迹被改名为以表达对她的敬意，她的一条 Instagram 故事可以极大地提高投票率，从而影响选举结果。 她是一种不受经济衰退影响的、价格弹性低的商品；她是充满希望的民主党人的银弹。在 2023 年《时代》杂志的年度人物采访中，记者将泰勒获得该奖项的主要原因归结为规模：“讨论她的动向就像讨论政治或天气——一种语言传播如此广泛，无需任何背景。她成为了世界的主线人物。”好吧，如果我们承认她拥有如此强大的力量，我们就必须因她滥用权力而将她钉在十字架上。

At the recent Super Bowl, while Rafah, a declared safe area for Palestinians was bombed, everybody was watching Taylor and her boyfriend. In order to be a functionary of ruling class hegemony, Taylor Swift does not need to be a liberal psy-op, as suggested by the erudite folks of the right wing. (The right-wing is correct to point out that ‘the system’ is working in a manner of unfreedom. Unfortunately, they get cause and consequence so wrong you cannot take them seriously). She simply needs to continue existing as an acquiescent friend to the neoliberal system. Her fans defend: she isn’t asking for the camera to be pointed at her! But her brand has gestated and come to life by dint of photographs, blurred lines of personal and public, and transfixing eyes – all of them – on her. She provides partially differentiated products (albums, outfits, easter eggs, boyfriends) that, under the guise of  ‘apoliticality,’ enable the continued injustices of the status quo. Her existence on this scale is sanctified and sanctioned by the superstructures of our times. If we live in a juridified system, she has made it her armour. If we live in an attention economy, she has monopolised the market. If we live in the culture industry, she is simultaneously its shiniest product, and deftest producer. 
最近的超级碗比赛期间，当巴勒斯坦人宣布的安全区拉法遭到轰炸时，所有人都盯着泰勒和她男朋友。为了成为统治阶级霸权的执行者，泰勒·斯威夫特不需要成为右翼学者们所说的“自由派心理战”。（右翼人士正确地指出，“体制”正在以一种不自由的方式运作。不幸的是，他们对因果关系的理解如此错误，以至于你无法认真对待他们。）她只需要继续作为新自由主义体系的顺从朋友存在。她的粉丝辩护说：她并没有要求镜头对准她！但她的品牌是通过照片、个人和公众之间的模糊界限以及所有人的目光而孕育和诞生的。她提供部分差异化的产品（专辑、服装、彩蛋、男朋友），这些产品在“非政治性”的幌子下，使现状的持续不公正成为可能。 她在这种规模上的存在，被我们这个时代的超级结构神圣化和认可。如果我们生活在一个法治体系中，她已将其作为自己的盔甲。如果我们生活在一个注意力经济中，她已垄断了市场。如果我们生活在文化产业中，她既是其最闪耀的产品，也是最巧妙的生产者。

Taylor Swift – The Culture Industry
泰勒·斯威夫特——文化产业  

In The Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer theorise our engagement with media as the “culture industry.” The term describes the state of culture wherein freedom is lost both creatively and politically, because alienated people uncritically consume artefacts that reproduce dominant ideologies. The mode of production in the culture industry is that of the Enlightenment – rationality. All must be measured for target groups, scraped clean of the offensive, and rolled out with the inflexible rhythm of an assembly line. This rationality becomes a totalitarian cultural force, by subsuming all artistic endeavours, compelling them to be organized and driven by the market’s principles of efficiency. In mandating such precision and vacuity, totalitarianism sustains a society that is “alienated from itself.” 
在启蒙辩证法中，阿多诺和霍克海默将我们与媒体的互动理论化为“文化工业”。该术语描述了文化的一种状态，在这种状态下，创造力和政治上的自由都丧失了，因为疏离的人们毫无批判地消费再现统治意识形态的文物。文化工业的生产方式是启蒙运动的理性。一切都要针对目标群体进行衡量，清除一切冒犯性的东西，并以流水线式的僵化节奏推出。这种理性成为一种极权主义的文化力量，它将所有艺术努力纳入其中，迫使它们按照市场的效率原则进行组织和驱动。通过要求这种精确性和空洞，极权主义维持着一个“自我疏离”的社会。

In a lovely podcast about the Culture Industry, the hosts bring up Beethoven, Radiohead, and Taylor Swift as countermodels to the culture industry. They claim that each of these megastars successfully liberated themselves from the requirements set forth by the dominant artistic-economic production machines of their times. Beethoven refused to live with a patron, choosing instead to build relationships with more experimental supporters of his art. This retained his ingenuity and craft. Radiohead, tired of the creative limitations and steep prices wrought by a record label, released their album ‘In Rainbows’ for free, letting fans pay as much or as little as they’d like to hear it. In this way, both were able to supersede the culture industry’s restrictions of economic efficiency and creating a product bound by the market’s logic. They could then create with disregard for selling as much as possible, having already secured a loyal coalition that guaranteed their existence. This led to freedom to create outside the culture industry, untainted by appeasement tactics and performance metrics.
在一个关于文化产业的精彩播客中，主持人提到了贝多芬、Radiohead 和泰勒·斯威夫特，将他们视为文化产业的反面典范。他们声称，这些巨星都成功地从他们那个时代的主流艺术经济生产机器所设定的要求中解放了自己。贝多芬拒绝依附于赞助人，而是选择与更具实验精神的艺术支持者建立关系。这保留了他的独创性和技艺。Radiohead 厌倦了唱片公司带来的创作限制和高昂价格，免费发布了他们的专辑《In Rainbows》，让粉丝们可以根据自己的意愿支付任何金额来收听。这样，他们都超越了文化产业对经济效率的限制，创造了一种不受市场逻辑束缚的产品。 这样一来，他们就可以不顾销售量，尽可能地进行创作，因为他们已经获得了忠诚的联盟，保证了他们的生存。这让他们能够摆脱文化产业的束缚，自由创作，不受迎合策略和绩效指标的影响。

The hosts then extend their argument to Taylor Swift, suggesting that because of her scale, it is likely that she, too, can escape the machinery of the culture industry. I agree that her scale has allowed her to become an autonomous market with its own coalition, but do not believe this has been through rejecting the totalitarian rationality of the culture industry. Where Radiohead formed autonomous platforms to increase the availability of their music to fans, and Beethoven’s patrons granted him greater scope for countercultural composition, Swift’s autonomous economy bows down to neoliberal capitalism, delusions of Americana, and plain avarice. These principles have been Taylor’s buttresses, scaffolding her very own hypercapitalist culture industry. 
主持人随后将他们的论点扩展到泰勒·斯威夫特，认为由于她的规模，她也很有可能逃脱文化产业的机器。我同意她的规模让她成为一个拥有自己联盟的自主市场，但我不认为这是通过拒绝文化产业的极权理性实现的。Radiohead 形成自主平台以增加他们音乐对粉丝的可用性，贝多芬的赞助人赋予了他更大的创作反文化作品的空间，而斯威夫特的自主经济却屈服于新自由主义资本主义、美国梦的幻想和赤裸裸的贪婪。这些原则一直是泰勒的支柱，为她自己的超级资本主义文化产业搭建了脚手架。

Taylor has made herself an essential truth of society, naturalizing herself through familiar ideological games. She has entreated each reigning system of power to swear fealty to her, because she has sworn fealty to them. She will protect their values and principles with all her heart (and lawyers and billions) as long as they give her the same privilege. 
泰勒把自己变成了社会中不可或缺的真理，通过熟悉的意识形态游戏使自己变得自然。她恳求每一个当权的权力体系向她宣誓效忠，因为她已经向他们宣誓效忠。只要他们给予她同样的特权，她就会全心全意（以及律师和数十亿美元）保护他们的价值观和原则。

 Taylor says, often, that she has had to stand up to systems that slut-shamed her for having too many boyfriends and being too surprised. In the Time Magazine article, Taylor calls ‘reputation’ – an album mostly full of love songs, “a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure.” She is so severed as an entity from the structures of oppression that public disapproval – while mean and misogynistic – has been turned into disenfranchisement. Neoliberal ideology demands this kind of posturing, which empties out and co-opts the vernacular of genuine resistance. Far from being some kind of contrarian catharsis, ‘repuation’ proved, as a VICE article notes, that “Taylor Swift is Too Big to Fail.”While critics largely panned the record, and ‘haters’ slithered in her comments section, it became the best-selling album of the year, selling more than double of the next albums on the list. It did not matter that the ‘mainstream’ market rejected her. She is a mainstream unto herself. But had she done some shady things to get there? In the VICE article, the author talks about how, in the run-up to album release, Taylor threatened to sue several publications, so many, in fact, that another article asked: “Has Taylor Swift’s Lawyer Threatened to Sue You? Let Us Know!” 
泰勒经常说，她不得不反抗那些因为她男朋友太多、太容易惊讶而对她进行荡妇羞辱的体制。在《时代》杂志的文章中，泰勒称她的专辑《声名大噪》——一张大部分都是爱情歌曲的专辑——是“一个哥特朋克式的时刻，表达了女性对整个社会结构的煤气灯式操控的愤怒”。她作为一个实体，与压迫结构完全分离，以至于公众的反对——虽然刻薄且带有性别歧视——已经被转化为剥夺权利。新自由主义意识形态要求这种姿态，它会清空并挪用真正抵抗的语言。与某种反叛的宣泄不同，《声名大噪》证明了，正如《副》杂志的一篇文章所指出的那样，“泰勒·斯威夫特太大了，不会失败”。虽然评论家普遍批评这张专辑，而且“黑粉”在她评论区里游走，但它却成为当年最畅销的专辑，销量是榜单上其他专辑的两倍多。主流市场是否接受她并不重要。 她本身就是一个主流。但她是否做了些见不得人的事才走到今天？在《VICE》的文章中，作者谈到，在专辑发行前夕，泰勒威胁要起诉几家出版物，事实上，起诉的出版物数量之多，以至于另一篇文章问道：“泰勒·斯威夫特的律师是否威胁要起诉你？请告诉我们！ ”

After years of silence on America’s two parties, she claims that when she realised she ‘had to say something,’ she came out as Democrat. I don’t buy that. I believe her calculus shifted: it was becoming costlier to not disclose her politics, than to say she was a democrat. (Many publications, that she threatened to sue for libel had started to call her a Nazi). I don’t suggest she is secretly a Republican, rather that she is a chameleonic nothing, computing politics through an assessment of the zeitgeist’s mathematics. This is why she can be criticised for being too right wing, too left wing, and too centrist all at once.
多年来，她对美国两党保持沉默，她声称，当她意识到“必须说些什么”时，她公开宣布自己是民主党人。我不相信。我认为她的算计发生了变化：不公开她的政治立场比说她是民主党人代价更高。（许多出版物，她威胁要起诉诽谤开始称她为纳粹）。我并不认为她暗地里是共和党人，而是认为她是一个变色龙什么都不是，通过对时代精神数学的评估来计算政治。这就是为什么她可以同时被批评为过于右倾、过于左倾和过于中间派。

When neoliberalism deems a concept ‘normalised,’ it has appropriated that movement into the rational moral consciousness. Hence, the marginal cost of making a song called ‘You Need to Calm Down,’ telling homophobes – in the vein of all great activism – to chill out, is far outweighed by the benefits of appeasing a moment’s norm. When it was the normal position to adopt, Taylor mobilized her army and did genuinely impactful things (donations, petitions, etc). The needle for morality had already been shifted through the hard work of activism, she coasted in once all the discomfort around queer rights had passed. Her glistening image is deliberately placed in the marketplace of media as an anodyne, unsexy, formless protean. It would be foolish to expect her to soil her best dress with radical empathy.
当新自由主义将一个概念视为“正常化”时，它就将该运动纳入了理性的道德意识。因此，创作一首名为“你需要冷静下来”的歌曲，以所有伟大行动主义的风格告诉恐同者冷静下来，其边际成本远远低于迎合当下“正常”带来的好处。当这种立场成为常态时，泰勒动员了她的军队，并做了一些真正有影响力的事情（捐款、请愿等）。道德的指针已经通过行动主义的艰苦努力而发生转变，当围绕同性恋权利的所有不适感消退后，她便乘风破浪。她闪闪发光的形象被刻意地置于媒体市场，作为一种温和、无性、无形、多变的存在。指望她用激进的同理心玷污她最好的衣服，这将是愚蠢的。

The culture industry requires that its products embody this tepid, mass-apeal-based moral rationality. It can never say, speak on Palestine or Indian farmer protests, but it could, reasonably, peddle an LGBTQ+ flag and talk Biden. It is the cowardly white liberal feminism that revels in its fetishisation of individual agency and ‘choice.’ Accordingly, Taylor has turned the personal pronoun, ‘I’ into the sharpest, most well-organised institution seen in modern culture. Even in the age of stan Twitter and internet insanity, she has the most rabid of the bunch, who have scared music critics by doxxing unflattering reviewers to protect her ‘I.’ 
文化产业要求其产品体现这种平淡的、大众吸引力的道德理性。它永远不会说，谈论巴勒斯坦或印度农民抗议，但它可以合理地兜售 LGBTQ+旗帜，谈论拜登。这就是胆怯的白人自由主义女权主义，它沉迷于对个人能动性和“选择”的迷恋。因此，泰勒将人称代词“我”变成了现代文化中最尖锐、最井然有序的机构。即使在推特粉丝和网络疯狂的时代，她也有最狂热的粉丝，他们通过人肉搜索对不利的评论者进行人身攻击来保护她的“我”。

In return, Taylor uses this large fanbase as a cash cow that will purchase 4 Vinyl records of the same album only because when you arrange them, they form a clock through their cover art. (Seriously.) Her fans stream remix after remix to climb the charts, and have moralised her re-recordings so well that purchasing a Taylor’s Version is recast as a display of love and loyalty and feminist consumption. (On stan twitter, the older versions are called “unethical versions.”) And all the while we are to believe that her predatory and rapacious marketing efforts, her (in my opinion) ugly, overpriced merchandise, and her single-minded gamification of streaming metrics, are supposedly irrelevant to her musical genius. 
作为回报，泰勒利用庞大的粉丝群作为摇钱树，他们会购买同一张专辑的四张黑胶唱片，仅仅因为当把它们排列起来时，它们的封面艺术会形成一个时钟。（真的。）她的粉丝们一遍又一遍地播放混音版，以攀登排行榜，并且已经将她的重新录制版本美化得如此之好，以至于购买“泰勒版本”被重新定义为一种表达爱意、忠诚和女性主义消费的方式。（在粉丝推特上，旧版本被称为“不道德版本”。）而我们却被要求相信，她掠夺性的、贪婪的营销手段，她（在我看来）丑陋、价格过高的商品，以及她对流媒体指标的单方面游戏化，与她的音乐天才无关。

In that same Time Magazine interview, she explains Girlboss feminism 101 as if she invented it (is Sheryl Sandberg a joke to you?): “feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made. It’s extremely heartening.” Taylor has turned the logic of production and its efficiency into a virtue, proof of talent, feminism, and a mandate for a legacy. This is the work of ideology. It manipulates its subjects from realising superstructural oppression. It brazenly invokes identity politics. It piggybacks off of movements with teeth and blunts them into blubbering, white individualism. 
在同一期《时代》杂志的采访中，她解释了“女老板”的女性主义 101，就好像是她发明的（你认为谢丽尔·桑德伯格是个笑话吗？）： “女性化的想法变得有利可图，意味着将会有更多女性艺术作品被创作出来。这非常令人振奋。” 泰勒将生产及其效率的逻辑变成了美德，是才华、女性主义和遗产的证明。 这就是意识形态的作用。 它操纵其主体，使其无法意识到上层建筑的压迫。 它公然援引身份政治。 它搭乘有牙齿的运动的便车，并将它们钝化成哭哭啼啼的、白人个人主义。

Taylor recognises that the culture industry was responsible for making artists play the capitalist game of profit-maximisation: this is why she fought Apple Music and Spotify for better compensation. In an interview with the Rolling Stones speaking against streaming, she said: “And I just don’t agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free.” Her problem with these platforms was not the commodification of art itself, but that she was not profiting enough from this commodification. She was able to hold them hostage because the platforms needed her more than she needed them, and this is what it means to rule one’s own culture industry. Her output is – after all – songs she wrote about herself, by herself. In our late capitalist context, when economic avarice has been naturalised into ‘business savvy,’ we forget that consumption is a political act. Marketing and releasing partially products for the sole reason of more profit is a hostile, exploitative, totalitarian act.
泰勒认识到文化产业迫使艺术家参与利润最大化的资本主义游戏：这就是她与 Apple Music 和 Spotify 争夺更好报酬的原因。在接受《滚石》杂志采访时，她反对流媒体，说：“我不同意助长音乐没有价值，应该免费的观念。”她对这些平台的质疑不在于艺术本身的商品化，而在于她从这种商品化中获利不足。她能够将它们绑架，因为这些平台比她更需要她，这就是掌控文化产业的意义所在。毕竟，她的作品是她自己创作的关于她自己的歌曲。在当今的晚期资本主义语境下，当经济贪婪被自然化为“商业头脑”时，我们忘记了消费是一种政治行为。 仅仅为了获取更多利润而营销和发布部分产品，是一种敌对的、剥削性的、极权主义的行为。

Taylor Swift – The Myth
泰勒·斯威夫特 - 神话 

We must now get to the music itself, so allow me to borrow from Barthes’ description of Myth to make the following claims: 
现在我们必须谈论音乐本身，所以请允许我借用巴特赫斯对神话的描述来提出以下主张：

1.  Taylor Swift is a storyteller.
1.泰勒·斯威夫特是一位讲故事的人。

Across Taylor’s discography, form and style are both only window dressing for the storytelling impulse. It’s all about angle. She’s said it herself– it doesn’t matter if it’s the icy synths on ‘1989,’ or fiddle twangs on her debut record, the heart of her work remains the same: images and actions weave themselves into conceits that are as repetitive in their structure as they are compelling in their world-building. She has never sold us sex, with its risks of post-nut clarity and inevitable somatic changes. She chose, instead, things that stay with us forever – we remember crushes through her titles, choose date spots through her hooks, and explain heartbreak by her bridges. Her folklore is water, seeping into every structure of feeling, buoyed eternally by its narrative arcs that are always about things. For most people’s romantic lives, you could reasonably say – hey! There’s a Taylor Swift song about that! 
纵观泰勒·斯威夫特的音乐作品，形式和风格都只是为叙事冲动服务的包装。一切都是关于角度——她自己也说过——无论是《1989》中的冰冷合成器，还是她首张专辑中的小提琴弦乐，她作品的核心始终如一：意象和行动交织成概念，这些概念在结构上重复，但在世界构建上却引人入胜。她从未向我们兜售性，因为性伴随着事后清醒和不可避免的躯体变化的风险。相反，她选择了那些永远留存的东西——我们通过她的歌名记住暗恋，通过她的副歌选择约会地点，并通过她的桥段解释心碎。她的民间传说如同水，渗透到每一种情感结构中，永远被其始终关于事物的叙事弧线所支撑。对于大多数人的爱情生活来说，你可以合理地说——嘿！有一首泰勒·斯威夫特的歌就是关于这个的！

  2. Her music is a Myth: Unlike polysemic art, which abounds in all directions and invites the reader to participate in meaning-making, this all refers back to its own mythology – that of Taylor Swift.  
2.她的音乐是一个神话：与多义艺术不同，多义艺术在各个方向上都丰富多彩，并邀请读者参与意义的创造，而这一切都回溯到她自己的神话——泰勒·斯威夫特的神话。  

In semiotics, linguists break down the process of signification: there is a complete sign which is made up of signifiers – the vehicles of representations chosen by a cultural system (like saying ‘cat’ to describe a cat)- and the signified, which is the thing itself (that animal with some milk and meows). Barthes explains myths as a second-order language system, wherein what was once a sign (concept of cat + image of cat) becomes just a signifier (for spinster, or bad luck, or cute, depending on the myth). 
在符号学中，语言学家将指称的过程分解为：一个完整的符号，它由符号者（文化系统选择的表征载体，例如用“猫”来描述猫）和所指（即那个有奶喝会喵喵叫的动物）组成。巴特解释神话是一个二阶语言系统，其中曾经的符号（猫的概念 + 猫的图像）变成了符号者（根据神话，可能是老处女、厄运或可爱）。

My claim is that Taylor’s music makes itself a second-level signifier for her own Myth. She makes the act of listening to her music an act of trying to get to the bottom of the first-level of signification, in order to plumb at the second-level of signification, which is her Mythology.
我的论点是，泰勒的音乐本身就成为了她自身神话的二级指称。她将聆听她的音乐的行为变成了试图触及一级指称的底部，以便探究二级指称，即她的神话。

Swift’s music presents a series of signs for emotions – love, heartbreak, and joy – woven into linear arcs. However, these arcs do not leave much room for the emotions themselves to explode beyond the narrative structure she has erected with hook-machines and chord-cement. Barthes tells us that the triumph of Myth is its ability to never reject things or mottle them. Instead, “its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification.” In other words, her reams on the rituals of relationships perform a purifying function, clarifying the messiness of emotions through the imposition of a language system whose framework is order, logic, and realism.
斯威夫特的音乐呈现了一系列情感的符号——爱情、心碎和快乐——编织成线性弧线。然而，这些弧线并没有给这些情感留下太多空间，让它们在叙事结构之外爆发，而她用钩机和和弦水泥构建了这种结构。巴特认为，神话的胜利在于它永远不会拒绝事物或使事物变得斑驳。相反，“它的功能是谈论它们；简单地说，它净化它们，使它们变得无辜，赋予它们自然而永恒的正当理由。”换句话说，她关于人际关系仪式的大量作品起到了净化作用，通过强加一个以秩序、逻辑和现实主义为框架的语言系统，澄清了情感的混乱。

These narrative arcs, furthermore, are replete with meaning that can be uncovered and further purified through a cipher-style listening process. Unlike more interpretatively complex singer-songwriters, (say, Björk, or Fiona Apple) her lyricism, while powerful as a series of fatally-precise adjectives and remembrances, form a lexicon for emotions that creates distance from the emotion itself. Her songs are more interested in spinning a story around an emotion, than the emotion and its catharsis. In other words, they all tie back to story, to self, to myth.
此外，这些叙事弧线充满了意义，可以通过类似密码的聆听过程来揭示和进一步提炼。与更具解释性的复杂创作型歌手（例如，比约克或菲奥娜·苹果）不同，她的歌词虽然作为一系列致命精准的形容词和回忆而强大，但形成了一个情感词汇，与情感本身保持距离。她的歌曲更感兴趣的是围绕情感编织故事，而不是情感本身及其宣泄。换句话说，它们都与故事、自我、神话联系在一起。

3. The more time you spend with both Taylor the woman, and Taylor Swift’s fandom, the closer you get to Myth.
3.你花在泰勒·斯威夫特本人和她的粉丝群体上的时间越多，你离真相就越近。

One of Taylor’s greatest songs, ‘Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,’ is a deep cut off ‘Midnights’ that documents a debilitating relationship with an older man. Her grief is naked and gutting, with lyrics like, “give me back my girlhood, it was mine first,” and “I miss who I used to be/ the tomb won’t close,” and “I regret you all the time.” Her voice – as always – is clear as a missile, inflecting at the proper moments and crooning at each loss, making sure you understand how each word felt in the story of the song. When the song was released, me and many other dedicated Swifties said the words our coven demands us to drop at least once an album cycle: this song was written specifically for me, about my life.
泰勒最伟大的歌曲之一《本该如此》是《午夜》专辑中的一首深藏不露的歌曲，它记录了与一个年长男人的一段令人心碎的感情。她的悲伤赤裸裸地展现出来，令人心碎，歌词如“把我的少女时代还给我，它原本是我的”、“我怀念曾经的自己/坟墓不会合上”和“我总是后悔遇见你”。她的声音一如既往地清晰如导弹，在适当的时刻抑扬顿挫，在每一次失去中低吟浅唱，确保你理解歌词中每一个字在歌曲故事中的感受。这首歌发行后，我和许多其他忠实的斯威夫特粉丝都说了我们这个小团体每张专辑周期至少要说的那句话：这首歌是专门为我写的，关于我的生活。

This is the brilliance of Myth: “it comes and seeks me out…as a confidence and a complicity… I feel this [song] has just been created on the spot, for me, like a magical object springing up in my present life without any trace of the history which has caused it.” There is much discourse around how, because Taylor’s vocal range is limited, her songs are easier for the average person to sing. It’s not about hitting the high notes, it’s about achieving the emotional intonation as prescribed. That’s what delivers the fulfilment of enjoying a Taylor Swift song. To properly appreciate the song, you have to listen to the lyrics and sing the story. You have to find the protagonist sympathetic or antagonistic as prescribed by her Myth. If you are faint of heart and a lover of stories, you cannot help but invest in the first-person character she embodies, and you cannot help but construct yourself in the first-person character she entreats you to learn-by-heart. That’s how you begin to speak the metalanguage of her Myth. 
这就是神话的魅力所在：“它主动来找我……像一种信任和共谋……我感觉这首歌是为我即兴创作的，就像一个神奇的物件突然出现在我的现实生活中，没有任何历史痕迹。”关于泰勒的声域有限，她的歌曲更容易被普通人演唱，有很多讨论。这并不是关于唱高音，而是关于达到她所规定的情感语调。这正是享受泰勒·斯威夫特歌曲的满足感所在。为了真正欣赏这首歌，你必须聆听歌词，唱出故事。你必须根据她的神话，找到主人公的共鸣点或对抗点。如果你胆小且热爱故事，你无法抗拒投入她所体现的第一人称角色，你也无法抗拒将自己构建成她恳求你用心学习的第一人称角色。 这就是你开始理解她神话的隐喻语言的方式。

Taylor’s prolific musical exegeses have created not a discography, but a Myth. This is what makes her fans feel as though they are speaking a secret language, and living in a world of interiority where it is only them, their secret sessions, their reserve of references, and their own red-lipped Rosetta Stone. This is not polysemic literary interpretation, because there is a right answer as to what refers to what, which you can understand if you sink deep enough into her mythology.
泰勒丰富的音乐解读创造的不是一张唱片目录，而是一个神话。这使得她的粉丝感觉他们说的是一种秘密语言，生活在一个内心世界里，只有他们自己、他们的秘密会议、他们的参考储备以及他们自己的红唇罗塞塔石碑。这不是多义的文学解读，因为关于什么指的是什么，有一个正确答案，如果你深入她的神话，你就能理解。

Cultural production under late capitalism is characterized by its intertextuality: nothing is unique, everything is a referent of something else that has come before it; all is bastardised kitsch and layered with quotations, simulacra, and symbols of other cultural artefacts. What makes Swift feel like she means more is that from the singularity of her vision and her magnificent power to produce prolifically, all ties back to her own Myth. She does not have to debase herself with external borrowings and imagery; she has no reference point but herself. Roland Barthes describes: “Myth…establishes a blissful clarity: things appear to mean something by themselves.”
后资本主义时代的文化生产以其互文性为特征：没有什么是独一无二的，一切都指向之前存在的其他事物；所有事物都是被扭曲的媚俗，并叠加着引文、模拟物和其他文化产品的符号。斯威夫特之所以让人感觉更有意义，是因为她独特的视野和惊人的创作力，所有的一切都回溯到她自己的神话。她不需要用外部借鉴和意象来贬低自己；她没有参照点，只有她自己。罗兰·巴特描述道：“神话……建立了一种幸福的清晰度：事物似乎本身就具有意义。”

I, seasoned Swiftie, recognise not only the songwriting easter eggs within ‘Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,’ but also that it is the 19th track on an album she released at age 32 – obviously, this is a metacomment on 32-year-old John Mayer dating 19 year-old Taylor Swift. Duh. The web never ends, there are no limits to her omnivorous mastication of language, her oeuvre is an exercise in scarfing down images and symbols and regurgitating them as her own Myth. Lest we forget, she also has juridification: In an insane, must-read essay ‘Taylor Swift Does Not Exist,’ Sam Kriss offers a screenshot of a diary of notes made while following the ‘1989’ tour, shortly after Taylor copyrighted ‘this sick beat,’ ‘nice to meet you, where you been,’ and ‘party like it’s 1989.’ They are the scribbles of a madperson, but they are right: “she is attempting to PRIVATISE ALL HUMAN LANGUAGE” in order to “make it so it’s IMPOSSIBLE TO SPEAK WITHOUT ONLY SPEAKING OF TAYLOR SWIFT.”  
我，一个资深霉粉，不仅能识别出《Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve》中的作词彩蛋，还注意到它是她在 32 岁时发布的专辑中的第 19 首歌——显然，这暗指 32 岁的约翰·梅耶与 19 岁的泰勒·斯威夫特约会。显而易见。她的网络无处不在，她对语言的吞噬永无止境，她的作品是对图像和符号的吞食和反刍，并将其转化为她自己的神话。我们也不要忘记，她还有司法化：在 Sam Kriss 的一篇疯狂且必读的论文《泰勒·斯威夫特不存在》中，他展示了一张日记截图，记录了在“1989”巡演期间的笔记，当时泰勒刚刚为“this sick beat”、“nice to meet you, where you been”和“party like it’s 1989”申请了版权。 它们是疯子的涂鸦，但它们是对的：“她试图将所有人类语言私有化”，以便“让它变得不可能不谈论泰勒·斯威夫特就说话”。 ”

By offering so many stories across so many genres, as Horkheimer and Adorno write, “[s]omething is provided for everyone so that no one can escape.” Her ocean of cultural output flows with the pull of language-learning. The more you listen, the more you connect, the more you understand the Myth of Taylor Swift. You can remember the necklace from the paparazzi photo and use it to decode an epithet in a hit. You can watch her music video a million times and find a new album title. It is not ‘high art’ that has multiple possibilities. It is the deadening out of artistic possibility, being so invested in an individual’s myth and truth. This is why Taylor Swift stands out: by gamifying her cultural output, she has added another layer of engagement with it that is ostensibly ‘depth’ of interpretation. The pleasure delays its own gratification for a second, invites a semi-automatic form of engagement, and eventually reveals itself as metalanguage. Determined not to give up the appearance of intellect while in fact eroding its cultural roots, we flitter through loose, laden, Swiftian songs and accomplish “not only…a depravation of culture, but inevitably…an intellectualization of amusement.” 
正如霍克海默和阿多诺所写，“[s]omething is provided for everyone so that no one can escape.”，泰勒·斯威夫特通过提供如此多的故事，涵盖如此多的类型，让每个人都能找到自己的归宿，也让每个人都无法逃脱。她那浩瀚的文化产出，随着语言学习的吸引力而流动。你听得越多，你连接得越多，你越能理解泰勒·斯威夫特的“神话”。你可以回忆起狗仔队照片中的项链，并用它来破译热门歌曲中的绰号。你可以观看她的音乐视频一百万次，并找到一个新的专辑名称。这不是“高雅艺术”的多重可能性，而是艺术可能性的消亡，沉迷于一个人的神话和真相。这就是泰勒·斯威夫特脱颖而出的原因：通过将她的文化产出游戏化，她为其增加了另一层参与度，这表面上是“深度”的解读。这种乐趣延迟了自己的满足，邀请了一种半自动化的参与形式，最终展现为元语言。 我们决心不放弃智力的表象，却在实际上侵蚀着它的文化根基，在松散、沉重、斯威夫特式的歌曲中飞来飞去，最终成就了“不仅……文化堕落，而且不可避免地……娱乐的智力化”。 ”

Because of this participative element of stanning Swift, new music is encountered with a kind of high: to recognise a variation or adaptation of an older album, ex-boyfriend, or album-drop tactic, a user is validated as part of the in-group, well-versed in the mimetic ontology of the group. Each new cultural output from her (song, outfit, outing, boyfriend) is satisfying irrespective of the quality of the creation, since the fear of missing out on a cultural moment is so stark, the threat of irrelevancy so debilitating, and hence, as Adorno and Horkheimer write, “enjoyment is giving way to being there and being in the know, connoisseurship by enhanced prestige.” Then, any additional differentiation made by the creation is championed as innovation, despite these differentiations’ subscription to the same format and ideological scope of the Taylor Swift Universe. It’s Marvel, with some SAT vocabulary and an enthralling bridge thrown in there. Dialectic again, “the machine is rotating on the spot.” 
正是这种参与式的“霉霉粉”元素，让新音乐的体验变得格外兴奋：当粉丝们识别出新作品中对旧专辑、前任男友或专辑发布策略的变奏或改编时，他们便获得了群体认同，证明自己精通群体模仿的本体论。她（歌曲、服装、外出、男友）的每一次文化输出都令人满意，无论作品质量如何，因为错过文化时刻的恐惧如此强烈，被边缘化的威胁如此令人沮丧，因此，正如阿多诺和霍克海默所写，“享受正在让位于在场和知情，鉴赏力通过提升声望而得到提升。” 然后，作品所做的任何额外区分都被吹捧为创新，尽管这些区分遵循着泰勒·斯威夫特宇宙的相同格式和意识形态范围。这就像漫威，只是加了一些 SAT 词汇和一段引人入胜的桥段。 辩证法再次，“机器在原地打转”。 ”

This ritualistic engagement with music as a form of amusement is particularly rewarding under late capitalism, when our leisure time – thought to be a place of freedom – has turned into anything but. Under late capitalism, the time we do not spend working is time we must spend preparing to get back to it the following morning, and it is time we cannot spend critically questioning this fact. Of course, not all Swifties are 9-5ers breaking their backs over labour, but the sociological shift in our leisure necessarily affects every consumer of the culture industry, for we cannot help but think in the grooves of work. When Taylor offers us a treasure map and a legend, the faculties for work which ideology has been training us to take up since birth leap back at us as pleasure. This offers the appearance of singularity in our pop culture landscape which has been socialised into an alienating world, where we do not ‘engage’ with culture, we consume it as entertainment. By and large, culture is entertainment, and everything else is pretentious. Our leisure time is spent re-watching old shows, scrolling until our fingers ossify, and adaptations of adaptations are all that’s left on the air. Most of what we consume in our postmodern world is both boring and pleasurable, demanding little effort and content with the slopes of the familiar inundations of media. Thus, Taylor speciously demands more of us, the brains we’ve wired to work, and we oblige, glazed over and content. 
这种将音乐作为娱乐形式的仪式化参与，在后资本主义时代尤其令人欣慰。在这个时代，我们的休闲时间——本应是自由之地——却变成了完全相反的东西。在后资本主义时代，我们不工作的时间，就是用来为第二天早上重返工作岗位做准备的时间，也是我们无法用来批判性地质疑这一事实的时间。当然，并非所有“霉霉粉”都是朝九晚五、为工作而奔波的人，但休闲时间的社会学转变必然会影响到文化产业的每一个消费者，因为我们无法摆脱工作的思维模式。当泰勒为我们提供宝藏地图和传说时，意识形态从我们出生起就训练我们使用的劳动能力，以快乐的形式反弹回来。这在我们被社会化成一个异化的世界中的流行文化景观中，呈现出一种独特性，在这个世界里，我们并不“参与”文化，而是将其作为娱乐来消费。 总的来说，文化就是娱乐，其他都是矫揉造作。我们的休闲时间都花在重温老节目、刷手机刷到手指僵硬，以及改编的改编作品上。我们在这个后现代世界中消费的大部分东西既无聊又令人愉悦，不需要多少努力，满足于熟悉媒体泛滥的平庸。因此，泰勒虚假地要求我们更多，要求我们已经习惯于工作的头脑，而我们也顺从了，目光呆滞，心满意足。

These conditions have a degrading effect on culture at large; there is no choice but to amuse and puzzle, and thus, what was supposed to be the great democratisation of content has actually been a juridification of culture. There is too much of it, it serves to reproduce the ideologies of the status quo and its hegemony, and the more of it there is, the less meaningful our engagement with it gets. Art is degraded into schlock that serves to unify the masses through output that by design must never question the systems structuring life under late capitalism. The culture industry facilitates the collective numbing of our weirdest, most dangerous, and revolutionary impulses, by feeding us a never-ending supply of base entertainment. It reduces art to the distractions of fun, and with our diseased alienation, “fun is a medicinal bath which the entertainment industry never ceases to prescribe.” 
这些条件对整体文化产生了负面影响；除了娱乐和迷惑，别无选择，因此，原本应该是内容的伟大民主化，实际上变成了文化的司法化。内容太多，它用来复制现状的意识形态及其霸权，内容越多，我们与之的互动就越没有意义。艺术被降级为庸俗的东西，通过设计上永远不会质疑晚期资本主义下构建生活的体系的产出，来统一大众。文化产业通过向我们提供源源不断的低级娱乐，促使我们最奇怪、最危险、最革命的冲动集体麻木。它将艺术简化为娱乐的消遣，而我们病态的疏离，“娱乐是一种娱乐产业不断开出的药浴”。

Taylor Swift, My Close Personal Friend
泰勒·斯威夫特，我的亲密好友  

The word ‘parasociality’ gets thrown around a lot. The New Yorker podcast covering Taylor’s potential creation of a monoculture discusses her Mona-Lisa-esque ability to create intimacy with her legions of fans through a “hey guys” linguistic effect. She walks onto the stage and offers a simple introduction – “hey guys, my name is Taylor” – and hundreds of thousands of people almost faint. We know your name, Taylor. So much of our imaginative and sentimental universe has been handed to us by your songs. These rich histories, where your mind turned lives of a generation into folklore, are unshakeable, and visceral. We cannot deny your role our emotional histories, for to do so, would be like denying gravity: we would end up losing a part of the world that kept us grounded. But there is a point beyond which we must all grow out of our lowest impulses, and I’m afraid, you are this cultural moment’s. There is no doubt that you will continue to be the light of the pop firmament, glowing in adoration and impossible increases in fame. Nobody can take anything from you now. It is time we take stock of what you have taken from us, instead. It we document your systemic transformation into an uncontrollable machine, running riot beyond our formulas for success, quite like the free market. It is time we take stock of your role in replicating the worst parts of feminism, neoliberalism, and shallow cultural output in our degraded climate of consumption. There is a danger to your blinding star. For years, you made it impossible to look clearly at all that you are, and all that you have done. Happy in our heart-shaped sunglasses, humming along to our gospel, we were believers. Now, it is time to step into the daylight, and let you go. 
“寄生式社交”这个词被频繁使用。 《纽约客》播客讨论了泰勒可能创造的单一文化，并提到了她像蒙娜丽莎一样，通过“嘿，伙计们”的语言效果，与她的众多粉丝建立亲密关系的能力。她走上舞台，简单地介绍自己——“嘿，伙计们，我叫泰勒”——成千上万的人几乎昏倒。泰勒，我们知道你的名字。我们想象力和情感世界中的很大一部分都是由你的歌曲赋予的。这些丰富的历史，你将一代人的生活变成了民间传说，是不可动摇的，也是发自内心的。我们不能否认你在我们情感史中的作用，因为那样做就如同否认地心引力：我们会失去让我们脚踏实地的世界的一部分。但我们都必须超越最低级的冲动，我担心，你就是这个文化时刻的最低级冲动。 毫无疑问，你将继续成为流行乐坛的耀眼明星，在崇拜和名声的指数级增长中闪耀。现在，没有人能从你身上夺走任何东西。相反，现在是我们盘点你从我们身上带走了什么的时候了。我们记录你系统性地转变为一台失控的机器，在我们的成功公式之外肆意横行，就像自由市场一样。现在是我们盘点你在我们堕落的消费环境中复制女权主义、新自由主义和肤浅文化产出中最糟糕的部分所扮演的角色的时候了。你的耀眼光芒存在着危险。多年来，你让我们无法清晰地看到你的一切，以及你所做的一切。我们戴着心形墨镜，哼着我们的福音，快乐地做着信徒。现在，是时候走进阳光，放手让你走了。