You Don’t Have to Like Taylor Swift — But Hating Her Is Weird

MJ Wynn
Dec 18, 2025
3 min read

You don’t have to like Taylor Swift’s music.

You don’t have to stream her albums, know the lore, or care what era she’s in right now.

Taste is subjective, and not everything is for everyone. That part has never bothered me.

What does bother me is when people say they hate her — not her songs, not her brand, not her overexposure — but her as a person. Because at that point, we’re no longer talking about music. We’re talking about something else entirely.

We live in a culture that is weirdly allergic to women who care openly. Especially women who are successful, visible, and unapologetically earnest. There’s this expectation that once someone reaches a certain level of fame, they should flatten themselves emotionally. Be grateful, but not moved. Passionate, but not affected. Present, but never overwhelmed.

Taylor Swift refuses to do that. And I think that’s why people get so hostile.

She doesn’t pretend the audience doesn’t matter. She doesn’t act like the people who show up are interchangeable bodies filling seats. She talks — constantly — about the fact that people rearrange their lives for her shows. That they save, travel, wait, hope. That there’s weight in that kind of devotion.

You don’t have to like her music to recognize that as empathy.

And honestly? I think some people resent her for it.

Because caring is vulnerable. Caring makes you accountable. Caring means you can’t hide behind irony or detachment when things go wrong. It’s easier to be cool and aloof. It’s easier to dismiss people who show emotion as fake or calculated than it is to sit with the idea that maybe they just… feel things deeply.

We’ve turned cynicism into a personality trait. If you’re too excited about something, you’re cringe. If you’re visibly affected by your work, you’re doing too much. If you still show up when you’re exhausted, people accuse you of martyrdom instead of dedication.

And women get this tenfold.

A man who obsesses over his craft is driven.

A woman who does the same is annoying.

A man who shows intensity is passionate.

A woman who does it is “a lot.”

So when I see people direct genuine hatred at Taylor Swift — not critique, not indifference, but hatred — it never feels like it’s actually about her music. It feels like discomfort with someone who refuses to be small, quiet, or emotionally distant just to make others comfortable.

You can roll your eyes at the hype. You can wish the internet would move on. You can be tired of hearing her name. All of that is fair. But hating someone who consistently shows up, works hard, and treats their audience like people instead of metrics?

That’s not taste. That’s bitterness.

And maybe what really bothers people isn’t that she cares — it’s that she hasn’t been punished for it. That she’s allowed to feel deeply and succeed. That she didn’t harden herself to survive. That she stayed soft and still won.

We’re so used to the narrative that caring burns you out, that vulnerability makes you weak, that success requires emotional distance. Taylor Swift kind of blows that up just by existing the way she does.

So no, you don’t have to love her music. But if someone caring this much about their work and the people who support them makes you angry? That’s worth sitting with.

Because the problem probably isn’t Taylor Swift.

It’s how uncomfortable we’ve become with sincerity.

Keep believing in good humans,

xoxo MJ 💖