filtered

for the loneliest whale

Taylor & Karlie & Lena: The Romance of Celebrity Female Friendship In the Feminist Selfie Generation, by Rachel Vorona Cote in the LA Review of Books:

Even as Swift embodies privileged, untouchable fame — the variety of fame available to a dollfaced, white songstress — she is always trying so damned hard. Swift has never concealed her desire to be loved; it underpins her oeuvre. But of course she wants us to love her too, and that yearning seeps into her Instagram and Twitter accounts, rinsing her words and likeness in a mild, fetching solicitude: “I’m doing this right, aren’t I? Aren’t we having fun?”

Taylor Swift is Definitely in Her Zone, Jina Tolentino’s review of Taylor’s show this week in DC in The Muse.

Between songs, towards the end of the set, Swift announced, “I don’t get nervous anymore.” What a funny thing to remind the audience, because, first, that’s quite obvious, and second: why the hell would she? Swift is not only at the height of her powers, she’s outshining everyone else — militantly and pointedly so, while maintaining a truly impressive set of impenetrable defenses, which range from deliberate (the Slumber Party Supermodel Just-Like-You Posse) to earnest (the avowed feminism, the open letter) to innate (the fact that she’s white, blonde, bone-thin, and beautiful).

Taylor Swift, in her interview in Rolling Stone last October, right before 1989 dropped.

“Have you heard of the Loneliest Whale? There’s this whale — I think Adrian Grenier is making a documentary about it. It swims through the ocean, and it has a call unlike any other whale’s. So it doesn’t have anyone to swim with. And everybody feels so sorry for this whale — but what if this whale is having a great time?”