Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Taylor Swift

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

I was never good at telling jokes but the punchline goes: If Taylor told her Swifties to kill a man, they would. They would kill a man for Taylor, because her music means *that* much to them. But the "cult" of country-pop sensation Taylor Swift is not just about the music. It's about the Swiftie community, the rituals, the beliefs, the aesthetic, and (of course) Taylor's cult of personality. This extreme fandom definitely seems classically culty, but is it dangerous just because it's fanatical? That's the question on Amanda and Isa's agenda today, and they've solicited pop culture connoisseur Jill Gutowitz, author of the essay collection GIRLS CAN KISS NOW, to help them figure it out.  Go to DAILYHARVEST.com/cult to get up to forty dollars off your first box!  Grab your Liquid I.V. in bulk nationwide at Costco or get 15% off when you go to LIQUIDIV.COM and use code cult at checkout. Frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift today at Framebridge.com.

The views expressed in this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Hi, I'm Ashley from SoCal, and I think the cultiest thing about Taylor Swift is how she hides clues, references, and puzzles in her post on social media, and how her fans immediately scramble to try and figure out what her next album is going to be. Hi, my name is Nicole, and I am from Chicago.

Her fans are unable to admit that sometimes she is in the wrong, and I think that her fans are constantly wanting to victimize her and view her as an underdog instead of someone who's already won the game 10 times over. Hi, I'm Leila, and I'm calling from California. I think the cultiest thing about Taylor Swift is how carefully curated her images and how her brand changes so drastically depending on what quote-unquote era she's in. You know, you see snake emojis in dark lipstick and think reputation, pink and butterflies are lover, cardigans and forests are folklore,

and fans play into these aesthetics too, so with every new album, you have people totally revamping their Instagram feeds. It's like cultiness squared because you have the cultiness of categorizing yourself into niche aesthetics on social media, and then the cultiness of having that brand be dictated by a celebrity. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Issa Medina, and I'm a comedian. I'll be performing in San Francisco this Thursday, October 20th,

and in Los Angeles Saturday, October 22nd. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. Every week on our show, we discuss a different zeitgeisty group that puts the cult in culture, from crypto to the skincare industry, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? To join our cult and see culty memes and behind-the-scenes hicks, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod. I'm on Instagram at Amanda underscore Montell.

And I'm at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-E-D-I-N-A-A, and that's where you can check out tickets to my live shows. Again, I'll be in San Francisco this Thursday, October 20th, and in Los Angeles this Saturday, October 22nd. Go check out tickets at my Instagram, Issa Medina. And feel free to check us out on YouTube, where you can watch our show, or you can support us further by hitting us up on Patreon at patreon.com. Thank you to our sponsor, Framebridge.

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Daily Harvest delivers delicious food built on organic vegetables and fruits. Choose from smoothies, flatbreads, harvest bowls, and more. You deserve one less thing to worry about. Let Daily Harvest take care of the fruits and veggies for you. Go to dailyharvest.com slash cult to get up to $40 off your first box. That's dailyharvest.com slash cult for up to $40 off your first box. Dailyharvest.com slash cult. Thank you to our sponsor, Liquid IV.

Making hydration a priority can help us feel healthier in our everyday lives. Grab your Liquid IV in bulk nationwide at Costco or get 15% off when you go to liquidiv.com and use code CULT at checkout. That's 15% off anything you order when you shop better hydration today using promo code CULT at liquidiv.com. I also think it's funny sometimes people like slide into the DMs and are like, come to Australia and I'm like, let's go to Australia. People will like beg in my comments like, come to Denver, come to Hawaii.

I'm like, can I stay with you? I mean, if you'll put us up, we'll come hang out. We'll totally come. You know what we could do on the way there? We could listen to today's topic. With one earbud in my ear and one in yours. Yeah, that would be really cute. Also, AirPods these days limit instruments to one ear or the other,

so you're not getting the full surround sound. Exactly. It's not any way to listen to Taylor Swift. That is not the way that God intended for us to listen to this week's episode topic. There is a Taylor Swift song for every occasion. I mean, much like biblical proverbs can be spun any way a cult member wants, there is a Taylor Swift lyric to potentially condone any type of violence. Yeah, yeah, allegedly.

I don't know who would do that. I can safely say I have never been more intimidated to cover a topic than the cult of Taylor Swift. No, I completely agree. I think this one's scary. I mean, even just mentioning Taylor Swift in our episode, The Cult of Celebrity Stands. Season one.

Season one was scary, scary, but I do feel at the end of the day, since I am a low-key Swiftie, we are going to be providing a full 360 analysis of the situation. I have at times not identified as full-blown Swiftie, but have really connected with her music when I was 20 years old and living in Brooklyn during the fall time. That's when I was really pounding red, the original red release. And I really identified with it then, but that's the thing about Taylor Swift fundamentalism

is that I often feel like you're not allowed to be a casual Taylor Swift listener. That's so true. I like that you called it fundamentalism, because at the end of the day, I mean, all of her songs and all of her albums are just so relatable. I mean, they're either about being a certain age, falling in love, getting your heart broken. Those are all things that we can relate to. And if we can't relate to them, we make up scenarios, thinking that we're in love, and then we listen to the music and romanticize our life.

That's what I did in high school. I like never had a high school relationship, but I suppose listening to Fearless was sort of my first introduction to what being young and in love felt like. Oh, for sure. I mean, the first time I really, really listened to Taylor Swift was after I broke up with my freshman year boyfriend, LOL Gay. And I listened to the song Back to December as if he had broken my heart. I ultimately did break up with him because I didn't want to be with him,

but he was hot and cool and then went on to date another hot, cool girl. So I was still salty about the whole situation. My only serious romantic tryst in high school was also with a gay man. Wait, no, that one wasn't gay. Oh. The gay guy I dated was my college boyfriend. Sorry, sorry. Who I lost my virginity to.

Yeah, I lost my virginity to a gay guy. I always say I should have known he was gay because every time I asked him to go down on me, he was like, yes, queen. The high school one was straight and we only did like hand stuff in his basement. You're so right. Taylor Swift is a populist cult leader queen. She's able to appeal to the lowest common denominator of basic and as our cult of weddings guest Gia Tolentino stutely put it, it feels so good to be basic.

It does. Much like Disney adults, Taylor Swift is actually the perfect sounds like a cult topic because on the surface, it seems really low stakes and really innocent. She's just a pop star who's worshipped by all these sort of twee young women. But underneath the surface, it gets incredibly fanatical, incredibly culty in a way that sometimes sends a shock through my system the way that I will sometimes watch like Nexium documentaries and Jonestown documentaries and be like, this is frightful. Yeah, for sure.

And I think that's because a lot of Taylor Swift's fandom and cult following is in their feelings. Taylor Swift gets them into her cult in a place where they're feeling very vulnerable, in a place where they're feeling like they don't know what to do next. And then they listen to Taylor's music and they're like, you helped me get through the darkest moments of my life. And now I owe you my life. The way that you describe that is absolutely accurate and is utterly symmetrical with the way

that people have spoken about Keith Runieri when they first got involved with Nexium, Heaven's Gate when they first got involved with Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, the founder of that cult. The stakes for the cult of Taylor Swift and Swiftie are obviously much lower and the consequences are different, but the fanaticism is the same. That makes sense. That's happened to me. I have to check myself because I can become such an obsessive fan that that's why I really

am not a 100% cult fan of anything because the tides could turn and it could become my whole life. So even when Taylor's version of Red came out and All Too Well came out, I was kind of going through a little something myself and I listened to All Too Well so much, it helped me get through that. And then I started going on YouTube and watching videos of her and watching all of her fandom overanalyze every move she made. I was like, I need to step it back and check myself. Being a host of this podcast, you can notice when you're starting to trip and fall too deeply

into a cult. But I think what you're getting at is the fanaticism of Taylor Swift's fandom, which parallels the fanaticism of so many destructive cults, is really motivated by us as humans not wanting to feel alone. And Taylor Swift really helps people feel like they are a part of something larger than themselves and that they're not the only person going through something. But it's so funny because I don't even get a toe in the door in culty communities. I have been conditioned to be so skeptical and so cynical.

And when I watch YouTube videos of hardcore Swifties reacting to her album drops, for example, and I'm so horrified and I'm rubber-necking and I'm treating it like true crime, part of me thinks like maybe I'm so horrified because a fraction of me is jealous of her or of her fandom because it feels so good to just surrender to a group like that. Yeah. And we tend to be hyper-critical of groups that remind us of ourselves so much in the way that people who are the most homophobic or people who might feel a little bit gay themselves, like the people who are the most critical of Disney adults,

are jealous of people who are that willing to indulge in something a little cringe. And I think like there is a basic white girl cult follower deep down inside of me and that's what makes me afraid of her fandom. Oh, for sure. I mean, you are literally a girl who has a romantic life. So there's a little bit of that in all of us. Yeah, wearing pink puffy sleeves and who loves cats. Yeah.

And I think the best way to treat that little draw and pull that you have is to go to concert. I've never been to a Taylor Swift concert, but I have been to a Bad Bunny concert. I recently went and I will not shut up about it. I am famously not a fan girl, but when I tell you I was screaming at the top of my lungs at this concert after every single song yelling Bad Bunny's name Benito, it was like something took over me. And after I left the concert, I just felt so cathartic. It was just something that I needed to get out of my system in a stadium full of Latinos. There are bands that I love and I don't become obsessed with them from like a

culty fanatic perspective, but I do track when they'll be in the city that I'm in. And I'll go to the concert and in that two hours, I will let go of everything, my ego and just like be in the moment and surrender to the music. I relate so much to that. One of the happiest experiences I've had in recent memory was microdosing on mushrooms at the Sylvan Esso concert at the Greek. I have never been so present. Like it feels transcendent.

I literally said after I left that show, I was like, I feel like Sylvan Esso was holding me. I wrote my college essay about going to a concert. It was like, what was the most transcending experience? And I was like, passion pit, the year was 2014. That's legit. Yeah. So before we get into it, we just want to give a little disclaimer.

The cult of Taylor Swift is so complex. There's no way we could cover all of it here. I mean, there's her persona, the cult of her personality, and then there's her whole flock of hardcore Swifties. And then within that fan cult, there are different denominations and irrational beliefs and conspiracy theories that people dedicate hours and hours to unpacking and defending. For example, there are whole subgroups of her fandom

called Kalers and Galers who are constantly sharing clues, pointing to Taylor Swift being queer. And we don't have time to dig into all of the weeds of that. So we just want to warn y'all that we might need to do a part two of this episode because as we were saying, even though Taylor Swift is just a pop star, we could low key describe the whole story of Heaven's Gate in an hour

more easily than the cult of Taylor, also because the Heaven's Gate members are dead and won't come for us. Yeah, exactly. That's one aspect that is less scary. There are parts of the Taylor Swift cult that she leans into intentionally. Obviously, it's been so amazing for her career

that people's love for her goes way beyond music and I think that's because she's been around for just so long. We grew up with her and it's a whole aesthetic and identity that comes with rituals, like hunting for Easter egg clues about future songs which she puts in her posts and hierarchies, like being blessed to come to one of her private listening parties. I mean, there's even a Starbucks drink

and there's also uniform we can all kind of recognize, like chunky sweaters and side braids and heart-shaped sunglasses and cups of tea and cats. I'm actually gonna say that if you were in the cult of Taylor Swift, it's mostly that you're obsessed with cats the same way that she is. I love cats. I love red lipstick. It's giving Christian modesty blogger vibes. That is exactly it.

Yeah. And this is such a genius marketing technique because it comes back to that idea of the identity template that we touch on all the time where in this particular time in history, when there's at least the illusion of so many options for who to be and what to think, it just feels so comforting to have this guiding light.

Like, I'm a Swifty and this is how Swifties act. And other Swifties are my tribe and followers can become dependent on that identity to feel whole, which is I think part of why they're so protective of it. Of course you want to not have a million options and just follow your leader. I don't even know what deodorant to use these days, you know?

But her fans really do worship her as this enlightened leader. If you combine the most popular girl in school with your best friend and a mythical goddess, that's how people feel about her and her songs. There's also like this elitism where if you don't get her songs or if you don't think they're good, then there's clearly something profoundly wrong with you.

I felt that way about when people didn't like the movie Everything, Every Girl at Once. I was like, you just don't get it. I feel that way about that movie too. I'm in the cult of that movie. Yeah, me too. And Bagels. The Everything Bagel.

The Everything Bagel. It all comes back to it. It always goes back to Bagels or Bad Bunny. For me, it really always just goes back to Bad Bunny. But watching videos of Swifties analyzing her lyrics is fascinating because it feels like Bible study. Yes. People are over analyzing it, trying to figure out what their God's real message

might have been. And I feel like her lyrics like The Bible to Christians or Disney movies to Disney adults are like a scripture by which they live their lives. They're just next level inspiring because they relate to our love lives. And it's like, do I think Taylor Swift's music is good? Some of it?

Yes, absolutely. And it should be okay only to like some of it or not at all. Do I think even her best songs are worthy of some of this fanaticism? For me, no. But I also know that it's not just about the music. It's about that feeling of being part of this passionate community that's so much bigger than yourself.

And that's possibly the most transcendent experience emotionally that a human can have beyond falling in love with one other person because you're literally in a giant group of people who are all bonding over the feeling of being in love with the same person. And that comes with jealousy and competition for attention. Like who's the best cult member?

Who's the best Swifty? But those feelings will still always come second to the much bigger and more spiritual calling to unite over this one brilliant all-knowing figure. Yeah, the difference though is that Charles Manson knew all his followers personally. And Taylor Swift doesn't know any of these people personally. Although she does claim to lurk the internet

for what everyone is saying. That is part of her genius is that she's so good at making every one of her followers feel like she does know them. It's Ashley here from Baltimore, Maryland. I think the qualities thing about Taylor Swift are her stand fans. Literally, if you say anything against her,

you might as well just cancel yourself from the internet because they're just going to do it for you. Hi, I'm Aviva calling from Melbourne. The stands worship at her feet and they will buy all eight versions of folklore, spend every waking hour theorizing about her next move, and they will dog pile on anyone who dares to criticize her. And she will encourage it by sending gifts

or inviting fans to her house so everyone gets even more frenzied and desperate because of that tiny chance that she'll notice them. My name is Amy and live in Northern Virginia and I am a hardcore Swifty. You'll often hear the joke like, our Lord and Savior Taylor Allison Swift worshipping at the altar of Taylor Swift

during the church of Taylor Swift. I'm totally guilty of this because I think it's funny because I'm like a heathen, but the deification is definitely culty. So let's get some background on Taylor Swift. Who is she? Where did she come from? Pennsylvania, we talked about this, is a really alien place.

Yeah, yeah, crop circles, crop circles, the Amish. Taylor Swift was famously born in 1989 after a group of aliens dropped her into Pennsylvania. No, I'm just kidding. But she was born there and she has this America's sweetheart persona. She places a lot of emphasis on her family and her wholesome origins,

but she doesn't mention Pennsylvania a lot because when she was young, as soon as she decided she wanted to pursue music, her family was like, okay, girly, let's do it. And they moved the whole family to Nashville. They helped her pursue music, which clearly a good investment on their part

because look how it turned out. Seriously, people often forget that she's from Pennsylvania and not Nashville because I think it's better for her relatable persona and her rags to riches narrative to let people believe that she's from the South. So she signed her record deal so young in 2004 at 14 years old

and released her debut album two years later at 16 years old. She received her first top 40 hit, Tim McGraw, we all know that song, we love that song, off that album and she released her first number one album, Fearless, in 2008, which was, may I add,

a peak point in all of our youths. Seriously, the economy was crashing, hope was lost and there was Taylor Swift there to pick up the pieces. When I broke up with my boyfriend because I didn't like him fingering me. Sorry, China mentioned that. No, it did feel bad back then. I remember my first fingering.

I wasn't wet. So I was like, is this what it's supposed to be like? No, I remember it hurt, but I was like, I have to just rip off the band aid. It felt like someone was putting a tampon in me when I was not on my period. Completely, oh my God. I'll never forget it.

I was just lying there being like, I can't be 16 years old and have never been fingered. Same, and then once I did it, I was like, all right, this is off the checklist. I know, I was like, never again. I feel like that's how everyone feels about losing their virginity. It's like not fun, but you got to do it at some point.

I know, it should be fun, or it should be at least like not fun for both parties. Yes, if I don't come neither do you. Exactly. You could almost argue that she was pulling cult leader style antics with her family at a young age because she was able to convince them to make that move to Nashville for her career

and they had the money and the resources to do that. So this sort of implicit narrative that she's the small town innocent country girl who came from nothing and struck it big on talent and luck alone is like not quite it. She wants to relate to the masses. So of course, it's just very smart. It's brilliant.

And I think the fact that she got started really young combined with her very clever, populous, relatable songwriting instincts and her work ethic because you can't knock it. She has a really impressive work ethic. Add all that to the music industry's conditioning. Turned her very quickly into this teen sensation with this mass, mass appeal.

Since then, she's won 11 Grammys. She's had 42 nominations. She's the first and only woman solo artist to win the Grammy for best album of the year three times for her solo recordings. And now she has over 225 million Instagram followers and could be considered one of the most famous people in modern history.

Now that she's become this super famous person and she could not work a day in her life for the rest of her life and continue to have the fandom that she does, the fact that she's re-recording her albums just for her own sake of owning them, I think really shows. You're looking at me like I'm in love with her.

I'm just saying. You know what that says to me is that Taylor Swift's number one most passionate fanatical Swifty follower is Taylor Swift. She's her own biggest fan, but I also think she's a workaholic, honestly. The way that I see it is that's really admirable from... From a capitalist perspective.

From as a woman who runs a business. I just feel like she never gets praised for business woman thing. For a girl bossing so close to the sun right now. When you give the caveat that she grew up rich, it's easy to discredit all the hard work that's also bonded to it. No, it's really impressive.

But it is super duper impressive and she's still working super hard and we're gonna talk about it, but is that a good thing or is that a bad thing? How has that affected her and or the people who she influences mental health? Once you have it all and you have everything, you're still working as hard as possible to get more.

And that's the most capitalist thing you could ever do. It's the cultiest thing you could ever do. It's when a certain benchmark of power and Taylor Swift has a lot of it is still not enough. But Taylor Swift's influence is so much cultier than just music industry domination. And we partially mean that as a compliment because as we know here, it sounds like a cult.

Not everything culty is bad. But Amanda, how did she build that cult leader persona? Taylor Swift is a master of turning the narrative. I don't know if you've heard, but America is ruled by patriarchy. Oh! What? Just America alone?

No, that's a good point because Taylor Swift is world famous and much of the world is ruled by patriarchy. Yes, it is. I actually was thinking the other day how I think the reason we have a patriarchal society is because a man caught a woman in her weakest moment, which is on her period with the worst cramps of her life

and was like, hey, did you know that when you're pregnant, you don't get your period for nine whole months? So you could just stay home, get pregnant for the rest of your life, and you won't feel this way ever again. And a woman was like, oh my God, that sounds so great. And then we were like, oh, fuck. As soon as Taylor Swift got really famous,

she quickly turned into someone that the media and general pop culture loved hate. So she's often served as a target for a lot of society's general misogyny because she's not exactly cool or sexy in the male gazey way that the Kardashians are. For example, she's this sort of quirky, adorable, sensitive, oversharer,

and people have infamously critiqued her for that and have roasted her dating life in ways that felt sexist. There was the whole Kanye feud, of course. But she very quickly turned the narrative to position herself in the face of all of that sexist criticism as this inspiring female empowerment icon, which really worked because people love a good versus evil story, especially among celebrities.

And I think this kind of highlights her culture being very Southern to be this quaint, nice woman who never says anything mean herself but gets other people to fight her battles for her. It goes back and forth at times where she was wrong and she shouldn't have, and also she put on these flashing lights of like,

help me, help me, I'm this weak woman who needs help. And it's like, you are now an adult and you can speak for yourself. But she was a child for most of her fame and her company was controlled by adults around her. So even though she was this like, rich, powerful person, she wasn't able to control her narrative until like, a lot more recently.

That's an interesting point. Like, how much of her public narrative was she able to drive herself having been a minor for the beginning years of her stardom? But she definitely does flatten narratives into these good evil binaries. For sure. She certainly positions herself as a feminist idol,

but it's ultimately a pretty shallow white feminist message a lot of the time that doesn't always feel genuine or inclusive. I mean, we can't forget casual culturally appropriative music videos like, Shake It Off. There was that public feud with Nicki Minaj. She completely ignored serious race related issues while strutting as a feminist icon.

Her feminism is definitely not intersectional. Just not getting worse, but it's definitely not getting better. And definitely not fast enough. And let's certainly not forget that her squad, which was high-key endorsing mean girl clickiness, had this very conformist uniform look of all tall white, normatively gorgeous women,

which, to Taylor and her fan base, was kind of the symbol of white feminists sticking together. And it really feels like there's sort of this exclusivity around her cult that if you don't look a certain way and if you don't think a certain way and if you weren't raised a certain way, then you might not even be allowed to join. It's not hospitable for all women

in the way that she makes it seem. Yeah. And yet, it's scary to express criticism like this of Taylor Swift, not because of how she'll retaliate, but because of how her stands will retaliate. Yeah, and the stands are strong. I mean, when you have 225 million followers on Instagram,

even if just 5% of those followers are stands to the death, that's thousands and thousands of people. Yes, please be gentle with us. I actually know that there is a good, significant overlap between Swifties and people who read my work. Again, I'm just teetering up against this Swiftie culture. Even just the colors you use on the covers of your clothes.

I mean, look at the dress you're wearing right now. Well, I wore this twi-ass puffy sleeve pink-ass dress on purpose for the theme, but that just goes to show how conformity can happen so quickly. I'm wearing this ironically, but it's like, is it ironic? No. I don't know.

I already owned this. You also do famously wear red lipstick all the time, which is a very Taylor Swift thing. I am interested in clever marketing, and she is very interested in clever marketing, whether or not she's willing to admit it. Yeah, and I guess just like a mid-episode disclaimer, we are tearing this apart

and looking into all the aspects of Taylor Swift, but when we analyze someone, that doesn't inherently make them a bad person, you know? She's just a pop star with so much influence that to not look into it would be a disservice. It would be irresponsible of us. As the host, it sounds like a cult. Because there's no content on her on the internet whatsoever.

How would you ever learn about her? Actually, speaking of all of the conspiratorialism surrounding Taylor Swift, there was once a tip that she might have been starting a book club. Think of something more innocent than a book club, and her Swifties were ripping the internet to shreds, trying to look for clues about which books Taylor Swift was choosing. And it was so aggressive,

but the content itself was so innocent. And that's the juxtaposition that makes the Taylor Swift fandom so spooky to me, is that everyone's in pink lipstick and loving cats, but they will go for the jugular if you come from their queen. Oh, definitely. And we'll talk about that when we talk to our guest today, who has experienced that on a personal level. But as Coltia's Taylor Swift is herself,

the Coltia's part of Taylor Swift is her following. The Swifties themselves, they just have such an extreme us versus that mentality. Swifties have been known to go on the attack whenever they perceive that their idol is not being treated properly. Here are some examples. One that stood out to me in particular was in 2021, when she called out the Ginny and Georgia writers for making a joke

about her and the Swifties immediately doxed the show's reviews, and it tanked it on Netflix. She tweeted, hey, Ginny and Georgia, 2010 called, and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back. How about we stop degrading hardworking women by defending this horse shit as funny? Also at Netflix,

after Miss Americana, this outfit doesn't look too cute on you. Ay, ay, ay. Happy Women's History Month, I guess. And just so you guys know, the joke in the show was, what do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift.

It's so light. Just the way that she tweeted that was just so passive aggressive. It was actively aggressive. She was trying to be like, LOL, joke, joke, but she was clearly mad about it. So unwilling to take a joke. Like, have a little humor about yourself.

You have literally everything in the world. She's like, I'm just an innocent small town girl from Pennsylvania, and I'm just trying to empower women. It's like, take a joke, girlfriend. Like, we all can. I know, I feel bad. Every time we go hard on her,

I'm like, but girly, invite me to your parties. I'm just gonna say it. It is true. Unfortunately, Taylor Swift cannot take a joke. And she even talks about not being able to take the joke. I think she thinks she can take a joke. I famously have not been able to take a joke as a kid. And then I was like, oh, I'll just become a comedian.

I can get in front of it and then I can take a joke and like roast people back. The thing with taking jokes is that when people roast you, you don't say, hey, I didn't do that. You roast them back. Yeah. But since she's not roasting,

she's defending the roast. And it is very unfunny to be this aggro in the face of a little tiny joke that was made about you. Yeah. When she tweets about something and all her fans go after that something to defend her, it is dogmatic idol worship. It's this responsibility that her followers

or her Swifties feel to go extreme lengths for the sake of defending their idol. Yes, they are so overprotective. There are so many examples of this. There was a pitchfork writer who gave her album Folklore an 8 out of 10 instead of 10 out of 10. And her followers literally doxxed that person, revealed their name and their personal details.

It was scary. They're just a freaking little internet writer. One fan told Elle.com that Taylor Swift feels like a childhood friend to her. She said, I just feel this motherly instinct to stand up for her because she can't possibly defend herself in every situation. When you are at that level of fame and money,

you don't need to defend yourself because you are making money off of all of those comments. You are making money off of that hate as well. And that's why if you want to have this job, you need to be able to compartmentalize and disassociate. She doesn't need people defending her and she also doesn't need to be defending herself at all hours of the day.

No, and I'll say this too. The impulse to want to defend yourself against senseless internet hate, no one is above that. I have friends who've been through being diagnosed with chronic illnesses, like having family members die, and even they are not immune to strangers on the internet being mean to them. Like that sucks even if you're Taylor Swift,

but her Swifties will even defend her against completely valid, intelligently stated criticism. Like remember when the whole private jet thing happened? If you didn't know, there is this website that tracks most celebrities' private jet usage and how much CO2 they're putting out into the world. And it's pretty much just highlighting how the richest people in the world

are at fault for global warming and us as individuals using a shitty fucking paper straw. And drinking paper is not going to help the world, but these billionaires taking massive steps is. Taylor Swift got called out for taking like four, five minute jet rides. So like starting a plane and taking a five minute private jet ride from like one town to another

is horrible for the environment. And her Swifties still defended her. And I remember her team came out and defended that she was like lending her jet out to other people so she wasn't taking all of those rides. I'm like, it's still her jet. LOL are rich people letting each other borrow each other's planes?

Regular people, we borrow each other's clothes, but can you imagine being so powerful and rich that every time you lent a belonging to a friend? Carbon dioxide rained from the sky and you just didn't notice or didn't care. I did think it was interesting how the private jet, Hello Blue, did seem to afford certain Swifties,

this permission structure, to come out and admit that she's kind of a problematic fave. Some people sent me a few TikToks of Swifties like kind of roasting her a little bit. It's like, finally, we are allowed to critique her a teeny tiny little bit. I'm researching irrationality a bunch for the book that I'm currently writing.

And I learned that when a celebrity commits any kind of infraction, their fiercest loyalists will be flooded with cognitive dissonance that feels so uncomfortable that they immediately get defensive. And the worst the infraction is, the worst their cognitive dissonance will be, and the more defensive Enzelis this stands

will get in order to psychologically overcome that. That makes sense to me. The only example I can think on a personal level is the classic scene where new family moves to a new town and then one of the siblings gets bullied at school and then the sibling is like, oh, hell no, I can bully my little brother, but you can't.

It's like, I'm allowed to critique this person because I'm a part of their family. But you get your hands off my sibling. Totally. And it's like we said before, this stan in the L.com article said that she has a motherly instinct toward Taylor Swift. But it's like, you are not a part of that girl's family

and you are not her mother. The meaning that it holds to Taylor Swift versus the meaning that it holds to the person defending her to the death are way different. Taylor Swift will be like, oh, that's nice. Someone defended me. And this girl will have spent weeks, days commenting, chatting with a person that has nothing to do

with them on a personal level. That is such a good point. It's a culty red flag to become separated and isolated from your loved ones and your family because you're dedicating so much time to this group. And some of the cultiest things that Swifties do is that they'll track her every movement, including physical movements,

in addition to business and music moves. A woman running one of the biggest fan pages told The Guardian that she knew where Taylor Swift was 80% of the time. That's not healthy for the person running the fan page and for Taylor Swift. She stated many times that she no longer says what city she's living in because it's really dangerous for her, for fans to know that.

People have broken into her homes. And that's the scary part is that the fandom is now, you know, snowballed into its own monster. Absolutely almost uncontrollable. Taylor interacts with her fans through like secret codes and specialized language, but they sometimes take it way too far. Some parts of the Swiftie fandom are so disconnected from reality

that they'll project made up ideas onto her words and actions much in the same way, though not with the same consequences, that Q and honors project shit onto Trump. Like they'll overanalyze the color of a sweater that she wore in one Instagram post and interpret that to mean that she's secretly gay. It just goes to show that the fandom really has spiraled way far away from her.

People have created entire careers out of their obsession. There's this woman named Lauren Lipman. She made a YouTube video decoding the hidden messages and the look what you made me do music video. And subsequently she turned that into a whole career. And there are secret codes that the stand-up has invented themselves in order to feel both bonded together and superior to everyone who doesn't understand the lingo.

The snake emoji is an important symbol for the fan base. They use it both to show support for Taylor and to troll outsiders. Like snake emoji, snake emoji, snake emoji, snake emoji. Yeah, there was a time when Kanye tweeted a picture of a snake and everyone was like, oh, he's calling Taylor Swift out. And she does release Easter eggs, hidden clues in her posts. So it's kind of this catch 22 of you have all the power you have because of these inconveniences that you live through.

Even within the Swifties, there's this in group and out group. There are some fans that are invited to secret listening sessions and those that are not involved get super mad. And I mean, I don't even know how that happens. It's almost like a secret society. How do you get invited to those listening sessions? It's funny that you ask that because we looked into it and there are these unspoken rules for ascending to the highest level of Swiftie.

In order to be recognized by her team, you have to tag at Taylor Nation 13 and at TreePane. That's her publicist on all of your social media posts. And then and only then will you have the chance to earn special Swiftie privileges like DMs from her team and Christmas presents and invites to these private listening sessions called her secret sessions. So there are these sort of unspoken codes.

It reminds me of when influencers are like, comment on this post and tag three friends and I'll give you a free Tesla. I've done that. I've sent it to you. I'm like, give me that Tesla. We love exclusivity, especially as Americans. Yeah. And I also think we love free things as well.

So like if her team is offering to send you Christmas presents, it's like, why not? Also, what's the cost of following an account and commenting on things when you remember to? Well, that's how it starts. And then slowly you get inducted more and more and more into the forums and the groups and the culture. And lo and behold, now two years later,

you've tripped and fallen down a rabbit hole into absolute fanatical conspiracy theory, Swiftie culture. Yeah. I mean, speaking of conspiracy theories, we mentioned it this a little bit about the Galers and the Kalers. But I do think that the fact that there are some of her fans that go as far as genuinely thinking that Taylor Swift has been bisexual this whole time and has been gay and has been hiding it,

just goes to show how like almost, and I'm sorry to use this word, but like delusional people can get that they remove themselves from reality. Like this woman is in a serious relationship with an actor. Well, that's also like none of their business. What I really want to know is what is motivating these followers to want her so badly to be gay? That's a really good question.

I don't know. Is it because we need more super, super mainstream queer icons? I mean, it would be a win for the queer community if someone is famous in mainstream as Taylor Swift were gay. We're in this weird transition with queerness where it has become mainstream. So it's important for mainstream popular figures to come out because it's still a win for the queer community.

But sexuality and your sex life should still be private. So I also don't think people are required to come out. So there are a lot of artists nowadays that are like no comment. Like I'm not going to come out because it's my personal life. Whether you're talking about a group as destructive and violent as QAnon or as innocent as Taylor Swift, when you're making up, to use your word, delusional conspiracy theories,

it all goes back to our intense desire during times of sociopolitical turbulence to want someone to represent us and lead us into a better future. I do believe that many, many Swifties have a sense of humor about it all. I think her sense of humor has grown a bit. Yeah. But that doesn't reflect all of her fans. You know, I think a lot of her fans have a great sense of humor.

I made a little Taylor Swift meme and posted it on my Instagram a while ago where it said cults in the movies, cults in real life. And in the cults in the movies section, I posted a screen grab from Midsommar and the cults in real life section. I posted a photo of one of her secret sessions. And then in the caption, I was like, where are my Swifties? What's the cultiest thing you've ever done in service of your queen? And so many people were like delighted to roast themselves as cult followers.

People are proud of the wars that they've gone through. It's like a vet coming back from war and being like, I have a purple heart. Thank you. This is hyperbole. This is hyperbole. So up next, we're going to talk to author, director and writer Jill Gudowitz. She is a huge fan of Taylor Swift herself, but has written many articles on her and inevitably, you know,

gotten into some trouble for it. Some Swifty Tiffs, so to speak. She is the author of the book Girls Can Kiss Now. She writes about Taylor Swift in that book and is the director of the short film The Ladies. Here's Jill. So before we get into our sponsors for the day, Issa here, I wanted to let you all know that I'm going to be performing live this Thursday, October 20th in San Francisco.

I really hope to see you there. I love when culties come to my comedy shows. We chat afterwards. You give me your episode suggestions. Sometimes we even grab a drink. If you want to find tickets to this Thursday's show in San Francisco, you can go to my Instagram or my website, which are both linked in the episode description.

My Instagram is Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-E-D-I-N-A-A. And I will also be performing live this Saturday, October 22nd in Los Angeles, baby. So I really hope to see you there. I love talking to you all in person and meeting you. And yeah, if you think that we're friends, I also think that we're friends. It's like the vibe. And for listeners of the podcast, I want to make sure you all come out.

So I'm giving you a special discount code, $5 off. And the code is IssaColt, and on Caps, I-S-A-Colt. Come out and have fun. It's a fun night out. Hope to see you there. Hi, my name is Anna Murphy. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, and certified Swifty. I've actually seen Taylor in concert nine times.

And despite being a part of the cult, I think the cultiest thing about Taylor Swift and Swifties, particularly recently, has been the way that finding Easter eggs is invasive into not only Taylor's life, but the lives of all other celebrities that she's friends with. Hi, I'm Rosalyn from England. Universities increasingly have Taylor Swift societies. Through this, I have made most of my friends. So everyone around me is Swifties.

And I'm very happy to be part of that. And I've become a committee member to encourage a whole other group of people to make friends exclusively with Taylor Swift fans. This is Kendall calling from Chicago, Illinois, the way that they think that she is above critique for whatever reason, how anyone who calls her out is immediately dismissed and called a misogynist. Like, you can not like Taylor Swift. It's OK. We are so jazzed to tell you about our sponsor, Framebridge,

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Jill, to start, could you introduce yourself to our list? I'm Jill Gunowitz. I'm an author, allegedly. I wrote a book called Girls Can Kiss Now. It's a book of personal essays that are about my own life as it relates to pop culture. Including Taylor Swift. Including but not limited to. But if I had it my way, probably would have been a book about Taylor Swift, yes.

That's amazing. Do you consider yourself in the cult of Taylor Swift? I honestly feel like it was kind of a slow burn, which I think is maybe how cults work. 1989 is really the album where I, even though I liked all the other ones, where I started to get kind of obsessed. And it was because I was going through breakup emotional times. Of course, that's when it happens, feeling very vulnerable.

After that, I was completely all in and needed to participate in getting the merch and talking about it every second on the live way. That's so true. Like once you get merch, you're in. Once you get the merch by purchasing it online, that's when you're really in. Because if you buy a shirt at a concert you go to, that's just part of the energy of the event.

But once you go to www.cultoftaylorswift.com, I want a phone case. Shout out to our culties who had exclusive merch when we did that moment house show. I was so swept up by the 1989 of it all that I went to Target and bought this hard CD. It was like I was so involved that I needed to do it in person. It was like too impersonal to just get a package delivered. All my 1989 memories are listening to CD in my car. It was already kind of a different time in like the way I was listening and consuming and buying the merch.

Yeah, that is much more intimate. A CD in a car. How old are you, Jill? Just for context, what years are we trafficking in? What ages are we trafficking in? I'm actually 13. You're like Taylor. You froze at the time when she became human.

No, I'm 30. Taylor Swift's birthday is the day before mine, but she is two years older than me. That's the perfect age of a celebrity to worship because she's just like just ahead. Yeah, it's always been like a little aspirational. Obviously, Taylor Swift has one of the most passionate fandoms out there. How would you describe the typical Taylor Swift cult member? Like, what are they like? Why do you think they worship Taylor?

Scary. I would describe them as scary. Now there's like different generations of them even, but when I think of a Taylor Swift fan, like my mind goes to my age, like a millennial who like went to the Speak Now concert and is entering their cringe era. There's so many factions of Swifties, and so many of them are now youths that are online

and just have like a Taylor Swift avatar and are like basically identity lists online. Personality wise, I think like Swifties skew obsessive in general. What do you think is like the cultiest aspect of Taylor Swift, like for better or for worse? Speaking to my own experience, I get offended and like genuinely defensive when people criticize her because she has meant a lot to me at so many different times in my life. I do have a deeply parasocial relationship with Taylor Swift

and I do feel like she's so nice to me. I love, she's been so kind to me, like we have not met. Actually I did meet her that time. Oh, I want to hear that, but it's so funny that you say that because I have gone down rabbit holes on YouTube marathoning videos of Swifties reacting to her album drops. It's truly like watching a Pentecostal speak in tongues. I cannot look away, it is madness.

And they say things like she didn't have to do this for us, but she did. Like she is so kind. She is like our mother. She is our goddess. She could just be at home relaxing and she gave this to us. She doesn't know you. Tell us about the time you met her. My friend brought me backstage to meet her at the reputation tour,

living in LA and working in media and whatever. I've met so many celebrities and I would say the majority of them are like not super warm or friendly. We were like the last people to talk to her before she had to be rushed away to go on stage. And so it was like she spent this last moment with us. I would say, I don't know, five minutes of a conversation. And I felt like even though I had no place being there,

I was clearly just a fan and she was talking to my friend about work things and the reason why he was there and whatever. She made such a point to gesticulate at me and look at me while she was talking as much as when she was talking to him so that I felt involved in the small three-person conversation, which I think is just such a small but human thing. And it was just such a kind thing to do for a person who clearly has no place being there and obviously feels weird

to just make them feel included even though you don't have to. That's charisma that what is she getting out of that one particular moment with one fan right before she goes on stage? I do think that this really kind, warm, I'm going to stare directly into your eyes and make you feel like this is the best day of your life. I do feel like that is part of her curated persona though. Like I think the way that you get a reputation

and maintain a reputation is if you're consistent. Here, I'm going to be defensive again. My feeling is like I'm not saying it's not curated. In fact, I'm sure that it is and if it is a form of manipulation. The thing is that I don't care because doing it made me feel so much more comfortable being there. So it's like even if it is not done with like pure intentions, I'm still like, thank you for doing that.

Jill, have you ever had any scary or culty altercations with other Swifties or have observed them? I say this in my book that I had an experience where the FBI knocked on my door one time because of something I tweeted. And still after that, I felt more scared when the Swifties came for me because the FBI thing got cleared as they say.

And I never heard about it again. The Swiftie thing still follows me around. What did you do? During her last few album releases, I was like covering them doing the like uncovering Easter eggs and clues moment for Vulture. And obviously being gay myself, like what I wanted to investigate was the gay stuff, whether it was true or not. You started a revolution with that.

Yeah. And thank you so much. Okay, no, your pieces for Vulture covering those albums were so funny. I'm not even a Swiftie and I voraciously consumed them because they were fucking hilarious. Thank you. A lot of people got really mad that I called her boyfriend names

that were, I think funny. He is like Oat Milk Boy. It's just like so not mean. There are such worse things you can call a person than just saying they're bland. It was just like one of those like pylon stand moments where people went really crazy and it still follows me around. Do you think that like Taylor Swift endorses

those kinds of like actions from her Swifties or like she knows she has like an army at her disposal that she can like use? It's not that she like ever would endorse it. And I think if something really sinister happened, she would of course speak out and be like, you guys, this is crazy. But I think that like she definitely knows that she has this army.

Obviously she knows she has this cultish leader status. Like how do you think she exploits that status? I am not sure because I do think that she could like push me pretty far morally. I don't think that she wields it for evil or would. I think that she is good and I also like she's at a level now that she is so big that when you ask like, what can she do with this?

I'm kind of like, I don't know where she goes from here. You know, it's like she already has us. She has us so fucking hard to the point where she's re-releasing music of the same songs and we're like, thank you goddess. What are some culty aspects of Swifties that someone on the outside of the cult might not even know about? Some like really fringy random shit?

So many Swifties have all of these unreleased Taylor Swift tracks that are like deep buried on YouTube or like truly like files that they've saved to their computers that I feel like those kinds of like inner fan secrets or stuff like that. Taylor Swift has become like a polarizing figure over the last decade and a lot of people consider it uncool to like her because she is so like mainstream

and like Chuggy, I don't know, are we calling her Chuggy now? I don't know. I think that like she resonates with so many people and a lot of people really like her but would not consider themselves a Swiftie. Basically there's just because of the reputation. Even in her own music, she plays into like her narrative and like her role as a leader, like she's all in on that shit.

Do you think there are like Taylor Swift support groups that meet in person or people who are such deep Taylor Swift fans that they make friends with other Taylor Swift fans and maybe they've started a commune? I think if there was a commune, we would know because they would talk about it online for sure. Like that I'm sure of is like Swifties, they're really intense Swifties.

Like I think we do like attention. So I think if there was a commune in the woods, we would know and I would have been on a smaller level. I feel like Swifties are constantly online talking about how like I met some of my closest friends online through the Swiftie fandom even though we've never met in real life which like I have mixed feelings about go outside but also like I believe you because I have met friends online

on like a more like truly interpersonal level. Some of my closest friends, I feel like we have bonded because of our mutual love for her forming the spark of a connection and then finding out this person also loves Taylor Swift and then you like unpack all of that together and you talk about your favorite album and what tours have you been to blah blah. And like my friend Jared, like we have like truly bonded

over our mutual appreciation of Taylor Swift and it has like brought us closer. That's like the fun sweet positive part of being in a cult. It's like here is some doctrine for us to bond over. It's like for some people it's the Bible and for some people it's like some freaky text that a man in a beard wrote and for some people it's Taylor Swift's discography

and you know that's good. Yeah and beautiful lyrics. What do you think it says about our culture in general right now that worshiping Taylor Swift has come to mean so much more to people than just being a fan of a pop star? Being a fan of Taylor Swift has become its own identity. There is an identity and community in saying I am a Swiftie. For me, I think it is net positive that so many people

in our culture have raised her up to be like one of our greatest voices of this generation. No matter what you think about her, whether she is manipulative or sinister or just like a person writing about her feelings, I think she is like net positive and has had like a net positive effect on our culture. So now we're going to play a little game.

We always play a game with our guest on Sounds Like a Cult. This game is a Sounds Like a Cult stand by its culty quotes. So we're going to read you a list of quotes and you're going to have to guess whether the quote was said by Taylor Swift or a notorious cult leader from history. Quote number one, it's all the media's fault. Don't believe them.

I would say a cult leader. Yes, that's Jim Jones. I would say Taylor Swift would never speak that way. I am an overachiever and I want to be known for the good things in my life. Yeah, I think that was Taylor Swift. You're correct. You're like that was Taylor Swift on November 1st at 3 p.m.

No, but was that from the Miss Americana documentary? Because I think it was. The next quote. Love without trust is a river without water. I'm taking this game too seriously. Like now that I'm on a streak, like I'm like if I break this, I'll die. I don't think that was her though.

Like a true Swifty. You're right. The leader of the happy, healthy, holy organization, Yogi budget. Wow, I'm really proud of myself right now. You're on a streak. Really hope we get you with these last couple ones. The only thing I can't control is the spin of the press. And so if I know I can't control that, I have to let it go.

Taylor Swift. Last quote. It's always good to be underestimated. Whoa. I want to say Taylor Swift though. Oh my God, I'm wrong. I got it wrong. Yeah.

And you're going to die. It's Donald Trump. Yeah. How could you do me like that, Amanda? I could see that like completely opening like her reputation tour. Her being like, it's always good to be underestimated. This move that's like to the sky.

Jill, thank you so much for being on the pod and for putting yourself in this vulnerable position. Thank you so much. This has been so fun. And yeah, I hope I don't get trolled further. If anyone gets trolled from this, it'll probably be us. And we hope you don't. But if you have to troll someone, don't troll Jill.

She's been through so much. If listeners want to keep up with you and your Taylor Swift coverage and other things, where can they find you? I am on Instagram as my name, Jill Godowitz, and Twitter Jillboard, spelled like billboard, which was a choice I made in college. Now I'm verified and I can't change it.

And or you can buy my book and read about some real deep Taylor Swift thoughts. So Issa, out of the three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. What do you think about the Cult of Taylor Swift? You're not going to like it. I think the Cult of Taylor Swift is a live your life. I think so too.

Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's a live your life in the way that we shock of the century thought Disney adults were a live your life. Yes, exactly. Because even in the worst case scenarios, her loyal followers,

they're not like actually sending nukes on her back. You know what I mean? Nobody's gotten like truly hurt. And the person who could get the most hurt is Taylor Swift herself. At that point, she's the one kind of pushing away. When we're evaluating the verdict, it is important to look at the worst case scenario.

And even though there's been a little bit of psychological turmoil as a result of the Swifty Panda Minute can really take over your life. And they do sort of have zero questioning of her. And there is this us versus them mentality. At the end of the day, the stakes are pretty low. Yeah. And it's something that people are enjoying

in a way that isn't destroying their lives. I mean, think of all the cults that people can join in 2022. Yes, there's so many. And that's why I think it's important to zoom out and look at it on a comparative structure. Like you always say, we grade on a curve. So I think on our curve, Taylor Swift really is a live your life. If you want more evidence about what it means to be a live your life

versus watch your back versus get the fuck out, go back and marathon our entire sounds like a cult back catalog. We do this on every episode. For any Swifties listening, I hope this puts your mind to rest. And I hope that we provided some really entertaining conversations as we lead up to her next album. Do you like the timing of this episode? I know it is this week.

Well, that is our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds like a cult is created, hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Michael Dorfman is our editor.

Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Casey Colb. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Noemi Griffin. Subscribe to sounds like a cult wherever you get your podcasts. So you never miss an episode. And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

And check us out on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.