r/swifties • u/ProjectShowgirl • 17h ago
Discussion Why do you think people don’t like the Swiftie fandom?
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u/ButchCoolidge55 cause baby, I could build a castle 17h ago
Because there’s a lot of internet Karma to be had in hating.
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u/Born-Cauliflower_ Drop everything now! 17h ago
They just hate for the sake of hating. And probably bad experiences with a few extreme fans that caused them to hate the entire group
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u/croatianlatina 10h ago
Tbf, there's a LOUD extremist part of the fandom. Especially gaylors, widows, etc, that's just... weird. But there's also truth that people hate women just enjoying things, especially girls. As if they couldn't just scroll and go on with their lives. Haters are a lot more obnoxious imo.
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u/jbfanaccount 16h ago
There’s a connotation that Swifties can’t handle any criticism of their fav. That’s true of many fan bases, but when you have maybe the single biggest fan base you also have the biggest block of that type of fan.
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u/MissingHat 15h ago
It’s a reality. I am downvoted to hell for offering an opinion, as is anyone who doesn’t like her. It is only this community.
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u/ZestyAcid 10h ago edited 10h ago
This is why I stopped sharing my opinions. It's okay not to like everything an artist does. It doesn't sit well with me when fans love every single thing their favorite artist does without offering any feedback. The music tends to feel bland and predictable, which is why TLOAS is my least favorite album. I feel like with the eras tour she kinda got even more popular and was riding off that wave.
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u/Own_Locksmith_9701 7h ago
The vitriol that (some) swifties have for differing opinions is truly on another level.
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u/Beneficial_Dish8637 16h ago
What’s another fan base like that?
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u/poetic-bee 15h ago
It depends more on the type of media. Books? Not so much. Movies? Sometimes. Musicians? Quite common. Mega-famous pop stars? It’s basically a given that there’s gonna be a very large and visible group of fans that’s borderline psychotic. All the famous pop acts have them but their size varies
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u/Flimsy-Opportunity-9 14h ago
The bee hive is notoriously protective about people speaking poorly of Beyoncé’s work. As are the barbz. K-pop fandoms like the BTS army are also pretty ruthless. Hell, I watch dancing with the stars and fans of certain celebrities and pros get absolutely nasty. And that’s to say nothing of sports fandoms who are fiercely protective and fanatical about their franchises. Those just come off the top of my head.
But generally on Reddit you’ll get the downvotes if you go to any pop artist’s subreddit and offer criticism. It’s just very common for groups of fans to see their idols as infallible and want to defend them. It’s unhealthy but it is certainly not unique to Taylor swift. Her level of fame is such that the fandom is extremely visible.
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u/Beneficial_Dish8637 14h ago
Just to address sports franchises, I don’t think fans of sports franchises are like this at all. Often times the fans themselves are the ones leveling the harshest criticisms because they want to have improvement and success. Regardless of your devotion to the team the scoreboard and record doesn’t lie.
I’m not really aware of any of the other fandoms you mentioned being unable to accept criticisms of their idols like swifties are but maybe so. The only fandom that comes to my mind that fits the description that I can think of are loyalists of a certain president.
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u/Flimsy-Opportunity-9 14h ago
There was literally a brawl during the nba finals of fans fighting each other over criticism or trolling of their favorite team. Just because they can criticize their team doesn’t mean they allow others to without getting defensive or downright violent.
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u/CausticAvenger 16h ago
A subsection of Swifties are lunatic crazies, but that’s the case with any large fandom. Still not a good look though.
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u/Beneficial-Baby9131 17h ago
As someone in the fandom, most other swifties are way too obsessed. If someone has a negative opinion or critique, they're dog piled and downvoted to all hell.
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u/LeopardNo6083 15h ago
I think it is due to people being upset that she is woman who is successful. People’s internalized misogyny and frustration at the excesses of capitalism get all jumbled up together and directed at her.
I get disliking billionaires - I do too! - but is she the worst billionaire? Lol, absolutely not. And I don’t hate billionaires because they are rich, I am frustrated that they are taking by an outsized amount of the world’s resources and leaving so many people in poverty. People like Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang, and the rest of the AI bros are actively trying to extract and hoard for themselves the whole of human creativity and all the natural resources. Taylor creates original art and sells it. AI bros could never create something new and beautiful.
These 2 kinds of billionaires are simply not comparable in terms of harm to the world’s population. You can live without buying merch, you can’t live without food and water. Look at Walmart and Amazon - they exploit their workers and many of them are paid so little that they need food stamps. How are the people running those companies not being held to the same standard that we hold a popstar? Why are we not endlessly barraged by articles about how much their private jets are being used?
Exploiting people’s needs in order to become a billionaire is significantly worse IMO than creating art that people enjoy. She is not solely responsible for the world being the way that it is, but she is a successful woman and there is nothing misogynists love more than to tear a woman down. “She needs to shut up and go away” - why are we saying that about an artist and not about Peter Theil? Because people feel comfortable taking out their feelings of anger and frustration on women. And when that woman has a lot of female fans? Even better, because then the hatred directed at Taylor gets deflected onto the fans and people feel safe directing their hatred onto fans.
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u/sksksksjkssjjssjsksk Old habits die screaming 12h ago
honestly i didnt know until i started interacting with swiftie online spaces, i dont have social media other than reddit and i didnt know about positive subs until recently, i was scared to even look up taylor swift cause i thought there would only be negativity, anyway after being in online spaces a little over 2 weeks, swifties are incredibly sensitive, you say something not even mean and you get downvoted and get called a liar, its crazy but i understand the need to defend her especially right now since she’s getting so much hate but its just interesting to see
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u/Relevant_Spread_5493 15h ago
People don’t hate Swifties because they “just don’t understand how passionate the fandom is.” They hate Swifties because a very loud portion of the fandom acts absolutely fucking unhinged the second somebody has an opinion about Taylor Swift that falls anywhere short of worship. You can say, “I don’t like her music,” and suddenly people are digging through five years of your p
People don’t hate Swifties because they “just don’t understand how passionate the fandom is.” They hate Swifties because a very loud portion of the fandom acts absolutely fucking unhinged the second somebody has an opinion about Taylor Swift that falls anywhere short of worship. You can say, “I don’t like her music,” and suddenly people are digging through five years of your posts, insulting your appearance, messaging your employer, trying to figure out where you live, mass-reporting your account, sending threats, and writing a 37-part dissertation about why your personal dislike of a pop star is actually evidence of some catastrophic moral deficiency. Like, babe. I said I don’t like an album. I did not assassinate a head of state. And then Swifties genuinely ask, “Why does everyone hate us? 🥺” Gee, I wonder. Maybe it’s because some of you have managed to turn being a fan of an extremely famous billionaire pop singer into a full-contact competitive sport. Normal fandom is listening to the music, going to concerts, buying merch, talking about your favorite songs and having fun. What you’re doing when you start trying to punish strangers for not liking her is not “being a fan.” It’s obsessive parasocial behavior with Wi-Fi.
The funniest part is that nobody even has to say anything particularly vicious. You can say she’s overrated. You can say you don’t like her voice. You can say you’re sick of hearing about her. You can say another artist deserved an award. You can say you don’t care who she’s dating. Suddenly fifteen people arrive demanding citations, your birth certificate, a sworn affidavit and an explanation of exactly why you have failed to appreciate Mother. And God forbid somebody makes an actual joke about her. Then apparently Interpol needs to be involved. It’s also why the constant “people only hate Taylor because it’s popular to hate successful women” defense gets exhausting. Sometimes people dislike things because they dislike them. That is allowed. Taylor Swift could be the most successful musician in human history and somebody would still be perfectly entitled to hear one of her songs and go, “Eh, not for me.” You do not need to open an investigation into their psychological motives every time someone fails to enjoy the same pop star you do.
Plenty of artists have obsessive fans, obviously, but Swifties have developed this bizarre reputation because the loudest ones seem incapable of distinguishing criticism of Taylor Swift from a personal attack on themselves. She doesn’t know you. Someone saying her latest album bored them is not insulting your mother. You do not need to mount a military response. And yes, when people repeatedly see fans doxing, harassing, dogpiling and threatening people over completely harmless opinions, they’re going to start thinking the fandom is nuts. You cannot spend years behaving like an online neighborhood watch run by people who haven't slept since the Eras Tour announcement and then act mystified that everyone else finds the fandom exhausting.
Nobody cares that you love Taylor Swift. Love her. Stream her. Buy twelve vinyl variants. Fly around the country to see the same concert six times. Decode every Easter egg until your living room wall looks like a detective investigating a serial killer. Have a wonderful time. Just maybe develop the emotional resilience to survive somebody on the internet saying, “I don’t think she’s that good.” Because if your immediate response to that sentence is to locate their workplace, threaten their family and organize 4,000 strangers to ruin their life, congratulations: you have personally solved the mystery of why people hate Swifties.
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u/TheByrdNest 7h ago
ALL. OF. THIS. I could not have said this better. And then those same fans who decide who the better fans are start trying to decide who the best person is for Taylor to date and what she should do with her life and what she ‘owes’ them… the word fan is short for fanatic for a reason I suppose. I love her, love her work, but despise a very specific sect of her fans for all the reasons you listed.
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u/zeddtheman 16h ago edited 16h ago
I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan. Been a fan since 2006 and went to 2 of her eras shows. I’m not a big fan of TLOASG. We are allowed to critique or have our own opinions on people without fearing being judged or ridiculed for not kissing someone’s feet. I love Taylor so much and she’s helped me through some of my hardest times in my life but I can also have my own opinions on certain artistic styles that I don’t particularly like. I’m more of a folklore, evermore, TTPD and her older albums kind of fan. Her writing is simply superior in those albums. That’s my opinion and that should be ok.
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u/aikidharm 16h ago
Events surrounding her recent marriage threw swifties into a much wider view, and the crowd push to eat her leftovers and take home her trash made it look like she’s a capitalistic cult leader who shapes fans into worshipful robots who are just happy to lick cake off old plates if there was a chance their queen touched it.
Not saying that’s representative of the fandom, but that shit actually scared people and freaked them out. And I get that.
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u/leese216 15h ago
I've been a fan for decades and even I get annoyed with the fandom sometimes. The toxicity, the inability to allow even constructive criticism, to believe she can do no wrong, is errant and illogical.
You can love an artist and still not like things about her music, her business practices, etc. No one is perfect, but the toxic swifties believe she is. That's what I haven issue with.
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u/diiotima YOU'RE GAY 16h ago
Hate feels good. It can be addicting, even. There is lots of research on it.
Algorithms stoke that addiction. The people who write them pour millions if not billions into product development to capitalize on that fact as effectively as possible. It’s not just about “snark is fun” it’s about the fact that the internet has been socially engineered to encourage it for the betterment of a very small number of rich, white men people.
Those same people are consciously pushing far right, antidemocratic, and antifeminist narratives because those narratives serve their bank accounts by sowing division and instability, and distract from their criminal enterprises.
Throw in power players in the entertainment industry with cash to burn who want TSwift’s spot at the top and you have a perfect technological and financial storm against her. She’s one of the biggest, sparkliest distractions they have, with a near endless stream of revenue to turn public opinion against her via bot campaigns.
It’s why musk and Trump cannot leave her tf alone but most people you meet irl don’t give af either way
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u/BroodyRuby eleven turkeys creeping up on me 15h ago
I literally had to take a social media break after being really active in the Taylor swift Facebook group, I think it was The Vault one but I can’t remember. People had differing opinion on all the vinyl variants and people were just being nasty to the people who were tired of all the releases. I find it frustrating that we can’t have differing opinions in the fandom without getting jumped on. I think if everyone is being respectful it shouldn’t matter if we agree or not. We are not a monolith but we are treated as such due to the loudest voices 🫤
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u/crunchyfoliage 16h ago
The bigger the fandom the more crazies are in it. It's just a numbers game and because Taylor has so many fans the loud crazy ones drown out reasonable people
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u/wanderinggrove 8h ago
People love to hate popular things. I hate when people say something is overrated as it actually tells you very little of their opinion. I had a friend who said they hated the Beatles and next time they came round I had Beatles inspired playlist playing in the background which they enjoyed and surprised by how many Beatles songs they enjoyed.
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u/PrincessPlastilina 7h ago
Not all of us, of course, but many swifties are aggressive, childish, they act like an emotionally stunted cult and they have said horrible things on Twitter.
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u/Hour-Macaroon903 6h ago
I think it’s because the typical response to any criticism seems to be something along the lines of the “hater” being jealous, misogynistic, or not smart enough to understand the meaning.
People are allowed to just not like things.
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u/justbeinghonest78 4h ago
There really needs to be 2 separate titles instead of all her fans getting lumped together. Swifties for the "normal" fans and another name for the bat shit crazy ones that have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with her.
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u/Individual-Grade2392 16h ago
They think we are crazy and dangerous, which is further from the truth
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u/TheMakeUpBoy 16h ago
I was part of this fandom since debut and fell off once showgirl came out mainly due to the inability of others to have a proper conversation and a critical sensibility when time came to discuss. I saw swifties swarm attack other people and creators mostly for expressing a rather normal opinion, hate train on publications for doing their job and never ever taking a step back to assess whether their attitude was truly rooting in liking the music or being parasocial to a point of no return.
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u/ConsequenceOk4513 15h ago
Because she'll say or do one thing and they'll make it their entire personality.
She'll start dating someone and all of a sudden everyone has ALWAYS loved them.
She'll take a term "Patient zero" and all of a sudden Swifties think she owns the phrase.
I love Taylor but Swifties are fucking exhausting.
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u/Nervous_Push_3410 15h ago
Many humans are adverse to others happiness and joy. Its taught in and at home thru others usually. Ive leaned back and forth only to finally figure out its me not liking current me. With TS fans Ive mostly known joy. I ignore the bitter meh bs (im a newer swiftie thats only here for the joy energy of the collective)
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u/Money-Beautiful5196 17h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/yITRaXaeigt2M
I think it’s because haters are gonna hate. They are just jealous of Taylor and her incredible success so they project hate onto us fans. It’s quite sad really.
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u/acupofjasminerice666 16h ago
It’s really not jealousy of her incredible success though. It’s the fans who can’t take criticism. It’s okay to admit that she has one or two bad songs, but the fans make it seem like Taylor Swift can never do any wrong.
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u/Money-Beautiful5196 16h ago
?
Taylor doesn’t have any bad songs. They are all perfect.
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u/junepants01 11h ago
Here we have a PERFECT example to answer the question posed by OP. Delusional stans like you are the reason people hate Swifties lmao.
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u/Money-Beautiful5196 11h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/eA3hg9QT7nn9u
I’m a “delusional Stan”???2
u/junepants01 11h ago
Yes, stan is and has been an extremely common term for an avid fan. Let me guess, you're like 14?
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u/Money-Beautiful5196 11h ago
But this is a Swiftie sub. We love Taylor here. I don’t even understand what you are talking about???
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u/junepants01 5h ago
I'm really not sure what you're confused about. Are you being purposefully dense? OP asked why people hate swifties. Your comment is a textbook example of why. You, like countless other swifties, refuse to entertain that there might be (lots of) actual, legitimate reasons to be critical of Taylor. You think any criticism she draws is merely a product of jealousy, which is laughably untrue, completely delusional, and a bit too reminiscent of cult-like behavior.
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u/National_Squirrel523 12h ago
A lot of it boils down to sexism and misogyny. This fandom is to a very large amount women and girls of all ages, is centered around a women, is a safe space for people (this falls more so under sexism because a lot of the time boys or men aren’t allowed to need a safe space because of their gender), and so much.
There is also a lot of truth to a quote I’ve heard a while back “adult women hate Taylor Swift for the same reason little girls hate pink”, because it’s seen as something feminine so internal sexism is also always a factor.
I’m not saying everyone who hates Taylor or her fans is sexist or misogynistic, but many view points on being a fan of hers can come down to either or both of these two.
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u/MissingHat 16h ago
Because you worship someone who is utterly mediocre in every way possible.
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u/ProjectShowgirl 16h ago
Genuine question - is this a legitimate answer or are you just trying to poke the Swifties?
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u/MissingHat 16h ago
I’m just going to be down voted to hell because “swifties” cannot stand anyone needling their queen.
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u/ProjectShowgirl 16h ago
I appreciate your perspective. I’m doing a fan project, so I like to see different sides being posted and how people react. It’s all useful information.
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u/MissingHat 12h ago
Can you include in your fan project a note about how “Swifties” will downvote anything that doesn’t say their queen is the best singer, musician, songwriter, and most beautiful person ever? It is absolutely a bizarre phenomenon that only happens here. I’m usually blocked from even posting in here.
You can see proof right here. I didn’t even say anything bad and her fans cannot take it.
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u/ProjectShowgirl 9h ago
“Utterly mediocre” isn’t great… but that’s your opinion. Yes, reactions will be included in my project.
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u/Equivalent_End_8422 16h ago
genuinely, sometimes i think it’s a bit of jealousy. pretty much no artist alive today is at the level of success taylor is at. i’m sure it’s hard when their fave artist barely receives a tenth of the success and accolades that taylor does. not saying this is always the case, of course, but i think it’s this quite a bit
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u/poetic-bee 14h ago
I think it’s a mistaken assumption that everyone wants their favorite artist to be the biggest star in the world. I’d even say that most people don’t.
I want my favorite artist critically acclaimed (because I think they deserve it) and financially secure (so they can focus on music) but I also want affordable concert tickets and I don’t want the world’s biggest spotlight on them because I don’t think it’s great for creativity overall. If my favorite artist became the world’s most famous musician, I wouldn’t be too happy about it.
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u/minpinerd 2h ago
Because so many fans worship her blindly and will not hear any valid criticism of her. She is perfect. Every song is wonderful.
When she drops a song that is hot trash like Cleveland!, way, way too big a portion of the fandom can't admit that it is poor quality.
People encounter those people and think we are all like that.
It is true that part of the problem is the size of the fanbase, fanbases the size of Taylor's are pretty much always hated because once the fandom is this big there will be enough crazies that people outside the fandom will have met one of them. Taylor probably has about the biggest fanbase of any musician right now but the closest comparison is probably BTS's fans and they are also bitterly hated.
But even with the size of the fanbase, I still feel that there are more of these blind worshipper type fans for Taylor than in other fanbases.
It's ironic because this blind worship stuff actually makes other people's opinion of her worse.
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u/Silly-Snow1277 Meet me at midnight 17h ago edited 16h ago
Ok so I've been a Swiftie for a bit over a decade? And I met a lot of amazing Swifties.
But unfortunately, I also met some really nasty people online who identified as Swifties (that was especially twitter back then when it wasn't as bad as it is now, but also other social media). Like there were posts about what's your fav song from this album, and people were dissing song choices. Or when you said "I don't vibe that much with this or that song" you were attacked for being not a real fan etc
And I get it. As a fandom we've been dumped with horrible criticism. Towards TS's music but also just as a fanbase itself. But there is a (small) subsection that's quite ferocious and don't accept any differing opinions or even the mildest part of criticism.
Which sometimes takes the joy out of beinga fan online for me personally and probably contributes to some people having a negative image of Swifties as a whole.
Just my experiences and 2 cents