Look what you made me do-over: Taylor’s reputation got a bad rap

This article first appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age.

I can remember the exact moment when I first watched the video for Look What You Made Me Do, the lead single from Taylor Swift’s 2017 comeback album reputation.  

I can do this because when you're witnessing something (“I'm sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now”) that you know is, quite simply, the most embarrassing thing that has happened, or indeed, will ever happen to a person (“Why? Oh, ‘cause she’s dead!”), you remember it.

From the opening shot of a grave marked “Here lies Taylor Swift’s reputation” out of which said Taylor Swift emerges as a zombie (‘cause she’s dead!), I was cringing so hard my entire body collapsed in on itself with the force of an imploding star.

It wasn’t only that the song itself was terrible (it sounds like I’m Too Sexy – no, like really, Right Said Fred got a writing credit); it’s also that Taylor failed, so spectacularly, to read the room.

While the rest of the world was dealing with the resurgence of actual Nazis, Taylor was inexplicably still marinating in her beef with the Kardashian-Wests, which, the song will remind you an embarrassing number of times, was one-hundred-million percent not her fault. The internet couldn’t have loved to hate it more.

As a casual fan of Swift’s music, but a massive fan of being on the right side of history, it was a no-brainer, as far as I was concerned, to give the rest of her reputation era a wiiiide berth.

But recently, thanks to my eight-year-old daughter, a dedicated, completist Swiftie, I found myself again confronted with the cursed Look What You Made Me Do video. And, um, look what it made me do: completely re-evaluate that song.

First of all, I know everything was extremely bleak in 2017, but had we given up entirely on the idea of a good time? Because more than anything, this song is fun. It is silly and camp and catchy as all hell. It sounds like Right Said Fred! Taylor Swift is a zombie! Were we not entertained?

And even if it’s not exactly perfect art – I wouldn’t even try to argue it’s one of the best 50 Taylor Swift songs – was it really so diabolical that it warranted an entire feature in New York magazine about how Taylor had revealed herself to be the Donald Trump of pop music? I’m not exaggerating! “If he ever puts out a record,” the story reads, “it will surely be called, like hers, reputation.” 

I get that it was a uniquely ominous time. The guy from The Apprentice was sending us to the precipice of nuclear war, so who knew what Taylor Swift, if left unchecked, might be capable of? (Oh the LOLs of hindsight, knowing Kanye West, Trump’s actual twin, was right there.)

But what I don’t get though, is how, like seemingly everyone else in 2017, I watched the video for Look What You Made Me Do and thought Swift was advocating for what she’s singing about, like it was an “anthem” for “the abrogation of personal responsibility”, as that New York article calls it.

 This is so supremely weird to me now. Yes, it is a song about obsessing over petty slights, but it’s not promoting it! It’s not an ad. Taylor literally says in the lyrics that the world has moved on, but she hasn’t, still caught up in the drama. She’s not saying that’s a good thing!

And it literally ends with a line-up of Taylors, mocking one another for their well-documented perceived flaws – being fake, playing the victim, pretending to be nice – and then screaming at each other to shut up. She wishes she’d get over herself too: she doesn’t need us to tell her. 

Yet, that is exactly what we did! We said she’d embarrassed herself as if she didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, come on, she’s Taylor Swift! A woman, who, probably to a fault, does things on purpose. She painted a picture of an unlikeable, contradictory woman, and our response was to squawk “Ha! Gotcha! You’re an unlikeable, contradictory woman!” and pat ourselves on the back for being so clever, when she handed it to us on a platter.

Maybe the problem was in the mode of delivery. The song itself is so over-the-top, so ridiculous, that you don’t expect it to be just real and true. But it is, which is also why it’s actually so cringeworthy: because god knows that’s what our real, true feelings are. They’re inconsistent and self-deceptive and unflattering.

We all tell ourselves we’re above caring what people think about us, then lie awake at night dwelling on our missteps and fantasising about do-overs, or even better, revenge. Is that Trumpian, or just embarrassingly relatable?

“It’s so good!” my daughter says when the video finishes. Sometimes I catch her quietly emoting to Taylor Swift songs in the back of the car. She knows real feelings when she hears them. Maybe this is why the song seems so different to me now. I see Taylor through her eyes, as someone who feels it all, and isn’t afraid to show it. Something my daughter and Taylor have in common is they are both The Most.

Then my daughter makes me do a BuzzFeed quiz to find out which Taylor Swift song I am (she’s Bejeweled, she’d like you to know). So I answer all the questions about whether I prefer spaghetti or ice-cream and as a result, I am scientifically proven to be the song Delicate.

“I don’t know that one,” I tell my daughter. Because it’s from reputation, an album I wrote off, and for what? So we put it on.

“My reputation’s never been worse,” Taylor sings in the opening lines. “So you must like me for me.”

Goddamn, it’s the most perfect song. Turns out the whole album is, of course, amazing. Despite my best efforts, I was on the wrong side of history after all. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I’m sorry.

And also this: The old me can’t come to the phone right now.

Why? Oh, ‘cause she’s dead!

Tabitha Carvan is the author of This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch (Fourth Estate).