Taylor Swift’s music has a lot of guts. But the pop star herself evidently has a spine made of jello. She is the latest singer to self-censor her art in response to extremely niche and eminently unreasonable online outrage.
The controversy stemmed from the music video for Swift’s song “Anti-Hero.” In one scene in the video, Swift is depicted standing on a scale. A close-up flashes and, instead of a number, the scale shows the word “FAT.”
WATCH: TAYLOR SWIFT’S ALBUM FEATURES CALL FOR SELF-REFLECTION INSTEAD OF CANCEL CULTURE
Apparently missing the entire point of the video and this scene, a tiny but very vocal internet outrage mob declared it “fatphobic” and screeched into the online ether.
Taylor Swift’s music video, where she looks down at the scale where it says “fat,” is a shitty way to describe her body image struggles. Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us.
— Shira Rose (@theshirarose) October 21, 2022
hey did you know you can talk about your body image issues without being fatphobic? did you know that fat is not the worst thing you can be? feeling fat and being fat are separate experiences, did you know that?
taylor swift clearly doesn’t.
— fat sajak-o-lantern (@fatsajak_) October 22, 2022
The idea of being “fat” might be an “intrusive thought” or a “nightmare” for Taylor Swift — a valid experience that many people of all sizes can relate to. But the fact is that she has never lived in a “fat” body. @iWatchiAm writes https://t.co/cgnVGVI4Pj
— The Cut (@TheCut) October 25, 2022
“What the [expletive] dude?” one TikToker asked Taylor Swift in a viral video. “Being fat is not a bad thing and in 5 seconds of your music video you have successfully reinforced the idea that it is.”
So far, none of this is surprising. Everything with any actual substance to it is offensive to someone somewhere, and social media has allowed fringe voices to seem amplified far beyond their actual number and significance. Where this story gets crazy is that Taylor Swift has now self-censored her own art and, in response to the niche online outrage, replaced the video on both YouTube and Apple Music with a version that does not depict the controversial scene.
After being labeled as “fatphobic” by people online, Taylor Swift’s ‘Anti-Hero’ music video has been edited on Apple Music to remove scene which shows her stepping on a bathroom scale that reads “fat.” pic.twitter.com/Lkk9ZBCSB5
— Pop Base (@PopBase) October 26, 2022
This is truly wild.
Firstly, the outrage was absolutely baseless to begin with because the upset fans totally missed the actual point of the scene in question. As Clémence Michallon explained for the Independent, “The scene that shows Taylor on a scale reading ‘fat’ is supposed to show the warped perspective of someone with an eating disorder.”
This was, of course, obvious to anyone with two brain cells left to rub together. The scene was very clearly not intended to stigmatize or insult fat people but to depict the shame that even skinny people can feel about their bodies. Indeed, Swift has been open about her past struggles with an eating disorder. It’s not “offensive” for her to accurately depict how weighing herself made her feel — if anything, she’s depicting something millions of people can probably relate to.
So, the outrage mob was entirely without merit.
It’s also worth pointing out just how few people were upset. The internet can make any fringe movement seem much larger than it is, but it was really just a handful of accounts that had any meaningful traction making this criticism of Swift. When I perused the trending topics on Twitter, TikTok, and other platforms, I mostly found content arguing against the outrage and defending Swift. This makes her decision to cave even more inexplicable.
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If you won’t stand by your art when it receives a tiny bit of criticism, why should anyone take you seriously as an artist? If you won’t stand up for yourself when you’re a celebrity and multi-millionaire with relatively little on the line, why should anyone respect you?
Taylor Swift deserves our criticism right now. But not for the imagined “fatphobia” in her music video. Instead, for being a spineless coward and further emboldening the unhinged outrage mobs whose next victim will almost certainly be even less deserving.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a co-founder of Based-Politics.com, a co-host of the Based Politics podcast, and a Washington Examiner contributor.
