A deep dive into the tortured poet trope (& whether Taylor Swift is one)
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- Опубликовано: 13 июн 2024
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Taylor Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, is here and generating ~discourse~ about her personal life, politics, public persona, and pretty much everything she's ever said and done.
More importantly (to me and other literature nerds) it has started a conversation around what it means to be a tortured poet/artist and who gets to call themselves that. So of course I couldn't resist chiming in with my two cents.
In this video, I try to reconstruct a sort of genealogy of the "tortured artist/poet", from Ancient Greece and a dubious Plato quote, to the 18th and 19th centuries with the Romantics and the poèts maudits. Finally, I try to answer the social media rage-fuelled question: can billionaires make art? and is telling them they can't actually helping the rest of us?
timestamps:
00:00 - Taylor Swift is not a tortured poet
2:41 - billionaires can't be tortured
3:10 - a brief and subjective history of the tortured poet
7:23 - is Taylor Swift a bad writer or is she just rich?
14:11 - why gatekeeping "tortured-ness" doesn't help marginalised artists
18:56 - I'm pretty sure she's talking about Matty Healy
19:26 - The Tortured Poets Department and the suffering aesthetic
link to sources and other things mentioned:
quick overview of Romanticism
www.britannica.com/art/Romant...
tortured artist wiki page
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture...
The Tortured Artist Trope (in reference to the use of that Plato quote)
/ killing-the-tortured-a...
The Unromantic Truth About Tortured Poets
thecritic.co.uk/the-unromanti...
article about research on creativity and "tortured artists"
www.gold.ac.uk/news/the-tortu...
link to the research
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
David Lynch compilation on art and depression by youtube user CrazyMaxerre
• David Lynch on Depress...
footage I use at the end is from Taylor Swift's new music video for the song Fortnight, in case there are still people who haven't seen it yet.
Also, a little note to zealous swifties: this video is not meant as a personal attack on Taylor, it's a conversation about people's ideas about art in relation to Taylor Swift as a brand, so please be civil in your responses to it. I'm a bit ambivalent about even writing this because I hate the way people who criticize TS rush to paint her fanbase as a deranged mob, but I have had a couple of intense responses on another video where I make the tiniest observation about her and I would like it if we could keep the comment section a safe space for everyone to express their opinions.
I understand that when you admire someone it's difficult to see other criticize that person, but I promise nothing anyone will say in the comment section of a youtube with 20k subs could ever touch someone as influential as Taylor. We are all tiny insects on the windshield of the private jet that is her life. 
Развлечения
there has to be a strict correlation between the amount of times Alina says she doesn't think Taylor calls herself a tortured poet and the amount of people in the comments coming at Alina claiming that's what she did
Like.. i’m on their side????
this attitude is why most people find swifties so grating haha they didn't even bother watching the video
@@marianneh4843yeah, it's a huge problem within the community and other communities. it sucks that fans are so toxic. stan culture is killing art.
@@marigolden_mariposastan culture keeps art alive. And don’t say huge when you mean it’s what you see on your part of the internet, most swifties I see don’t act like that. I’m a swiftie myself, and I didn’t. But she has a clickbait thumbnail, she set herself up for it a bit because even I saw it and was like well darn at least talk about it before you give an answer. It’s not framed like a question. So if everyone doesn’t take the time, then that’s on her too, she knows a lot of swifties are younger as much as there’s adult fans like me and they’re gonna be more prone to lashing out, especially because I think we’re all tired of unnecessary hate and criticism. Like it’s odd how you can see a huge problem within a fandom, when you first have to ignore that she’s an international star and decide those fans are irrelevant, and then pretend even half of US swifties watched this content which the numbers aren’t lining up for. They never do so as s swiftie who isn’t toxic, kind of over sweeping generalizations because you saw some unpleasant people. The rest of us shouldn’t need to chime in for you to put it together that it’s not common. A lot of authors I follow are even swifties and they just don’t engage in any of this, they just express their fandom in references of using songs to promote. The comments would be swamped.
You somehow miss where the reactions are from. I remember being young and not wanting to listen to Taylor at first because she was considered “girly, dumb, and bad”. Then when I disregarded it. If felt like I had to hide it for a while until I just I said f it, whatever, but there’s people who randomly mention switifies or Swift anytime music comes up and we’re dumb and she’s a bad musician who “can’t keep a man”. How is that okay? But now over a decade into her career when people have teeth over it, you wanna say it’s an issue with swifties like anyone aggressive, randomly became this way. No everyone just got tired of seeing her get ripped apart for everything, especially when we could tell it was gender driven which turned into the very nature of hating Swift herself. She’s too pretty, successful, and not settled down for people’s taste and she sings about love which is bad but if some man is singing about issues with other men and sex it’s fine, even if he degrades women(see Kendrick Lamar’s song being number one right now and he’s a misogynist, as much as I want to see him as a leader in our Black community, he hits that same stumbling block most rappers do and it’s fine and his fanboys are hype and you can’t come for him, but no one cares)
Like stan culture isn’t new okay. Devotion to an artist is a norm for centuries now. You trying to ruin it ruins artistic experience. Because what do you hate? That we have shared experiences like putting together puzzle pieces she leaves on purpose? That’s fun! That we make friendship bracelets and discuss favorite albums and best looks. I’m not gonna stop analyzing fashion just because it’s her and you call that stan culture. You don’t even realize you’re asking people to have less enjoyment of the art they interact with and to make experiencing art solitary in a way it’s never been. And being divisive by using rare examples of when people on the internet act of without looking at how both parties were involved(again the thumbnail, I’ve been saying for years that creators need to stop doing that to trick people into viewing and then getting mad if it backfires because it already announced their intention so people don’t owe them a view after that, she did it on purpose so she can take the consequence and criticism just the same as anyone who didn’t watch under her false pretenses)
But for goodness sake stop only seeing what’s convenient for your narrative, because I do recall it was men who like the NFL that got so mad Taylor was on screen for what was found to be 1% or less(not that it should’ve even needed to be proven because they whined at the mere idea of fans getting into football over here as if people enjoying a new sport...is bad if she’s a motivator and that she just shouldn’t be seen), that they made gross AI porn of her and her name bad fo be blocked from Twitter search. And it was Kanye who used a sex mannequin of her to degrade her in his famous video. Now young men who’ve never listened to her are like the rude boys I grew up with. I guess I wonder where you are then to call out issues with toxic masculinity/misogyny in relation to Taylor, pop, and institutions or people coded as being feminine and for the female gaze. Because that’s heavier than anything I’ve ever seen from swifties. To the point it’s had to be written about in professional journals/magazines regularly how much male hatred she receives, her fans receive, pop receives, etc. but I don’t hear swiftie critics ready to tackle that patriarchy which Taylor has addressed in her own music and is the whole reason she’s had to reclaim her records. Then you think stans are weird, but I admire any women who are honest about their feelings and fight back against sexism. Which is another reason stan culture is actually healthy. I don’t idolize her and certainly think she’s had major misssteps, but she’s got things I learn from too. So if you hate Stan culture then you hate the idea of connection to the artist. And if you’re paying someone, connection in a healthy manor isn’t bad and can be used for growth. She’s taught me a lot about planning ahead to plan for success even when struggling with mental health. Like Beyoncé taught me as a kid to be fierce and own my identity. If I didn’t get her story to a degree, then Cowboy Carter as a reclamation of our history wouldn’t hit the same. So you feel how you feel about celebrities but stop trying to dictate for others or announce what’s killing something as an outsider(non artist, as a person in the arts I can tell you Stan culture is a way to survive the digital age for artists who don’t want to starve and don’t have the capacity to do more than one job do too reasons like disability)
So don’t always clock Swiftie reactions(which tbh are as much about her as they are about fans being pissed at double standards and sexism), condemn “stan” culture without understanding what that means(and if it’s your place because I’m not into this fascist attitude people are picking up anytime they don’t like something recently, like I’m fine if you don’t like her music or any celebrity content much-just don’t be rude about it to me or normalize hate about them that can marginalize a group and/or backfire on their fans for simply having different tastes than you), and be aware of more than just who you don’t approve of, being wrong.
@@marianneh4843and most people? Just say you and stop perpetuating hate. Those of you who feel that negativity towards anything or anyone get on my nerves when you kpop everyone in with you to avoid ownership of your feelings, just say you find us grating if you gotta be that way but no more spreading negativity
Being poor, under a lot of stress, and having poor physical and mental health only ever supressed my creativity.
Do you still feel like that? Much sympathy.
Me too, like how could I even think about "wasting" time being creative making art when it's so hard to make the money I desperately need from it.
@@brunadeoliveira4586maybe its the only escape from reality, or more like, therapy in some sense that you can write out struglles and studf
@@user-bf3yh6ue7p I know, but it doesn't work that way for me.
I agree and disagree at the same time. My best long stretches of creativity have occurred when I was carefree and healthy. But I have also experienced the pressure of expressing something from deep within while suffering that just couldn’t come out in any other way.
Virginia Woolf could only write when she was well enough to get out of bed, not when she was in her worst depressive episodes.
Depends tho
Many artists are creative when they re at their worst, when they re on drugs.
@@Solip_i I agree with you. And also, in the good times you can draw from bad times, so this argument does not completely counter the idea of a suffering artist. I do not mean to say that you need to suffer to make good art. Nevertheless, it might help in some cases. I do think that feeling different and outside of 'normal' society (something that Virginia Woolf might have still felt during her good periods) can get you to question reality and look at it from a different perspective, which can result in innovative and deep art.
@@Solip_idrugs don’t mean you’re at your worst. They tend to numb people from their worst feelings
Were the Beatles really in a lonely hearts club? People forget Dead poets society was an upper class boy's school club not of poets but of poetry fans
not to mention the sgt pepper erasure
people forget that shakespeare was a ruthless businessman who would be worth millions today, money has nothing to do with artistic value
👏👏👏
also, almost every poet and playwright was born in an aristocratic family with very few exceptions, it's crazy how people romanticize things they don't even know about to belittle other
@@tokioblxes Exactly! It's interesting how people like Shakespeare (middle class, no higher education, etc.) became a part of the system of their respective society and art yet always being partly alienated from said societal system. Thomas Greene (an "upper class", University educated playwright) insulted Shakespeare, giving him the name "the upstart crow". People romanticize people like Shakespeare and his worshippers, such as the Romantics, yet people forget that although their lives were (to differing degrees) dramatic and almost 'glamorous' they suffered lives full of trauma, abuse, addictions, mental illness, etc.
@@tokioblxesShakespeare was not born into an aristocratic family
@@sudhirmeghwal7258 i know, i study english literature, i never said HE was born in an aristocratic family, i agreed with what was said about him and i added that many OTHER poets were born rich, not to mention the ones who were awful people for a lot of reasons
"YoU dIdNt LiStEN tO ThE aLBum" well you didn't watch the video cause she's basically defending taylor's right to make however many albums she likes and call herself whatever she likes FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
Calm down. You all sound ridiculous and I’m a swiftie lol. Fighting over nothing
As a poet, I refuse to die of cirrhosis of the liver.
Just say cirrhosis, without "of the liver"
Why?
Amen
Poet doesn't have to be tortured by economic poverty but tortured by the struggle to express ideas and address social tragedies
In the 2nd track of the album she clearly says that she and her love interest are not at all tortured poets. Just “modern idiots”.
I was going to comment this! But at the same time, people should just listen to the album before talking shit about it with stupid criticism that could easily be dismissed if they only listened to a few songs. People who think she’s referring to herself as the tortured poet and who take this label seriously, clearly know nothing about the record and are just talking nonsense about stuff they know nothing about.
Same with the song. So High School
I mention that my understanding of the title is that it’s addressed to someone she has dated twice and I also say that by ridiculing them she’s presumably criticising the “tortured poet” affectation from people who have no apparent struggle. I also argue that money shouldn’t be seen as antithetical to making art.
With Van Gogh specifically, the idea of the "tortured artist" is just... A bit gross. His work was produced in recovery. The work we celebrate was not produced in the horrid depths of his despair, rather they were a celebration of recovery.
she calls herself and her partner modern idiots not tortured poets, she literally pokes fun at the theme
Alina clearly has not listened to the album, she has NO idea what she's talking about. She's just jumping on an anti-Taylor bandwagon while having no knowledge whatsoever of Taylor's art as a whole.
Did you guys watch the video??
@@katgreer6113 she only talks about hypotheticals and never once mentions the songs or anything about the album itself. It seems like she’s never even listened to TTPD at all, which is very strange considering that she made a 15 minute long video about it…
@@enriquesanchez9016 I don't think you watched the video at all. she's not hating on Taylor she literally defended her in this video.
it's hilarious that you would hate on someone that's on your side because you're too lazy to watch the whole video and pay attention, which is what you're accusing her of doing with the album. completely ironic and hypocritical.
I think it makes it so clear that people haven't listened to the album when they talk about her being a tortured poet. She is using the term to create a satirical image of her ex, and it's made clear in the second song: "You left your typewriter at my apartment / Straight from the tortured poet's department / I think some things I'll never say / Like who uses typewriters anyway?"
THANK U! Finally someone with listening/reading comprehension
THANK U! Finally someone with listening/reading comprehension
Yeah but it doesn’t change the fact that the album sounds like shit lol
@@Atwood05 Except it doesn't. You're probably only saying that because some critics said so.
@@enriquesanchez9016 no I’m saying it because I listened to it really wanting to enjoy it and excited because I loved the concept but it completely fell flat… sorry that I’ve got an opinion lol
I think Taylor is a very intelligent and self-aware woman. This whole album is basically her jumping back and forth from “my ex considered himself a tortured poet, how cringe is that?” and “I do want to kill myself btw. What if I made you all dance to my suicidal ideation?”
She’s simultaneously calling herself a “modern idiot” who is nothing like the great poets, while filling her work with references to the romantic period, Silvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, etc. I think the contradiction is the point.
The perfect example is that 1830s quote that’s been taken out of context. The whole point of that verse is that she’s playing a game with her friends, which she ruins by taking it too seriously and overthinking her answer. She’s basically fantasizing about living to witness the beginnings of the romantic period, and in the middle of her stream of consciousness she stops herself to acknowledge that, actually, that would probably suck.
She paints herself in a very human light (she even comes across as a bit silly/dumb?), and then she comes around and concludes with the line “it was freezing in the palace”. I think this shows that she’s aware of her own privilege. It’s her way of saying “yes, as much as it would suck to be a woman back then I’m aware that I’d probably still be a part of the in-group, I’d have access to the palace”.
ty!!! the amount of times i've seen this single lyric get taken out of context... like why take a single line out of a whole song and judge it on its own, alone? the same way you would never criticize a book based on a single quote bc that'd make absolutely NO sense at all
your comment about the palace at the end was really insightful.
for everyone that resonated with that song that entire section made perfect sense. taking those lines out of context completely removed it from its meaning. she's talking about playing a game with her friends as a child as you said and a lot of us can relate to being that awkward kid who would bring up serious topics when people were just trying to have fun with their fantasies.
I relate to that. everyone playing that decade game which is so popular and you're the one kid that points out that no decade would be fun because of all the horrible stuff that happened in the past and you ruined the vibe so it's not fun for anybody anymore.
that's why she escapes to secret gardens in her mind. because fantasizing about the past isn't fun, bcuz the past is filled with cruelty, and living in the real world isn't fun, bcuz she doesn't fit in with her peers, among other reasons. she was "precocious", ahead of her age group. a kid that probably likes to read and wishes for a place where only the gentle survive.
she knows the past sucked even though it's fun to fantasize about the 1830s romantic period, living then would be awful. but she even knew that as a child, which caused friction with her peers.
a lot of us bookworm, gifted kid, introverted, only children (I know she has a brother), etc. we can relate to escaping into our fantasy worlds inside our head to get away from life. we can relate to ruining the vibes by bringing up harsh realities😅
Wordsworth is the only Romantic you mentioned
@@noahapollo i didn’t say all the people listed were romantics. I meant that she referenced the romantic period AND Silvia Plath, AND Emily Dickinson. I’m very aware that a woman who was photographed in color and has living children didn’t belong to an 18th century artistic movement
As someone who has severe mental health issues and is also a writer, I can fully say that being in the depths of a depressive episode does the OPPOSITE of increase creativity. Additionally, the idea that she can't possibly have mental health issues because she's rich is insane to me. My issues are genetic. They would not be solved by having a ton of money. Besides that, the tweet that's like "she's not patti smith" is especially funny to me because some of the lyrics in the title track includes "You're not dylan thomas. I'm not patti smith" so like. she literally said that lmao
English isn't even my first language, or second, and yet understand the reason behind the title is easy as long as you listen to the songs
It is heavily sarcastic
😅😅😅
right!! why are people just ignoring the lyrics of the title track? where's she's so clearly being sarcastic
@@_dayliqhtalina knows!! Did you finish the video??? She's not saying Taylor is a bad person or anything geez!!
@@katgreer6113Did you read the comment? They said "people" not "Alina".
right!! why are people just ignoring the lyrics of the title track? where's she's so clearly being sarcastic
Also lmao at the comment about Lady Gaga going on and ON about being just an Italian girl from brooklyn
Why are americans obsessed with being Italian?
@@accordingtoalina Historically, not English not protestant people did face discrimination from other white people (like Irish/Italian who were catholic as well), who were grouped into tenements in places like NYC and Philadelphia since they couldn't afford to move past the ship ticket to America. It's weird now, because America is so homogenized, but there are many Italian neighborhoods where they still speak it, have Italian grocery stores, etc. Especially in New England. It's not that Americans are "obsessed with being" different nationalities, many families are legit second/third generation. She's probably Italian but idk anything about her.
TL;DR- America's a melting pot, and being prideful of your heritage is encouraged by past-racism/xenophobia.
@@accordingtoalina There's a kinship formed from sharing a culture. And I'm no scholar, but I'd guess, similar to @inkersbrew6370's point: it's a kinship that originates from the shared experience of racism that Italian immigrants endured, early on. (I'm in *no* way comparing to the history of and systemic racism Black people endure.) I'd assume that pride is passed down from generation to generation.
And, can't speak for everyone, but being Italian is the only real connection I have to my family history. My grandpa was an immigrant, so having a connection to my past is special to me.
@@jesscinfio9964it wasn’t racism. They’ve always been white and even had a slur for Sicilians that meant Black person. They were immigrants during a time of high immigration from all over and Catholic when that was less acceptable in mostly Protestant America
@@accordingtoalinabecause they used to face some xenophobia with other groups of immigrants except for some reason Italians hold on to it (even though groups like the Polish had it worse and when they were given the chance to not be around actual non White people in work, Italians jumped at it and won’t address that part of their history) as a way to feel different than other White people(not that different because they have a slur for darker Italians that means looking Black essentially) and want credit for Columbus but....he was a genocidal rapist who didn’t even come here on purpose and wasn’t the first European(Vikings beat him to it a while before plus the whole can’t discover land that’s occupied). It could be because they still have gangs in some major cities and they’ve been mythologized so much that they refuse to let it go. I sometimes think it must be the mafia thing because the Irish had gangs and they’ve blended in now. And I hate to feed that stereotype but those few crime families left who do financial crimes now are the only things that make them stand out because they’re strictly made of their people. Especially Sicilians. They have a big head about it if they’re Sicilians but considering the mafia reality back in Italy is much more gruesome in its history and forced on young men bound to die to it at some point- I wouldn’t idolize it. I guess it’s just one of those things that’s a hangover I guess. More exotic to say Italian and more exciting with the mob mythology vs reality.
And that’s the price of our nation’s “founding fathers” trying so hard to make a singular American identity(for yte people who got to count as citizens) instead of people keeping cultural practices from before. Now our yte people often feel disconnected from something unless they take it from others because unlike my ancestors(Black) they didn’t preserve and forge new culture as a survival means due to already being privileged and not scared to lose parts of themselves in a strange place because they came on purpose, but now it means they have no culture, just societal norms we all engage in as a means of not offending white ideals, to make it ahead. They try to say things like bbq on 4th of July is American culture but that’s more of a habit and not one that really means something to everyone since only they were free then so it’s like who is American if they call that American tradition? My people have Juneteenth and a different menu. Thanksgiving is kind of a lie about how they treated Natives so that’s just a day to eat food to me and a week I need to get better about learning native history or watching native content to honor them, but it’s not culture. They don’t even teach the real story in elementary.
Southern white people stole our African banjo and then country music from us and call the square dancing we used to call out during slave time and the turquoise they should be sourcing from Natives...southern culture which as a kid I used to know was code for white since they were hostile towards people like me about it. And in our history we’ve had country Black artists pushed out with racism and violent threats. So that’s an example of the stealing from others. We’re trying to get back in it as a people but there’s still many hostile yte people who say we don’t make “real country” as if we aren’t from the areas ourselves like anyone else. So yeah even yte people with less obvious Italian ancestry, unlike those being raised in the culture(s), claim that and whatever else they want rather they’re wrong or right, or harming others, because it’s easier than contending with their history(which would help them understand other groups they judge too)and generally force then to contend with nature of American history as it bleeds into now which is not something many enjoy because knowing means change or being unable to claim ignorance when the hammer strikes. I always theorize more of them understand the state we live in then let on. Just the thirteenth amendment alone undoes their claims that slavery has been gone for a “long time”(our country isn’t even that old compared to most major nations. But now I’m going into a tangent lol
This is all so well put! I'm not a fan of her and haven't even listened to it yet, but on the topic of the title, I was also assuming she wasn't referring to herself as a tortured poet. When I first saw the announcement of the album title, my first thought was that it was a jab at men she's been with who see themselves that way.
When the album title was announced, seeing her at the Grammys sitting with Lana del Rey and Jack Antonoff (who produces both of their music), my mind immediately went to Lana's lyrics - "self-loathing poet, resident Laurel Can-you know it all," and "your poetry's bad and you blame the news, but I can't change that and I can't change your mood" among other similar lyrics which I take as referring to an ex-lover's tortured poet persona.
Yet at the same time with the both of them, it seems they do see themselves as tortured poets. I remember thinking about that when hearing those lyrics because Lana released her poetry book around the same time as the album NFR if I remember correctly.
great video
this conversation surrounding "taylor swift stole poetry from me 😭 " from people who made dark academia pics their entire personality is insanely chronically online though. if we go by this logic...seems like if a pop star writing songs and calling it poetry upsets you that much...are you even tortured enough? you think emily dickinson thought about such things ?!/s
anyways, what makes me really surprised is - i do like taylor swift. i am a huge fan of chester bennington. when chester died, everyone was talking about how awful that was, how important it is that he was depressed, that no amount of money or fans' love could heal him, and i see thousands of people yelling "SHOULD I FEEL BAD FOR A BILLIONAIRE???" when she sings she struggled with suicidal thoughts a lot or think the industry ruined her beyond anyone's understanding (not even talking about ttpd, folklore as well).
i don't know where the art and media literacy are going, why music reviews speak about a songwriters' jets and money more than their music, why suddenly a singer can't show her feelings because "obviously someone has it worse". they don't want taylor swift to sing about her stupid rich people's problems because they don't matter, but when she brings up stuff like "people doing XYZ to me, made me suicidal" - it's "oh god, stop being dramatic, do you even know what real problems are?", i assume if she writers about struggles of a middle class people will say she is still middle class aesthetics.
it's interesting to me, how people dismiss taylor as not being "tortured" (mentally) enough, and then there is a viral video of a self-proclaimed music critic laughing at her lyrics where she says the industry f*cked her up, because apparently nowadays being sexualized since you're 14, being slutshamed and having a video of naked wax figure of you in bed with men you HATE being on youtube is not tortured enough, because she has money or whatever.
this is what true romanticization of problematic behaviors is. not taylor swift wanting to write poems.
wanting women broken and completely destroyed and only then giving them respect and sympathy (see: britney spears)
a good poet is a dead poet, i guess.
I'm a 30+ year old Jewish media creator with aspergers syndrome who is a jack of all trades with a passion for fighting against cyberbullying. I've been doing these kinds of things for over 10 years and I've picked up a whole set of different skills along the way...,..
Great take! I think the majority of people are going to trash on whatever she does. It's dissapointing because it leaves no room to have a genuinely nuanced conversation about her music.
@@user-uv9st7er9i exactly! i am very into reading different takes on things i like, but those reviews...one review started from the "sylvia platt didn't stick her head in the oven for this!" like? i am sorry, what?
Couldn't agree more. In fact, if you actively deny other person has feelings because they're rich, it tells more unflatteting stuff about you than anyone else.
exactly. this is the best comment I've seen in a long while. couldn't have said it better myself.
I do find it weird that some people are gatekeeping the idea of struggling, and that other people haven’t suffered because they didn’t struggle the way that the gatekeeper has.
Just because somebody has earned a couple of extra 0’s in the back of their paycheck, doesn’t mean that they are immune from suffering. Otherwise you wouldn’t hear of billionaires dying of cancer.
Im not even rich myself and I know I would still be depressed with more money 😅
How many millionaire and billionaire have died from AIDS? Was Freddie Mercury too rich to be a poet? Or to be tortured? (Or a “bohemian” who rhapsodies?) how about Paul McCartney? He’s a billionaire… can he be a tortured poet?
NO NOTES. I also want to add that there is so much valid criticism that you can throw at her but people are raging bc she dared to claim that her work is important or interesting in some way ffs
You ate w that ending 😭🙏
Also, the vast majority of popular songs are just poems put to music. Not necessarily good poems, but poems nonetheless. Poets and Lyricists have more in common that people are willing to admit.
Why do so many people think that being rich means you can't have depression?? I mean why do you think so many artists start using drugs/alcohol or even take their own lives? Being as creative as taylor is means she obviously has a very busy mind and suffers with anxiety and depression, this can be heard in her earlier work as well. In fact her song evermore really encapsulates what depression for me felt like. I just think we need to be careful with telling someone who is clearly stating that they are/were going through something awful that their feelings are invalid because they have money and are priviledged. I mean even I am extremely priviledged, I have access to any mental health treatment, I'm writing this on an ipad in my own house, yet my whole life I've struggled with mental health. Money unfortunately doesn't really mean shit in the end.
Jealousy
Here's what I agree with: anyone can struggle with depression or other life issues. Money doesn't inherently buy happiness. We shouldn't invalidate people just because others might have it worse.
Here's what I don't: Money doesn't make a difference. It does. I can't afford therapy or trauma treatments due to disability and mental-health induced poverty, and the wait lists for government-funded therapy are YEARS long. YEARS. On top of my struggles, I am barely able to afford food and medicine in a cost-of-living crisis. I can't afford restaurants or entertainment or anything that might lighten things. I don't get to heal in a place of financial stability, and that is MUCH worse than if I had it. Suicide, PTSD, and depression rates are MUCH higher in impoverished groups. It is important to recognize not everyone is in the same boat.
I'm glad you acknowledge that you are extremely privileged and this isn't meant to be hateful, merely to offer another perspective. Best of luck on your struggles with depression. 💛
I'm also saying this as a privelleged person who struggles with ALOT of mental health issues, money may not make someone immune to struggles but it provides a huge option to alleviating it, such as therapy or treatment. They may not always solve the issue but so many people don't even have the financial option of being able to try it. Or when people advocate for things like going on a getaway for your mental health, taking a break from work, self care products etc, those cost money too. Money also eliminates an entire category of mental stressors (being able to afford rent, bills, groceries or even little luxuries like being able to afford your hobbies which give you some happiness). Sure I am depressed in a nice flat now, but I could also be depressed homeless or barely making rent and worrying about affording groceries, and I would take the first option any day. I think this elimination is really what people are trying to express; Nobody actually thinks that money makes you completely immune to struggle or sadness. As complex human beings we can acknowledge that money, privellege and mental health are undeniably linked WITHOUT invalidating our own feelings, all these things can be true at once.
p.s. I loved the lyrics of evermore too, so my comment isn't meant to invalidate you in any way
I just found it difficult to connect with an albumn where she defends a man who openly says racist/misogynistic/homophobic things for the sake of his "art," tells her fans to fuck off for calling her out when she associates with people like that, ignores intersectional feminism, hangs out with people accused of sexual assault while claiming to be an SA advocate, and then puts out an album full of clunky lyrics and "complex" phrases to connect her work with this sort of academic scene. This whole album was just her trying to prove to the world how smart she is. I never doubted it. But for the love of god, someone take her thesaurus away.
There are no complex sentences in this album bestie, if you found it hard to understand I’m afraid that’s on you. And the use of “big words” is pretty strategic. Diction matters in music and literature. For example when she says “sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see” she’s using those specific words to convey that the people yapping about her life are pretentious. Or when she says “un-recall” (which isn’t a real word) she means something different to “forget”.
I think this whole album is just showing us that she’s human. She’s not saying “I co-sign everything Matty has ever said and done and I stand by my defense of him” instead she’s tanking us through the journey of falling in and out of love with him. She paints herself as a defiant teenager in love who doesn’t care about reason, who hung onto this man like hanging on to her own life (but daddy I love him, I can fix him, etc.) only to realize that he wasn’t anything special and that his drug problems were more of an issue than she originally thought.
She’s being very vulnerable and sincere, and has said that that whole stage felt like going through a manic episode to escape the depression of losing a relationship with the man she thought she was going to marry
@@monicaherrera2224 see, the fact that you singled out that phrase, is part of my point. That's the exact phrase I was thinking of when I wrote this post. I'm not saying I didn't understand the phrases or meanings, but rather that this forced use of "complex" words, which she herself has pointed out because her fans now "need a dictionary" to understand, reeks of unnecessary pretension.
Ya what I felt was it seemed forced, almost all of it. I love taylor and i'v basically liked all her albums, but here in some instances it just felt like she was parodying herself
Yes, thank you!
@overcookedegg hi maybe im not aware of this but whos the person swift is hanging out with accused of SA?
I’m so glad you brought up Lord Byron, because my mind goes to him and his social circle when I think of rich people making poetry. They are able to do it, and do it well.
My problem with the new album is the lyrics. Because try as I may, I’m still not seeing the genius everyone else obsesses over. Some of the lines seems like she’s trying too hard to sound poetic, but they still come off juvenile on the songs. It may be that her style just isn’t my taste, though she has some songs I think are quite good.
I think if she wanted to go the “I’m a poet” route, it would have been interesting, daring and maybe more artistic, to maybe have produced a spoken word album, since the lyrics are what people are really into.
what's your opinion on folklore or evermore? those albums have her best lyrics, by far
i think she spoiled us a bit with folklore and evermore, imo her strongest album if you look at lyrics only. i feel like ttpd could've benefitted from a bit of editing, it feels a bit cluttered. i dont think of her as a genius poet but imo her lyrics are still miles above the average pop artist
Se here. I dont understand the Taylor obsession, nor do I understand the coercive narrative of poor artists.
I'm just finishing up this video and I have to commend you on your point about how art does not only have to be the result of pain or suffering...I write all the time and plenty of things I've written about have been because of something I'm struggling with, but also, plenty have been the result of profound inspiration from positive, intense, or interesting sensory experiences from my day to day life. Love this.
She is using the title to poke fun at her ex. The title track explains it. "You left your typewriter at my apartment. Straight from the tortured poet's department. I think some things I'll never say. Like who uses typewriters anyway?" I didn't like the music reviews speak about her jets and money more than their music. why suddenly a singer can't show her feelings because she's not poor? they don't want Taylor swift to sing about being rich but also don't want her to song about her problems. she's not tortured enough i guess. her complaints are valid. she said the industry messed her up & people laugh at her when she's right. being sexualized since she was a teenager, getting assaulted on live tv, sl*t shammed through her whole career, having a naked wax figure of her in a mv with a terrible man, ppl sending her death threats. I guess her issues growing up as a woman in the industry don't mean anything bc she has money. Taylor Swift isn't romanticizing any of these toxic things. It's weird when people look back at how people talked about Brittney or any of these famous women & it's obvious how terrible that was. But ppl only remember the past in isolation because they'll start a hate campaign against a new women. It's a cycle.
Very well said
You clearly didn't watch the video.
I do not invalidate Taylor's feelings, but I understand that there are people who refuse to have empathy for her since she herself does not show empathy for people suffering from climate change by being irresponsible when using her jet and by being in the film of a director accused of committing SA.
@@brunadeoliveira4586 yes i feel like so many people ignore that she chose to work with david o russell who SAed his trans niece, despite talking about being an SA victim herself
That last line is SO GOOD.
My relationship with Taylor Swift's music actually started in a similar way, I saw her MV while being deep in my not like other girls era and got immediately annoyed😅 It wasn't until after folklore&evermore that I actually developed interest in her. The girl seems to have her issues, and the fact that so many people attacked her for daring to insinuate she's not always happy in her private jet makes you wonder if we are gatekeeping suffering now.
I will admit the words "tortured poet" from a wealthy American superstar sounded wrong to me after several Ukrainian poets got literally murdered in recent years (also, google Executed Renessaince, few have ever gotten to rhyme at peace on this land). But objectively, yes, you can very much be tortured while having your basic needs covered and more. We should probably allow out artists to eat and sleep without feeling like their talent depends on their hunger and exhaustion.
P.S. The 1830's line is literally supposed to be a quote in a child's voice and makes a lot of sense in context. I didn't expect so many people online to get confused by it.
Ms Swift is one of the many subjects upon which I'm quite content not to have an opinion - but leaving her out of it, this is a fascinating topic and as usual you've crammed a surprising amount of thought provocation into twenty minutes. Which is why I look forward to your videos: many thanks, Alina. This plays into what I've been reading about recently, so the business of authenticity and pseudery in comfortably-off artistic circles has been on my mind.
hi, alina. i'm a swiftie and i loved your video so much
There’s often a lot of discourse surrounding Plato’s opinions on the arts by scholars as well, and a theory gaining more and more traction as of late is that Plato had an intense jealousy of Homer and Hesiod, the two premier poets of the day. The dialogues that Plato wrote are largely regarded as pieces of literature and even prose poetry in their own right, so Plato railing against the creativity of the poets may have been more from an in-born and non conscious desire to subsume them and to transcend their works with his own.
That is so interesting! I figured that the misquotation in pop culture was just a case of people taking the first result on google and running with it, but this is fascinating!! In my opinion any “fiction is all bad/ nonfiction is all bad” argument stems from a similar desire to position one’s work as above all others
I'm one of those scholars and the general consensus is that Plato looked up to Homer and Hesiod in a pretty neutral, patriotic manner
(Edit: like most Greek authors at the time)
another absolute banger! your ability to bring nuance to things never ceases to amaze me Alina! So glad I found this channel
these people were saying that an artist can't be TORTURED while being a billionaire. they are in no way, insinuating she can't be good.
Amazingly put once again, you actually gave me a bit of a new perspective on the subject. The title has bugged me, not to the extent that it seems to be annoying to many other people but just because it seems so distant from everything. I'm not so sure if I necessarily agree with that take anymore though. I've said this before but you're truly one of my favourite people on the platform, you speak so so well.
Why would anyone feel that just because someone has wealth and money and fame, that that person FEELS understood? Theres a big difference between that alienation that comes from within and the alienation that comes from society 🙃
Some cultures are just weird the fact that you can call someone you barely know any thing you want , but they shouldn't have the audacity to call themselves anything they want
This video is so good!! Everything was so well put!! Once again, Alina is correct. Love from Brazil, girl, keep going ❤
Thank you so much for watching ❤️
Taylor isn't calling herself nor her ex lover the tortured poet. The title is a mockery of the pretentiousness of her ex lover. You can see that in the title track with how he agrees charlie puth should be a bigger artist and when she says "You're not Dylan Thomas/ I'm not Patti Smith/ This ain't the Chelsea Hotel/ We're modern idiots". She's literally saying "we're no tortured poets, we're just stupid". People just don't listen to stuff before making assumptions.
her foreword to the album (in the cd) really explains a lot. really hope everyone reads it.
this was so insightful! I also really appreciate you talking about how she is hijacking aesthetics because that is so true. I'm not saying you have to pass an exam to be able to use an aesthetic but it is so obvious she's doing it only for money. Using internet slang as song titles, and lines in her songs that are guaranteed to be used as trends. I think it also needs to be studied how not only she but so many singers these days create art for social media exposure and trends and not for their own sake.
I think this hijacking aesthetics has always gotten in the way of me enjoying her music. It doesn't feel like she's taking that aesthetic and spinning it in some way to make it feel like something new; it just feels like Taylor Swift trying on a slightly different cosplay for her new album rollout campaign, which feels very much like a calculated business choice more than one done for the sake of the art itself.
@@michaelspringer8734 exactly. you can use an aesthetic but as you put it, spin it around to make it yours. not to use it once, gain the momentum and then move on.
So I would call myself a Swiftie (but I know personally several bigger Swifties and obviously the very online fans are another level) and I thank you for a fair analysis. She is by no means beyond critique, but many do seem to be leveled at her and not men to whom they would apply equally well. Her words and concepts seem to have many interpretations, I also thought the TTPD title was a jibe at her recent boyfriends, but after hearing the album she's also pointing out the trope and saying that women can be tortured poets too (see Stevie Nicks writing a poem for the inside of the CD sleeve). Having a lot of conversations recently about "who is allowed" to write about certain experiences and there's a bit of a backlash against saying you have to have experienced something to write about it. However, I remain of the opinion that people should be very careful about including anything to do with mental illness unless they have personal experience. This is because unless you've lived it you're quite likely to just get it wrong, or you'll end up comparing something trivial with something very un-trivial for the purpose of dramatic effect, and the last thing we need is more inaccurate stuff out there on this topic.
Sir Paul McCartney is worth over 2 billion… I don’t think people would say most of these things about him..
@@ultravioletpisces3666 but they should
Fascinating. I so love your work and appreciate the time and thought you put into creating your videos. One thing I noticed was that you mainly cited male poets with Plath being an exception. I’d like to expand the conversation to include the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, etc. Also I appreciate the point that truly depressed people often actually have trouble getting out of bed, let alone creating art.
That's because the Brontës and Austen weren't poets
I love your video! I totally agree, the torture comes from within. Did people not realize that?
If you have the platform where billions of people will hear you call yourself a tortured poet, you are not one.
Treading on “metrical feet” is brilliant.
Hahaha isn’t it?!
People seem to forget that the name TTPD is potentially a play on a group chat Joe alwyn was in called the tortured man club. Also as a Taylor fan I think her most poetic writings are in folklore and evermore, not in TTPD. I also think it being a double album has led to less than satisfactory lines imo
Thank you for this video and adding those clips from david lynch, they perfectly summarize my thoughts. I honestly dont think romanticizing struggle in the name of art is very beneficial. People should not have to struggle in the first place. Im not a taylor fan, and im not defending being a literal billionaire of course, but i wonder if placing an emphasis on financial and mental struggle in order to be a good artist just prevents us from social progress. Like you said it also makes artists who are more well-off feel that they must fabricate stories in order to be respected. Idk, i guess i just dont like the idea of mental health issues and financial struggle being romanticized and seen as 'necessary' for making good art, because they're not. Again im not saying this to defend taylor swift at all im not really fond of her music lol, but these ideas of what a 'real artist' is can adversely end up having harmful effects
As a poet and fan of the Romantics and the Decadents (and a hater of whatever is going on now ... I'll be honest):
They have their texts, we have ours.
Authors have almost always been rich throughout history. Gatekeeping art is wild. (Hating/loving literary movements and genres isn't IMO. Birds of a feather?)
Great video, thank you!!
As a Swiftie, I appreciate this video. I am curious to hear your thoughts as well on whether or not Taylor has the “right” to associate herself with the term “female rage”.
Love your insights, your content is smart and interesting. Thanks.
SHE IS NOT A TORTURED POET, SHE IS A PRIVILEGED RICH PICK ME!!! If women from back then were to travel in modern time, they would be extremely disappointed in every woman who is unfortunately famous for ridiculous reasons today. She doesn't feel isolation or alienation, she's rich! She has a lot of fans that can relate to her.
I haven't watched the video yet so here is my uninfluenced take:
I had my most "tortured poet" episode when I was inpatient at a semi closed ward for the first time. I was seweslidal, so fucking emotional all the time, escalating my sh, adapting unhealthy eating mechanisms, reflecting on how bad my parents treated me, realizing I have trauma etc etc.
And..
I started to pick uo writing poetry for the first time since elementary school.
I do like some of the pieces I wrote back then. Its especially interesting because the pieces if that era are practically the only ones in my native language.
The following years I started exclusively wrting songs and poetry in english.
Being inpatient always produced a lot of art in my case.
I do think that fame, money etc dont protect you from feeling seweslidal, desperate or frustrated. Which for me kind of makes one tortured.
Even if there was no way she is one herself, tayler should be allowed to call her album that. Its her art.
I never was a big swifty, I know her most popular songs, icluding some snippets of her new album, and I dont like what she stands for but she is talented.
I have to add something on the wealth thing.
My parents are upper class.
I grew up in a house, which is a lot less common here than it is in the us.
I went to private elementary school. Had private music lessons etc.
Yeah sure.
Aside from financing my hobbies I never relaly knew how much money we had, because my parents were the kind that didnt let me have the brand chocolate because it was too expensive. And never went out to a cafe to drink coffe because the prices are outrageous. Even 3€ for a frozen pizza was too much becausd home cooked meals ir simply bread ar eway cheaper.
And even the support for my hobbies and stuff stopped at 14.
I mived out when I was 17 and my parents paid my rent and gave me 300bucks to live with for the whole month, despite bagging my government support that was legally mine of 600€.
Now I live off of government support and disability support. Which comes out to about 800bucks without even having paid rent.
And my parents still have their upler class income and own property that has doubled in value etc.
To be fair I do have savings in the lower 5 digits, but I cant access them because my parents have them in their name even though they were gifted to me over the course of my life. And you can easily spend 10000€. Thats enough for a drivers license and maybe a really old really shitty car (divers licenses cost about 3000-4000€ wherd I live)
Just because my parents have money doesnt mean I cant live in poverty. And thats what it is. I'm way below the povery line. While my parents are above the upper class line. Yay.
Edit 2 about the thing "if you're relly depressed"
As someone who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder for several years. Bipolar 1 in case you were wondering.
Ofc there have been depressive episodes in my life where I didnt talk, dint get up, slept 18 hours a day, couldnt crack a smile if my life depended on it, stared at the ceiling for hours, paralyzed with dread etc. those are not the ones art comes from.
In my experience art comes to me in episodes where everything is really shitty like described previously for a couple of days or weeks but then you have a day or two or even just an hour, where you feel the same way but have energy. Enough energy to think and to write. Thats when I write down whats in my brain, thats when tortured poetry is born.
Or mixed episodes where you have the mindset of a majorly depressed person, but the energy of a medium/minorly depressed person.
Beyond that lots of art I created wasmt even about mood it was about trauma, and writing to distract yourself from getting flashbacks or dissesociating is actually helpfull..
i just want to say that claiming that someone wont ever lack the resources to treat whatever mental illness in an argument explaining how shes unfairly „coopting” or „appropriating” the concept or aesthetic of an artist suffering from mental health issues is just…. deeply weird and reductive of mental health struggles… money might help make someone comfortable or manage some symptoms but to say that she will never have to suffer because shes rich is a wild take lmao especially when every other song of hers has some elements of suicidal ideation……
She never said that.
who was the other lady in the thumbnail? i forgot her name and I'm really interested in it
Emily Dickinson
Thanks for telling me!!@@accordingtoalina
She is poking fun at herself. Poetry isn't straight forward. Her lyrics are not straight forward. You have to decode them. She isn't appreciated by you snobby people so if 'unappreciated is a requirement she hits that one. Poems have gone back to archaic times. Tortured implies pain and she has gone through pain and if she hasn't her fans feel pain when she sings. But it is very dare I say it Sadistic/Masochistic. on both sides. for people who take words as symbols and feeling dark you obviously haven't even done your homework on her. In the distant past tortured poets didn't have the reach she did. they didn't have ease of travel.
At the end of the day it is a title. Titles are sometime tongue in cheek types of things. She didn't come straight out point blank and say she is a tortured poet. and it is a department. what poets have departments -but what if they did?
This is such a waste of time but I am in the 'art' business. I have studied Shakespeare and Aristotle. we study them so we can become them. We can read them to read ourselves and begin the cycle again.
and poems WERE set to music onc upon a time.
Poems were not always meant to be musical. There is a difference between monodic lyric, choral lyric, elegiac etc. and that's just Greek lit.
Furthermore, the current trend (potentially post-postmodernism) is fragmentation, breaking away from the traditional forms.
And some poetry is straightforward. In fact, Naturalism wasn't too long ago
I think it doesnt really matter what she calls her album or whatever. She just has too much money.
Why are you only attacking Taylor for that though? Beyonce and Rihanna are also billionaires yet they don't get attacked the same way Taylor is. Having money doesn't mean you're no longer an human with feelings. She's actually very generous with her money, she gave MASSIVE bonuses to her crew last year.
But of course i guess that doesn't matter since she has money and is therefore evil right?
@@enriquesanchez9016beyonce and Rihanna make way better music
@@enriquesanchez9016 Nah if you have enough money to solve poverty in the world and you don't care I don't have to care about you being sad
@@theholypopechodeii4367 so shut up hypocrite
@@theholypopechodeii4367that’s arguable
Absolutely fabulous video, she is indeed a tortured poet. Let us take this for an example, deliberately dating disturbed men, in order to get material, to make albums, that is a person who is definately a tortured poet. I agree with the idea of Taylor Swift being a tortured poet, and I must also agree that the more conflicted and streesed you are the less creative you can be. Thank-you for the great research in this video.
i LOVE your video.
Taylor never really called herself a tortured poet. She only says tortured poet twice when she says "You left your typewriter at my apartment. Straight from the tortured poets department". She never said that that was a department for tortured poets that she was apart of. Also just saying, being a swiftie doesn't have to be exhausting if you don't want it to be. Being a swiftie means many different things. I, myself, am a swiftie and all I do is listen to the songs and love them. Sometimes, I do get interested in the backstory of the songs, but most of the time, I imagine people from my life in the songs I relate to. Also love the video btw 😃
I don’t think she’s talking about herself in the title.
All these ppl say they've listened to the album and don't likee it and then say she's not a poet she not Tortured....calm! The f down and listen to track 2 which is the title track......and then we'll talk
Turner created a lot of conventional landscapes before he started to become more expressive with his use of light, using experimemtal techniques. This was how he made his money and managed to get into the upper eschilons of society. He travelled a lot and like the finer things in life, but was always a little awkward, but was not considered 'mad'. However when he started to become more expressive and experimental in his techniques, creating works in order to communicate something more emotional and intangible, he was considered by polite society to have gone 'mad'. He upset a lot of critics who wanted him to paint conventionally and did not understand what he was doing, and by creating in an unconventional way (for the time) the only and easiest explanation was that he had gone 'mad'. Turner was not mad, and if anything societies view of him alienated him, thus creating an idea of him being a kind of rude hermit. Yes he was awkward in character, and also ambitious, but in his later years he must have wanted to achieve something that could not yet be appreciated, because of the ideas around what art should and should not be.
I think a lot of artists in history have become alienated when they deviated from what was expected from them, and the idea of madness comes in mostly because others do not understand what they are doing, not because they are tortured or mentally ill. Yes some artists are mentally ill, and some are tortured, but great art works have come from people of all kinds, rich, poor, mentally ill, mentally healthy, and everything inbetween. What we look for is a personality, which makes sense since we create stories around artists in retrospect and focus not on their works but on their life. It's a kind of escapism. In the end Turner was not creating works that came out of nowhere, or madness, he was creating from what he could see and what he felt when he saw it. He tried to express something real, but intangible.
I reckon however there were many artists, such as the poet Byron who used their life likr a kind of influencer. This is not wrong in any way, but a kind of promotion. However we still buy into and add to these stories. Ive watched a few popular videos on Byron, having not known much about him and i find that even so i know nothing much about his actual work. Sure i could go look it up, and maybe i should, but it seems that the spectacle around Byron is more readily communicated than his works. I dont think this is wrong, i love to learn about any historical figure and their lives, it gives me a sense of escapism. However this often leaves out the complexities and mundanities of their characters, these we all possess. Still i dont think its the character who creatrs the art, though the character can be the art, it is something else beneath this, and its usually something that tries to make sense of the world in a different way, or express something that isnt easily put into words, and this can provoke ideas of 'madness'.
I want to address (a very small aspect of) the idea of 'struggling artist'. Imagine yourself as a Romantic Poet, trying to reshape the landscape of British Poetry: Do you think that they just sat down and knocked out a poem in an afternoon? Even one of Wordsworth's early poems "Guilt & Sorrow" (written in his youth) took him three (3) years to complete & it wasn't published until 4 years later. Skipping to the next century, again trying to reshape the poetic landscape, T.S. Elitot's started The Wasteland as early as 1919, three years before its publication. Considering the time it took for these to be written, I would say that these were 'struggling' artists. There are a great many ways to struggle.
As far as the album goes, I personally will brook no truck with pop culture, but I enjoy your videos. I wish you well.
To be fair, it is entirely possible to have a little poetry attack and knock out 5 sonnets in one afternoon and then write only 2 lines the next day
Poeta faber (quantity above all) vs poeta vates (sudden overflow of inspiration)?
I agree with your comment; Taylor Swift is beginning to look a lot like the Stephen King of music
7:43 haha, in classics we play a game called "ovid or taylor" where we try to guess if the quotes are from ovid or taylor, it is surprisingly difficult
Could you give some examples? I'm a Classicist but know nothing about Taylor Swift so this sounds hilarious 😂😂 would love to play
@@noahapollo haha, I also know next to nothing about taylor swift so it was definitely an interesting experience, unfortunately I can't remember any of the quotes themselves but I do remember that the pronouns of the love interest would be picked randomly (otherwise it would've been able to tell who was who)
Michelangelo wasn't exactly poor...
Excuse my ignorance, but is there any of the 30 songs that says that she is the tortured poet? My understanding is that she could very well be the chairman of a department that studies/analizes/admires tortured poets. The staff of the chemistry department at my uni is not just isolated molecules.
Does that mean that a billion $ doesn't buy happiness? We should think about that. 🤔
i mean i just thought it was a cool title why do people make everything a problem
Maybe having a big ego it's part of being a tortured poet, but I don't think Taylor swift suffers from having a big ego, I think she enjoys her big ego and she capitalizes from it . Because if she really did suffer from that , then should more conscious about not trying to make everything about herself, and also kinda hate her self , tortured poets have this constant battles of love and hate in themselves. Even if in some songs she does address her flaws, that's not the base of her identity and her art. She is build an identity of being a good girl, and retable and being a victim, which is ironic given her famous and status and success. I really believe she just wanted to be more taken seriously as artist and try too hard on it, and it shows, like 30 songs ??? Really ??? And even though the title's album is not referring to herself being a tortured poet, she reposts to every article of critics sayin she writes "torture poetry" , so yes , she does want to be considered a tortured poet. It's fine if she wants to be considered a serious artist , but it's not okey to glamorize pain especially when , she is one if the most privilege persons on earth and I not talking about money. She was born in a loving privilege family, her parents have always supported her, she continuously has had success. Like really her worst problem is that she can't find a guy to marry, which is valid but annoying to all other people who have numerous amount of problems that can't be solved with money. It's fien that she was to be taken seriously, but I think she needs to find something else to write about other than making here relationships an open book, so then everybody knows who she is writing about in her songs, for them to run to listen to her music for tea.
Also the fact that people have to start their sentences with "as Swiftie" or "I like some Taylor songs", it's just like mind-blowing, how swifties only will take valid criticism from other swifties, like it's insane how people idealized her so much , and no I don't think you need to suffer to make great art, but most lesson's and realizations in life come from mistakes or obstacles, when someone's life is so shield from cruel reality, then yes most of the time they do come off as superficial.
In my personal opinion, it just feels like Swift's music is only deep and profound if you have the parasocial relationship with her and know all these details about her life. Outside of that, if you just take it as the song itself, it's just mid.
I’m a big fan of her, but this is 100% true. I saw someone on Twitter compare her music to the MCU because in order to fully enjoy her new music, you have to know every detail and context of her past work.
That thread went even further to compare this new album to phase 4 of Marvel where there’s just too much content (that is not well thought out or amazing quality) and people are getting “burnt out”.
If Taylor Swift is mid, then pretty much all pop stars are mid.
@enriquesanchez9016...
@@enriquesanchez9016 Most of them are, to be fair.
0:57 is that m***********g A7X reference???
Yep
@@accordingtoalina my fave band for a few years, wish they'd go back to the sound of their first three albums.
gaga also tries to be the ''tortured artist'' way too much sometimes. her documentary on netflix is kinda cringe because of it. lol
i also think tortured artists have something to do with race, because i remember beyonce saying she avoids the suffering black woman stereotype. that's why she brands herself as a perfectionist artist.
Rich people can be tortured and suffering. Just look at Robin Williams, Elton John, and Osamu Dazai. All 3 had/have a notable amount of wealth in their life but they all went through mental anguish. The real reason why Taylor isn’t a tortured poet is simply because she hasn’t lived a life that would constitute as “tortured”. To my knowledge, she mostly sings about breakups which is an experience most people will and have gone through.
She doesn't just sing about breakups
9:27 this is the most cringe take i’ve ever heard
I disagree. Look at Silvia Plath, or Georgia OKeefe
misogyny is holding us back from eating the mega rich.
A tortured poet is because is and emotionally misunderstood a highlybintelligent lyrically designed genius with unfair critique of what people view her talent as being or a not socially accepted content which they possess
12:32 Allan Ginsberg was worth millions when he died… 🤔
great video 🤍 📽️ 🎞️
I think some people are not paying enough attention to the fact that it's called DEPARTMENT. in the teaser and the music video she shows an office building with fluorescent lights. to me it's talking about how these people are acting like tortured poets while really they have rich parents (Matty Healys mom is famous) and live in a capitalist society and make money off of their art. i think she's calling them out for cosplaying 😅
it's also important to note that she critiques the idea of the tortured poet in the album. In the song The tortured poets department she's basically making fun of it.
"you leave your typewriter at my apartment, straight from the tortured poets department. I think some things I never say, 'like who uses typewriters anyway?' "
she says, "I laughed in your face and said you're not Dylan Thomas I'm not Patti Smith this ain't the Chelsea Hotel we're modern idiots."
in I Hate it Here she says "quick tell me something awful like you are a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy"
But Taylor's father is also a billionaire, and she is also a nepo-baby? And ironically, her father is a "finance guy" and she's a billionaire "finance girl".
@lordfreerealestate8302 Her father is rich, but not a billionaire
as someone who was once kind-of-a-swiftie (and now unfortunately dislikes her. a Lot), i would say there's no _specific_ point of contention that her critics can point to when they get mad about TTPD. rather, it's just... all of it. together. it all adds up. it's the shallow, tone-deaf defence of a neonazi racist misogynist who her fans understandably despised her for openly dating. it's also the act of subtly encouraging her fans to harass, denigrate, and slander her ex-boyfriend for the crime of being distant and depressed in their relationship, while co-opting a 'woe is me' mental illness aesthetic on the rest of the album. it IS that co-opting of 'aesthetic' mental illness, also! i mean, really - ECT, sexy hospital gowns, sexy pill-taking, _sexy hospitalisation?_ the 2000s called, and they want their unhealthy romanticisation of mental illness back. it's calling herself tortured when she is playing dress-up, and has all the necessary resources to seek professional help at any point. it's that goddamn asylum lyric, when her privelege means she would _never_ get institutionalised. it's drawing attention to herself, and _only_ herself, in the midst of a genocide, and crying about problems that she is, again, more than capable of getting help with. and yes, it's also the private jet.
the thing about TTPD, at least to me, is that the issue is not just one thing. rather, it's all the things, stacking up, working together to deliver a mess of an album that exemplifies the worst critiques of swift - the coopting of dangerous aesthetics, the capitalising on regular struggles she does not have, the hypocrisy of her 'activism', the self-centeredness of her image. it all works together seamlessly, and if you have been following swift for a while, it's not hard to see why people have finally had enough.
that being said, i also really appreciate the video!! i loved the look into what 'makes' a tortured poet, and you've definitely challenged me on several points when it comes to what defines one. the point about how depression does not create art is always needed, i need to bookmark those quotes!! it's always fun to think these things over and see what can or can't change my mind. i do agree that swift's billionaire status does not exempt her from suffering - that'd be a crazy sell, considering the industry she grew up in. but - points to paragraphs a and b - some things are overshadowed by other things, etc etc. thanks for the watch!!
Sorry but this is best comment I've read on all the discourse, you put everything so clearly 🤞 Thanx
Oh my heck it’s like she sent people to attack Joe and then co-opted his depression as her own, like she took over his identity. This is a great comment. Still processing a bit because it’s so sinister. I was a swiftie too until Reputation.
@@C12341 I think she has always "borrowed" the identities of her exes or other muses for her albums. For example, with speak now she uses a lot of instruments, heavy on electric guitar, similar to the sound of the infamous muse John Mayor. Or the heavy pop/rap influence of reputation post Kanye.
@@letteaseauh 🤯
I never connected that but you’re right!!! That means the song too much like Olivia’s on TTPD is most likely intentional and she IS trying to sound like Lana too. This is more interesting than a true crime episode
@@C12341how is it similar to olivia's? the concept of wanting to get someone back was not invented by olivia, be serious for a second 😭 and the songs sound nothing alike sonically. i can also guarantee you the song was most likely written before guts came out, bc at that time she was already dating her new bf. she was probably not thinking about getting back with / at her ex 😭
I remember when Chester Bennington died, it came out that Adele had pivoted from creating her music from her pain because art is not therapy. Chester, may he rest, used his pain to inform his art and we should learn the difference between expression and processing. Using art to process pain makes your pain secondary because ultimately, your art will be dressed up for commodification. While I don't have one opinion or another about Taylor I think that "tortured poets" as a term, lifestyle or aesthetic should be thrown away. It's 2024. Why are we still dollifying pain
I grew up listening to Linkin Park and the news of his death shocked me too
Because like Elton John said, “sad songs say so much.”
Oh god i was not ready to see Avenged Sevenfold here haha
This comment section is why im scared of Swifties sometimes.
Engaging video!
I’ve always thought of songwriters as poets 😂 but that’s just me
That aside, the song The Tortured Poets Department is very much a song about a guy who has tortured-poet energy and how they aren’t Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith.
Girl Taylor Swift is not even the tortured poet. You clearly didn't understand the album so you should stop trying to pretend that you did.
Bro hasn't watched the video
I hate the song about Florida as someone who can’t afford to live there anymore because of insane house pricing due to rich assholes buying vacation homes to get f*cked up in. Hedonistic tourism has destroyed that place enough, it does need to be encouraged.
Yeah 🙄
taylor swift calling her album the tortured poets department whilst refusing to make a public statement on a genocide in which poets have been persecuted for 75 years is insane
Have you actually listened to the album or are you just talking out of your ass? Do you even know why she called the album that?
also, i've already subscribed but seeing avenged sevenfold made me happier for my choice haha
Glad people are recognising the reference lol
Westside Gunn is the only poet that I acknowledge
The title is ironic. This is a profoundly anti-Romantic album. She isnt claiming to BE a tortured poet--she's scoffing at the pretentiousness and perverse twisting of those who reduce artistic expression to the melodrama of a circumscribed trope. Just saying.
This made me chuckle and you had such good points. I ignore Swift with as much energy as possible, being a white queer person surrounded by white queer people making her an “icon” blegh. I don’t want to hurt feelings of my friends but it def makes me feel ick. So when this came about I ignored the convo with all my being 😂 But everything you said was on point. When I was a teen and I was dangerously depressed, I could not produce anything, and nothing brought me sanctuary everything felt like work. It’s only now that I am stable that I feel and see beauty again and can study and create and be curious. Depression as an aesthetic for art gives me the rage. I wish it would stop
I'm really confused about the "only poor people can be tortured enough to make good tortured art" thing, like... Do you genuinely think that poor people have the time or mental state to actually be creative? Even to create something out of suffering you need to be well enough to actually do it, and that could get very difficullt when your badly remunered job is consuming all of your time and energy.
Of course some poor people do. And some poor people don't.
It feels so sick to me to call “tortured artist aesthetic” and calling her out for that, like-people are just reinforcing the “only give value to the artist once they’re dead” culture because it seems like they WANT YOU TO SUFFER. You’re not a real one unless you’re treated like trash and, honestly, if you can avoid that, WHY WOULD YOU??? That’s romanticising things like poverty, starvation, no credibility, no recognition, and acting as if that’s cool because you’ll be famous (once you’re gone)
Besides, most poor people don’t even think on going for the creative industry not because they’re not capable of, but because they’ve got to work too soon with really poor jobs to guarantee their living
I have never felt more poor than when I went to a sub-zero temp Chiefs game and I looked up to see Taylor wiping the condensation off of her heated box suite.
Was she the only person in the box? I saw many.
@@belmoon8711 there was a few others in the entourage but I know a taylor when I see one.
@@ethancannon6367 Yes like his parents, other family members and friends.
How about every one of the players on the friend getting rich of your attendance?
@@ultravioletpisces3666 happy to foot the bill if it means more chiefs championships.
For me, it's not the money, because «tortured poet» is being tortured by art and the overwhelming of emotions, etc. So as a rich person, you can, technically, still be a «tortured poet». My main issue is that, she isn't, in fact, overwhelmed by emotion. She has showed absolutely no empathy for the current situation in Palestine, she is one of the most polluting person on the planet and so and so. They are rich people that are devasted by the state of the world and try to use their platforms to raise awareness and to make people think. Taylor Swift doesn't make people think and she doesn't care about the state of the world,. (And yes, the lyrics is complete sh*t, sorry.) As a feminist, I will defend swifties (even if I'm personally not) and fangirls with my LIFE, but this album title really pisses me off.
I think Taylor Swift is poorly understood for two reason. The first is that she's a woman and no one likes powerful women, thinking that one of his co-writers writes for Bon Iver and The National ( Will we say the same things about them? I don't think ). The second thing, she is probably one of the richest women in the world, but she is able to talk to a lot of guys, her storytelling is closer with "normal people."
The topic of the album, where I *personally* save half of the tracks for writing (the music, on the other hand, is very accurate) is really close to a topic about artists frustration. Criticize rich just because they are rich, and just because "Jon Dohn" would do it better if he had her fortune, is really trivial.
“sex symbol”🤣
Well, a lot of men clearly like her, otherwise she wouldn’t be writing all these songs about her relationships
@@accordingtoalina bad choice in men. shitty men will get with anyone they can take advantage of. i don’t even think sex symbols exist anymore because everyone flaunts EVERYTHING nowadays
@@accordingtoalina Really! That’s an immature comment/reply. So you classify her as a sex symbol because a lot of men like her? Does this apply to all women men “like”? Btw being wealthy doesn’t exclude anyone from being human.
I'm a fan of her albums Folklore and Evermore. But I don't know her other albums. But some of the lyrics in Folklore and Evermore are beautiful.
Maybe she just liked how the title sounded? The Tortured Poets Department, it does just sound cool. 😊😊
"It's pop music. It's not that deep." EXACTLY. That's why it's kinda hilarious, kinda second hand embarrassing when Swifties want to equate TS to some great poet/lyricist. By it's very nature it's gonna be shallow, surface level stuff that's meant to appeal to the masses. It is what it is.
honestly i think that's what the pushback comes down to. i don't believe people cared that much until her fans kept calling her the best songwriter of this generation.
but she hasn't started being a pop star. she used to write novels when she was 12. I'm not defending her, I'm very critical of her, and I'm aware her last albums don't have the best writing, but seeing her as another pop star is ignoring that what started her success was actually her writing.
yeah cause every shallow pop star can write albums like folklore and evermore? be serious for a second
She IS a great lyricist though. If you actually listened to her discography as a whole there's no way you could seriously say she's a bad lyricist.
@@marianneh4843 The "pushback" come from people who always hated Taylor and have become ever more radicalized in their hatred ever since she became a massive phenomenon last year. And she is one of the best songwriters of this generation, pretending otherwise is just ignorance.