Taylor Swift is that skinny girl who's always whining about how fat she is.
She claims to be the nerd that you're likely to overlook. And she'll tell you she's the sweetheart who gets taken advantage of by Big, Bad Men ("Don't you think nineteen's too young/ To be played/ By your dark, twisted games," cries the poor movie-star-dating innocent). And, OMG, Kanye hurt her feelings so bad she had to write a song about how she forgave his sorry "Single Ladies"-loving ass! She's a perpetual pity party.
And that attitude, dear readers, is destroying America. It's not the only thing, mind you -- Washington, D.C., is a mess; the big investment banks cashed in during the boom and then got off scot-free; kids today just don't have an attention span. Etcetera, etcetera. But Ms. Swift's aura of professional victimhood is definitely contributing to our sad national decline.
Only in a music video could a five-foot-eleven-inch blond with naturally curly ringlets get away with claiming her romantic rival "wears short skirts; I wear T-shirts/ she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers"! Sure, she might have felt like an ugly duckling at one brief point in her otherwise sun-kissed life -- but it's time she quit whining and started admitting it: These days, Taylor Swift is America's cheer captain. She's not languishing on the fucking bleachers.
And beyond the disengenuousness of her poor-little-me pose, it's the sense of entitlement that galls. Take that cheer captain reference, which comes from the worst Taylor Swift song, "You Belong With Me." In it, she pretends she's the homely chick in the spectacles -- but if you actually parse out the lyrics, Li'l Taylor's trying to steal a dude from another girl because she's so convinced of her own superiority. She gets the guy's humor. She likes the songs he likes. Get out of her way, cheer captain!
It's the same thing with that aforementioned song about John Mayer. Dude's a notorious creep who completely threw down on Jessica Simpson's sexual, um, vigor to Rolling Stone. (Not cool!) Yet even after that, virginal Taylor was apparently stupid enough to hop into bed with him -- and then was utterly stunned that he was just not that into her.
Dear JohnYes, honey: You should have known. And once you got your clue, you should not have blamed the player for playing you. You should have reminded yourself that everyone warned you about this guy -- stupid you! -- and then filed it away under live and learn.
I see it all now that you're gone
Don't you think I was too young
To be messed with
The girl in the dress
Cried the whole way home
I should have known.
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