On Unexpectedly Becoming a Swiftie

...and rethinking celebrity culture after evangelicalism.

TWO QUICK NOTES:

Spiritual Coaching Holiday Sale ends tomorrow! This is your last chance to get a free Spiritual Coaching session when you buy five. Buy now to book your first call in the new year, and let 2024 be the year that you deal with your “spiritual stuff” and move on with your life. Click here.

Reimagining Christmas is back. This ebook of daily readings takes the typical messages of Christmas you learned and turns them upside down in new, refreshing ways. Make peace with the traditions and story of Christmas… especially if you don’t believe in it anymore.

And now, the story of how I reluctantly (and a little begrudgingly) boarded the fandom train to Taylor-town.

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I don’t know how it happened, but I became a Swiftie this year.

Until now, I’ve sporadically enjoyed a few of her songs, but haven’t latched on to any significant fandom for the last decade and a half that she’s been around.

It wasn’t until her Eras tour picked up speed and started taking over my newsfeed that I started paying attention. Now, mere months later, I’m neckdeep in research on Easter eggs about her next album re-release, watching TikToks of TS Numerology and learning all about her cats.

• Maybe it’s because I have a 9-year-old daughter who plays her music all the time, and I’ve been delighted at how many Taylor Swift songs spark meaningful conversations and bonding moments for us.

• Maybe it’s because I went and saw the Eras movie (not even the concert) and the creative artist in me was reawakened to my calling to use creativity to capture life and make others feel seen and known.

• Maybe it’s because the flurry around her romance with Travis Kelce was a welcome distraction from all the terrible things happening around the world.

Yet despite the sheer adolescent joy I’ve felt inside with this newfound affinity, I have been reluctant to name myself a Swiftie, as if identifying myself as a fan is somehow shameful, embarrassing or wrong.

What if she’s not doing enough for the world with her influence?

How do I feel about being a fan of a stranger who has so much power, fame and money?

Am I just being duped and brainwashed by really good marketing?

Don’t I reject celebrity culture? 

Is this just SO basic of me? 

Am I actually hurting her by participating in the insane clickbait culture surrounding her online?

I’m an enneagram 4… how dare I like something that everyone likes too!

But then I realized that all this judgment of myself sounded suspiciously, like so many other things in my life, like old programming developed in my fundamentalist-leaning evangelical environment.

So, just like Taylor, I’m ready to re-record my internal soundtrack around who and what I like so that I can have full ownership of my thoughts and feelings, and not be paying dues to people and systems that launched me but eventually turned on me and harmed me.

And I’m going to follow Taylor’s lead to help me do it.

I can’t be the only one here who didn’t get to participate in pop culture when I was a kid. 

My parents weren’t especially fundamentalist, but we were definitely a CCM-only house. While my friends were singing NKOTB, I was belting Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith alone in my room. When I got my license at 16, I was so desperate to access pop music that I would sneak KISS FM in the family car while driving alone, then tune the car radio back to The Fish before getting out so my parents wouldn’t know what I was listening to without them.

In my family and church circles, there was a rigid, complex morality around music and entertainment. This artist is good; this one is bad. We heard countless “garbage in, garbage out” sermons, the implication being that if we were going to be effective disciples for Jesus we had to guard our hearts and only consume entertainment that would bear “good fruit” in us.

In a weird way, we handed over a lot of power to music.

We had more faith in the persuasive power of music than in our own commitment to values that mattered to us. We saw entertainment as this unstoppable force that would turn us into immoral villains or, even worse, make us have sex before we were married.

With distance, I’ve realized that art doesn’t necessarily change us so much as reflect the reality of what is or what could be true about us. If a song does change my mind about something, it’s not because the song has power of its own, but because the song is echoing back to me the truth of my own values and priorities.

Having rigid rules around the media I’m “allowed” to consume is one piece of programming I definitely want to lose.

I’m not interested in swapping one set of absolutes for another, be it from the fundamentalist application of progressive politics I see sneaking into the deconstruction community, or from my internalized made-up “rules” of what I think a woman of my age/nationality/status/personality in the world “should” like or not like.

I don’t need any arbitrary guidelines around what I allow myself to enjoy: I can trust my own discernment to do the work of deciding what I like and what serves me well. I’m ready to just like what I like for as long as I like it without apology, and reserve the right to change my mind along the way. 

But I will say… I have mixed feelings about participating in celebrity culture at all.

On one hand, I’m over a mindset that says “I must boycott anything that disagrees with my values.” I just don’t think it’s realistic to live in a world where you have such rigid views.

I may not loooove celebrity culture, but I find it unrealistic to expect myself or my family to never participate in the shared experiences of songs, movies, or people who are capturing the zeitgeist of our moment. I actually find it to be one of the more beautiful aspects of life, when we are brought together by stories and art.

On the other hand, I also think that elevating people to this level is really weird and dangerous. I recognize that Taylor Swift didn’t make “Taylor Swift,” but that collectively, we made her “Taylor Swift” by taking her offering and elevating her to the status of superstar. You can’t sell out arenas without people buying tickets. You can’t require security without people obsessing over your every move. She’s like the Princess Diana of our age, and I fear that we will destroy her, too, with our fanatic love. I don’t feel good about participating in that.

On a different hand, I can’t help but roll my eyes at the expectations people place on her. I think of the similarities between celebrities and pastors. As a child of a small-town, small-church pastor, I have felt the weight of a church’s expectations on one person to be all things to all people; to preach, to lead worship, to be social afterwards, to show up and say just the right thing at everyone’s most tragic moment. Some burn out, while others crack morally and flame out in graphic scandals.

It’s not fair to pastors and it’s not fair to famous people who, by virtue of being successful in one area, are expected to shoulder the weight of the world’s expectations in all areas. Is it possible for Taylor ever to do “enough” good or will it never be enough? And who gets to decide how much is enough? Does she not bear the responsibility of that choice?

But on the other hand again, I do think that people of influence must be held accountable for how they use their influence. I think Kirk Cameron’s video mocking women that just came out is unacceptable (don’t bother to look it up and give him the clicks). I’m so off-put when people of wealth and status do nothing to participate in bettering the world. I have unfollowed certain celebrities when I perceive unkindness or arrogance that disrupts my enjoyment of their art.

But here again… I find some religious programming saying that I have to know and decide the morality of someone or something before I participate in it. Cancel culture goes both ways, and sometimes it feels necessary, and other times it feels ridiculous.

When it comes to something as complex as the effect of culture and art on the world, all we can do is keep following our own discernment.

Taylor Swift was announced as Time’s Person of the Year this week, and this was my favorite quote from the article:

“There is one thing I’ve learned: My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art.” - Taylor Swift

Maybe this is the real reason I’m a Swiftie.

I like her music, yes… but I think what I’m most drawn to is the way she is sharing the art of her life.

Though I can’t relate to all of her experiences, I deeply relate to watching someone find the courage to step beyond the haters, to defy those who assume the worst of her, to embrace the beauty of each phase of her past, and to dig deeper into herself to pull out the pure gems of humanity formed under pressure.

For someone like me who’s felt so mired in the past, in the sticky programming of an evangelicalism I can hardly stomach sometimes, in the judgment I’m still so quick to render to myself and feel from others… I crave the freedom she’s expressing.

I’m desperate to follow her lead, to embrace all of my eras and to live my life out loud as it comes, highs and lows, successes and crash landings, and to return to what brings me joy and makes me me through it all, no matter what.

Regardless of who your most played artist was on Spotify this year, I hope that you’re continuing to find freedom to like what you like without judgment from yourself or others.

I hope that you’re not expecting perfect understanding from yourself before you engage in a mess.

And I hope that you’re finding your way to the type of confidence that lets you live the way you want to live, no matter how many people are watching you and waiting for you to fail.

🫶🫶🫶🫶,

Joy

P.S. I’m no T-Swift, but Reimagining Christmas is my own work of art I’m proud to offer the world. Check it out here: www.joyvetterlein.com/shop/p/reimagining-christmas