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Fan Fiction: A Satire
75 pages
Published April 14, 2024
About the author
Tavi Gevinson
17 books402 followersTavi Gevinson is an American writer, magazine editor, actress and singer. Raised in Oak Park, Illinois, Gevinson came to public attention at the age of twelve because of her fashion blog Style Rookie. By the age of fifteen, she had shifted her focus to pop culture and feminist discussion. Gevinson is the founder and editor-in-chief of the online Rookie Magazine, aimed primarily at teenage girls. In both 2011 and 2012, she appeared on the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media list.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
May 2, 2024
The best interview of a teen star I've ever read was Tavi Gevinson's interview with Lorde. If you've never read that you really should. It manages to be both deeply insightful and unintentionally a powerful indictment on every interview of a child star that had come before it.
Gevinson seems to have captured lightning in a bottle once more. This zine about her relationship with Taylor Swift both as a fan, a somewhat contemporary, and a friend provides an angle that has until now remained unvocalised.
The reason no one who has actually had some degree of friendship with Taylor has ever come out with their true feelings to the public is probably part loyalty, part fear of swift retribution. Imagine being immortalised as a bad friend in a song known by billions of people worldwide.
The zine is broken into three parts.
Part One: New Romantics is a classic critical attempt to interpret Swift's Eras Tour. While Gevinson has more heartfelt authenticity, it does read a lot like it could have come from some hip cultural studies professor, the sort who invented the term parasocial relationships.
Part Two: Mirrorball is a biographical look at both Gevinson's own story and the few times she was in Swift's orbit. This is interesting mostly in how it sets up part 3.
Part 3: Mine is an email thread between Gevinson and Swift, largely about whether this Zine can be published. And it's Swift's emails that are startling. It's the first time I've ever seen Swift writing for an audience of one. Her thoughts are deeply penetrating and the power emanating from her is palpable. She writes like a Roman Emperor. In some ways she's probably about as close as a human has got to one of those in a long time.
The whole thing is worth reading just to get to the one long email of Swift's where she just decimates Gevinson's project.
Gevinson fights back but in an oddly hysterical way and then we get the almost disappointed concession from Swift to allow Gevinson to publish.
If the Swift emails aren't real and they are a work of fiction then Gevinson is a true master of writing. If they are real, then Swift is the most powerful woman currently alive. Either way Gevinson has done Swift a huge favour; her own neuroticism and dark thoughts make Swift's appear as exhaulted angelic musings (albeit incredibly controlling). Gevinson's despair at the path of her own fame is contrasted so sharply with Taylor Swift's revelry in her position. It's as if the will to power that seems to suffuse every fiber of Swift's being is completely alien and unintelligible to Gevinson.
One small thing I found particularly interesting was Swift noting that Gevinson was fixated on the lyrics and didn't address the music at all. You'd absolutely expect that and it's quite clear so little of the swirling dialogue around Swift ever focuses on the medium, it always remains fixed on the message. But it seemed Swift expected more from a one-time friend.
There's also an ode to Nabakov's Pale Fire in both the structure and ambition of this piece. I think the use of the word satire is solely for legal protection, and the title Fan Fiction actually works really well. It's not the genre of fan fiction but is fiction by a fan. This work is going to be discussed for a long time to come.
Gevinson seems to have captured lightning in a bottle once more. This zine about her relationship with Taylor Swift both as a fan, a somewhat contemporary, and a friend provides an angle that has until now remained unvocalised.
The reason no one who has actually had some degree of friendship with Taylor has ever come out with their true feelings to the public is probably part loyalty, part fear of swift retribution. Imagine being immortalised as a bad friend in a song known by billions of people worldwide.
The zine is broken into three parts.
Part One: New Romantics is a classic critical attempt to interpret Swift's Eras Tour. While Gevinson has more heartfelt authenticity, it does read a lot like it could have come from some hip cultural studies professor, the sort who invented the term parasocial relationships.
Part Two: Mirrorball is a biographical look at both Gevinson's own story and the few times she was in Swift's orbit. This is interesting mostly in how it sets up part 3.
Part 3: Mine is an email thread between Gevinson and Swift, largely about whether this Zine can be published. And it's Swift's emails that are startling. It's the first time I've ever seen Swift writing for an audience of one. Her thoughts are deeply penetrating and the power emanating from her is palpable. She writes like a Roman Emperor. In some ways she's probably about as close as a human has got to one of those in a long time.
The whole thing is worth reading just to get to the one long email of Swift's where she just decimates Gevinson's project.
Gevinson fights back but in an oddly hysterical way and then we get the almost disappointed concession from Swift to allow Gevinson to publish.
If the Swift emails aren't real and they are a work of fiction then Gevinson is a true master of writing. If they are real, then Swift is the most powerful woman currently alive. Either way Gevinson has done Swift a huge favour; her own neuroticism and dark thoughts make Swift's appear as exhaulted angelic musings (albeit incredibly controlling). Gevinson's despair at the path of her own fame is contrasted so sharply with Taylor Swift's revelry in her position. It's as if the will to power that seems to suffuse every fiber of Swift's being is completely alien and unintelligible to Gevinson.
One small thing I found particularly interesting was Swift noting that Gevinson was fixated on the lyrics and didn't address the music at all. You'd absolutely expect that and it's quite clear so little of the swirling dialogue around Swift ever focuses on the medium, it always remains fixed on the message. But it seemed Swift expected more from a one-time friend.
There's also an ode to Nabakov's Pale Fire in both the structure and ambition of this piece. I think the use of the word satire is solely for legal protection, and the title Fan Fiction actually works really well. It's not the genre of fan fiction but is fiction by a fan. This work is going to be discussed for a long time to come.
July 29, 2024
Autofiction is so brainbreaking, and autofiction about Taylor Swift by someone who is/was irl friends with Taylor Swift is doubly brainbreaking. Hearing Tavi talk about this work referring to the “me character” and the “Taylor character” feels very parallel to the folklore era itself – using the idea that once the truth doesn’t matter, once the work is theoretically unburdened from being totally diaristic, everything can get more interesting. But it also just has this weird vibe, like it’s almost teasing the audience, like it’s a cop-out from the limitations of being totally honest about the details of her relationship with Taylor – but I think that says more about my vantage point as a fan, where we treat every discussion about Taylor as some new way to gain insight into the details of her life. But this isn’t Taylor. It’s a character based on Taylor. It gets very meta. It opens with a quote from Pale Fire. The first section is straight from a media studies reading. Tavi’s dad and Taylor have a misunderstanding about Proust questionnaires at Holiday House. She quotes bell hooks, Pablo Neruda, Virginia Woolf, Carson McCullers, Iris Murdoch. Overall it’s an extremely fun to read work about subject, narrator, truth, celebrity.
(A side question: How long will people find art about celebrity interesting? I feel like it’s an interesting Catch-22 because celebrities will always have art to make about the woes of celebrity while they will also be the only people that ever fully relate to it. I know we can often see ourselves in it in some facet if it’s good art (mirrorball) but at some point… I just wonder why put this stuff out? At worst it can alienate the audience. For example I think Who's afraid of little old me is bad sorry.)
The Taylor emails literally have an aura of power to them. You can almost hear the indecision, the anguish over phrasing, the tamping down on expectations in Tavi’s replies to her. It makes Taylor seem like the most powerful woman in the world. The list of things to delete is hilarious. Getting to the one email where Taylor just decimates the whole project and its worldview feels like getting chastised by a likeable teacher whose approval you desperately want. I literally felt myself wincing at Tavi referencing Taylor's own art to her too much.
Content-wise, the most interesting part to me is probably still the first part, where she quotes something Taylor said at the Eras Tour about how she doesn’t care about anything that happened to her when she was 19, to say she no longer cares about the men she wrote these songs about, she only cares about the songs themselves: ““I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19, except the songs I wrote.” This framing was once viewed as sociopathic—“She dates guys just to write about them!”—and now it holds a simpler truth: meaning outlives experience.” She might have even pre-empted this by decades in her songwriting by fostering a closer relationship between narrator and audience than with the subject/muse of the song themselves. Especially in the Speak Now-Red-1989 run, it’s like you can hear her winking at the camera, never truly in the moment because she’s too focused on remembering or capturing or freezing time, thinking just as much about how the moment looks as how it feels.
A quick tangent about Tavi’s discussion of All Too Well: I so agree that the shorter version is far superior. I very much enjoy the 10-minute version, but the Taylor Swift true magic happens when she knows exactly how to edit herself (see TTPD…). In the 10-minute version, the narrative arc is a lot muddier, it’s difficult to locate the emotional climax (it’s still “maybe we got lost in translation…” but it loses so much of the bite it has in the original version), and – this is the kicker to me – she undermines herself by asking the subject if he remembers it and was hurt too. The power of All Too Well was that SHE REMEMBERED IT!!! and it didn’t matter if the nameless subject would try to deny any of it. She was there, she remembers it, she knew it was magic, rare. He was there too, he knows this, she's the one that tells us. His account doesn’t matter. 13 years later, she wonders if it does.
“I actually think the internet has turned all of us into perpetual teenagers—defined by what we like, very tribalist, irrationally ascribing morality to taste because IDENTITY!!!!!! But— another time.”
“Still, my diary insisted this was all “fun,” that I “never said anything weird”— the way I wanted to remember it.”
“And why not be glad that a woman’s inner life means this much to this many people for the first time ever? Because I’ve monetized it like everyone else on earth?”
(A side question: How long will people find art about celebrity interesting? I feel like it’s an interesting Catch-22 because celebrities will always have art to make about the woes of celebrity while they will also be the only people that ever fully relate to it. I know we can often see ourselves in it in some facet if it’s good art (mirrorball) but at some point… I just wonder why put this stuff out? At worst it can alienate the audience. For example I think Who's afraid of little old me is bad sorry.)
The Taylor emails literally have an aura of power to them. You can almost hear the indecision, the anguish over phrasing, the tamping down on expectations in Tavi’s replies to her. It makes Taylor seem like the most powerful woman in the world. The list of things to delete is hilarious. Getting to the one email where Taylor just decimates the whole project and its worldview feels like getting chastised by a likeable teacher whose approval you desperately want. I literally felt myself wincing at Tavi referencing Taylor's own art to her too much.
Content-wise, the most interesting part to me is probably still the first part, where she quotes something Taylor said at the Eras Tour about how she doesn’t care about anything that happened to her when she was 19, to say she no longer cares about the men she wrote these songs about, she only cares about the songs themselves: ““I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19, except the songs I wrote.” This framing was once viewed as sociopathic—“She dates guys just to write about them!”—and now it holds a simpler truth: meaning outlives experience.” She might have even pre-empted this by decades in her songwriting by fostering a closer relationship between narrator and audience than with the subject/muse of the song themselves. Especially in the Speak Now-Red-1989 run, it’s like you can hear her winking at the camera, never truly in the moment because she’s too focused on remembering or capturing or freezing time, thinking just as much about how the moment looks as how it feels.
A quick tangent about Tavi’s discussion of All Too Well: I so agree that the shorter version is far superior. I very much enjoy the 10-minute version, but the Taylor Swift true magic happens when she knows exactly how to edit herself (see TTPD…). In the 10-minute version, the narrative arc is a lot muddier, it’s difficult to locate the emotional climax (it’s still “maybe we got lost in translation…” but it loses so much of the bite it has in the original version), and – this is the kicker to me – she undermines herself by asking the subject if he remembers it and was hurt too. The power of All Too Well was that SHE REMEMBERED IT!!! and it didn’t matter if the nameless subject would try to deny any of it. She was there, she remembers it, she knew it was magic, rare. He was there too, he knows this, she's the one that tells us. His account doesn’t matter. 13 years later, she wonders if it does.
“I actually think the internet has turned all of us into perpetual teenagers—defined by what we like, very tribalist, irrationally ascribing morality to taste because IDENTITY!!!!!! But— another time.”
“Still, my diary insisted this was all “fun,” that I “never said anything weird”— the way I wanted to remember it.”
“And why not be glad that a woman’s inner life means this much to this many people for the first time ever? Because I’ve monetized it like everyone else on earth?”
April 26, 2024
I think this author is clearly a genius which really is making me examine some of my own prejudices about the type of people (especially cis women) who engage with Taylor Swift’s work. Really really well-done and unique- I’ve never read a long-form cultural commentary piece like this before
June 27, 2024
i love tavi. i hate taylor swift. this was a bridge and gave me some insight into tavi’s writing post-rookie and the impact its had on her while being the same person. unfortunately, my pride makes it hard to admit, i too was once a swiftie - whose entry points were also our song and speak now. the writing was brilliant if at times too too too self-interested if that even makes sense to say about an autobiography. but what gems tavi has to offer on fame, girls, and women! i will always appreciate her unique and useful perspective and that is no different from this. FINALLY someone said taylor is a COWARD. also love the final email exchange and funny to think that taylor really did read and think to respond all of this about herself, emails included, even though i know that was most probably fiction- its still fun to think that taylor cannot escape her friend and fan that is at heart a critic.
the remove, the remove, the remove of a writer always in her head. the unrealistic expectation that life is anything but what it is — simultaneously, the only way to live through it (as a writer).
the remove, the remove, the remove of a writer always in her head. the unrealistic expectation that life is anything but what it is — simultaneously, the only way to live through it (as a writer).
August 26, 2024
A little bit brain-breaking bc it’s meta on meta on meta but I really enjoyed this. Assuming it’s fully a work of fiction (albeit inspired by her real life relationship with TS), Tavi is an excellent writer
June 27, 2024
Isto coça tanto neurónio que precisava de ser coçado no meu cérebro. Para onde se vira o fanatismo quando a vida real nos põe em contacto com a figura deificada que projeta/permitimos projetar em nós toda a sua história, destilada e filtrada e recondicionada por tempo espaço idade versões-alargadas-de-10-minutos, ao ponto de acharmos que somos nós que irradiamos toda aquela luz e ignoramos aquela quer brilhar sem amarras. É um exercício crítico, honesto e tão bem feito que fico parvo com o quão económica e direta Tavi Gevinson conseguiu ser ao longo deste pequeno mutante de ficção/não-ficção, ao mesmo tempo pautado por uma das vozes escritas mais interessantes que tive o prazer de ler nos últimos tempos.
Zero notas fr, por momentos até me incutiu aquela gana de pôr TayTay a bombar assim de leve no Spotify.
Zero notas fr, por momentos até me incutiu aquela gana de pôr TayTay a bombar assim de leve no Spotify.
April 24, 2024
A high-wire act all the way through. I was not expecting this to be an absolutely brain-breaking piece of literature, on top of the perfect record of the particular corner of the internet I love to inhabit.
"You've got edge, she never did / The future's bright, dazzling"
"You've got edge, she never did / The future's bright, dazzling"
May 19, 2024
When I was recommended this writing, I wasn't expecting THIS brain-breaking, controversial-yet brilliantly written piece of art. I read this on a matter of hours and I inevitably fell down a rabbit hole searching for all the hidden meanings and mentions in Tavi's writing, unable to tell apart what's real and what is fictional. As a swiftie, I was hesistant to read it at first, but I realize now, that throughout the commentary, Taylor was never negatively criticized. If anything, Tavi reminded us via her personal experience meeting her, that Taylor, apart from the lyrical genious and mastermind and dazzling pop star she is known as, is also just a girl that fell abruptly in the cruel world of fame and is just scared that every single thing she says or does will be heavily criticized and will take away the legacy (she gave her blood sweat and tears) for. Even IF the letters from Taylor are real, they are completely valid, given her past experiences in her career. I'm so jealous of Tavi's ability to cupture being in a fandom while growing up as a teenage girl and trying to find your place in this world so accurately.
September 1, 2024
As both a Swiftie and huge fan of Tavi’s style blog and later series, Rookie Yearbook 1-4, I was so excited when I heard about this book. Told in three distinct parts, Fan Fiction is a work of meta-fiction that tangles with truth and autobiography in a way that leaves a clue-seeking Swiftie (like myself) wishing for concrete facts and answers and photos and receipts. While the two definitely shared a documented friendship a decade ago, how much of the story of Tavi’s friendship with Taylor described in this book- if any- is true, is unclear. A commentary on young girlhood, pop culture, social media, and friendship, this book is the intersection of so many of my interests. I’ve always loved Tavi’s writing and eagerly read this in one sitting.
April 28, 2024
Cherry lips, crystal skies. Clear-eyed, bitter, fierce, loving, graceful, naive, knowing. Gevinson is a terrific writer, and her modes of fictionalizing her friendship and eventual drifting from a megastar such as Taylor Swift, one she's loved since childhood, culminates brilliantly in the third section, which is the only satire bit of it all, I believe. This one is quite short, 79 pages in total, so by all means check this one out if you have even a passing interest in Taylor Swift and/or brilliant writing. Love love love when writers get confronted by their own fiction.
June 18, 2024
Interesting! I’m going to be thinking about this for a while. I’m really not sure what to make of it at the moment, but Tavi is a good writer and the slippery, meta way she wrote this is extremely compelling. I have the urge to read it again and go through it with a fine tooth comb.
The beginning section, which is supposed to be more “straightforward” cultural criticism, felt more amateur than I was expecting for someone with Tavi’s background, but the auto fiction part gets good. The emails are obviously fictional. Not sure how I feel about that. Much to ponder, lol.
The beginning section, which is supposed to be more “straightforward” cultural criticism, felt more amateur than I was expecting for someone with Tavi’s background, but the auto fiction part gets good. The emails are obviously fictional. Not sure how I feel about that. Much to ponder, lol.
May 6, 2024
This was a different kind of book for me, I found it on a Money with Katie newsletter. She’s a finance writer who loves Taylor Swift, it was even interesting how I found this! I’m not totally sure what’s real or fake, but I did enjoy the last part that were supposed to be emails back and forth between the author and Swift. I think those emails could be real.
May 19, 2024
(4.25)
unexpected experimental slay!
unexpected experimental slay!
June 13, 2024
This was fascinating I don’t even really know what to say??? Must read for any Taylor Swift enjoyer or hater frankly. Or anyone who’s been a teen girl
July 23, 2024
Although not a TS fan but a TG fan- elements remind me of idol burning and y/n … but also to look behind the TG curtain /writing. Found myself scribbling down notes. Looking forward to the Substack ‘extras’
April 29, 2024
brilliantly written but i dont know what to think of it. kinda more than what ts deserves...
August 21, 2024
I've always found Tavi Gevinson pretty fascinating. I'd say having written about tweens and fashion it's impossible not to consider her as a figure (or a case study, a bit of make-her-an-object she'd probably have a lot of thoughts on), but really I mostly remember her from my own teen years and her Granny Chic days. I'm a bit older than her, yet I remembered her as a contemporary, presumably since her whole thing was being precocious, and one completely outside my world of wearing head-to-toe Abercrombie in suburbia. But also critically for this project, I remember her from my religious reading of Glamour and Marie Claire, from the yester-year of print fashion magazines. Not from the internet, as I was not a particular Online teen when Being Online was becoming a thing.
And so a lot of the appeal of this to me was reading how much Being Online really shaped her, the constant creation of an image, of thinking of her life through the lens of "how will I write about this/post about this/blog about this later." She enters a small club with Bo Burnham of people who got famous online as teens and now do fascinating work deconstructing what that means, and watching seemingly the whole world take on the mantle of "branding yourself" while veritably screaming "don't do it!!!" yet also deeply understanding why everyone does it anyways. It is a niche club, to be sure, but Gevinson does want to be a member of all the clubs.
But this is about Taylor Swift (although, as Gevinson has to hammer home almost too explicitly, it's really about herself). On the three parts. Part 1: cultural criticism of Swift's music. Gevinson is right to point out that she narrows in on an aspect of Swift's music that is not often talked about and I found it insightful in many ways, and important in establishing one of the baseline themes of this project, but it's academic-lite enough I can't help but want to academically poke at its arguments, and a lot are far too sweeping. Part 2: She is almost chuckling at herself for part 1, making clear this is actually very much about her highly personal feelings about Taylor, her music, fandom, and fame and the guise of an intellectual remove is a front. At times it began to feel too navel-gazey for my taste but then.... Part 3: Gevinson absolutely knows how navel-gazing it is and constructs a Taylor persona to basically call her out on it. The emails read much more to me like the arguments she's having with herself in her own head while writing this, rather than real emails, and I greatly enjoyed them.
Half the time I read this I was thinking, "was I not emotional enough as a teen?" but I think getting me to transport back to my own teen girlhood at all is much of the point, and is a response that would probably make Gevinson laugh, then write an essay.
And so a lot of the appeal of this to me was reading how much Being Online really shaped her, the constant creation of an image, of thinking of her life through the lens of "how will I write about this/post about this/blog about this later." She enters a small club with Bo Burnham of people who got famous online as teens and now do fascinating work deconstructing what that means, and watching seemingly the whole world take on the mantle of "branding yourself" while veritably screaming "don't do it!!!" yet also deeply understanding why everyone does it anyways. It is a niche club, to be sure, but Gevinson does want to be a member of all the clubs.
But this is about Taylor Swift (although, as Gevinson has to hammer home almost too explicitly, it's really about herself). On the three parts. Part 1: cultural criticism of Swift's music. Gevinson is right to point out that she narrows in on an aspect of Swift's music that is not often talked about and I found it insightful in many ways, and important in establishing one of the baseline themes of this project, but it's academic-lite enough I can't help but want to academically poke at its arguments, and a lot are far too sweeping. Part 2: She is almost chuckling at herself for part 1, making clear this is actually very much about her highly personal feelings about Taylor, her music, fandom, and fame and the guise of an intellectual remove is a front. At times it began to feel too navel-gazey for my taste but then.... Part 3: Gevinson absolutely knows how navel-gazing it is and constructs a Taylor persona to basically call her out on it. The emails read much more to me like the arguments she's having with herself in her own head while writing this, rather than real emails, and I greatly enjoyed them.
Half the time I read this I was thinking, "was I not emotional enough as a teen?" but I think getting me to transport back to my own teen girlhood at all is much of the point, and is a response that would probably make Gevinson laugh, then write an essay.
June 25, 2024
I am treating celebrity as my medium, exploiting public knowledge of private relationships to create the illusion of reality, committing to a postmodern performance of the self in the style of my chief muse.
girlies who are fascinated by celebrity/surveillance culture/social media/cultural critique/teen icons of the 2010's/taylor swift and her empire, eat your hearts out!!
i need to reread this immediately. i have a little zine collection AND a rookie collection so i'll definitely order a hard copy to annotate the hell out of; there are SO many lines i kept chewing on to get all the goodness. tavi gevinson has such a brilliant mind, god. this is a difficult first-time read but fun and rewarding. a little insufferable at times but in a cool way if that makes any sense at all. im not a swiftie but i found this fascinating as i am very interested in pop culture in general, and in the way taylor has enslaved so much of the population and reigns over them like an ant queen, commanding via subtle pheremone signals, her commands passing in ripples through her armies. i think a lot of her music is fun? idk. chappell roan sounds just like her (or am I crazy? I just noticed that lately lol).
i grew up reading rookie (fated not to survive long past tavi's own teen years, sadly: rip to an incredible thing!!) and tavi's intensely self-aware letters from the editor helped me form a lot of my ways of thinking, of mythologizing and seeing and processing the world and my reaction to it. for better or for worse. this same tendency in tavi today reads both as exhausting and as a fascinating outgrowth of her early fame and disrupted teenhood. the self-eulogizing and intense desire to prolong her childhood forever, to remain the prodigious and interesting young'un, seem to mirror a cultural impulse as of late: to root onself in childhood, to never have to grow up, to want to be special, the "gifted kid" forever. i loved the various cultural dissections, and especially the insights on what it was like to be famous and young, to be famous still: to be let in on that part of tavi's world feels very sacred, and i'm so happy she decided to write about it and share it.
very fitting that the woman who is perhaps best in the world at writing about internal surveillance, about the meta of it all, and who is the most scrupulous record keeper of what it was like to be a teen, to be experiencing things while watching yourself experiencing those things because you've been raised on a steady diet of media that shows you what things should look like, that tells you "this is the time of your life, remember it" -- how very very very fitting that tavi gevinson take on taylor swift.
girlies who are fascinated by celebrity/surveillance culture/social media/cultural critique/teen icons of the 2010's/taylor swift and her empire, eat your hearts out!!
i need to reread this immediately. i have a little zine collection AND a rookie collection so i'll definitely order a hard copy to annotate the hell out of; there are SO many lines i kept chewing on to get all the goodness. tavi gevinson has such a brilliant mind, god. this is a difficult first-time read but fun and rewarding. a little insufferable at times but in a cool way if that makes any sense at all. im not a swiftie but i found this fascinating as i am very interested in pop culture in general, and in the way taylor has enslaved so much of the population and reigns over them like an ant queen, commanding via subtle pheremone signals, her commands passing in ripples through her armies. i think a lot of her music is fun? idk. chappell roan sounds just like her (or am I crazy? I just noticed that lately lol).
i grew up reading rookie (fated not to survive long past tavi's own teen years, sadly: rip to an incredible thing!!) and tavi's intensely self-aware letters from the editor helped me form a lot of my ways of thinking, of mythologizing and seeing and processing the world and my reaction to it. for better or for worse. this same tendency in tavi today reads both as exhausting and as a fascinating outgrowth of her early fame and disrupted teenhood. the self-eulogizing and intense desire to prolong her childhood forever, to remain the prodigious and interesting young'un, seem to mirror a cultural impulse as of late: to root onself in childhood, to never have to grow up, to want to be special, the "gifted kid" forever. i loved the various cultural dissections, and especially the insights on what it was like to be famous and young, to be famous still: to be let in on that part of tavi's world feels very sacred, and i'm so happy she decided to write about it and share it.
very fitting that the woman who is perhaps best in the world at writing about internal surveillance, about the meta of it all, and who is the most scrupulous record keeper of what it was like to be a teen, to be experiencing things while watching yourself experiencing those things because you've been raised on a steady diet of media that shows you what things should look like, that tells you "this is the time of your life, remember it" -- how very very very fitting that tavi gevinson take on taylor swift.
May 2, 2024
I think I've re-read this about five times. What a perfect homage to Pale Fire, weaving in this lovely analysis of both fandom culture and personal identity. The beauty here lies in the ambiguity of the whole thing, I think. The last lines stuck with me the most,
"Once I became aware that I was observing your sense of remove, I understood this meant that I was removed, too. I saw us for an instant as two satellites, floating very far apart.
Satellites, maybe you know, don’t communicate with each other directly. They can only send signals down to Earth. Then, a ground station relays the data to the receiving satellite, above.
At the time, this image made me sad. But the satellites do communicate. They just need a third thing to deliver the message."
Gevinson was probably just talking about the relationship between a celebrity and a follower or the relationship between a famous person and the public; maybe even the relationship between an author and a reader. Somehow, though, it feels like an apt allegory for life, for the way we require literature and art to mediate the messy business of living for us, and this commitment to carrying a message even if we require a medium in order to do it.
"Once I became aware that I was observing your sense of remove, I understood this meant that I was removed, too. I saw us for an instant as two satellites, floating very far apart.
Satellites, maybe you know, don’t communicate with each other directly. They can only send signals down to Earth. Then, a ground station relays the data to the receiving satellite, above.
At the time, this image made me sad. But the satellites do communicate. They just need a third thing to deliver the message."
Gevinson was probably just talking about the relationship between a celebrity and a follower or the relationship between a famous person and the public; maybe even the relationship between an author and a reader. Somehow, though, it feels like an apt allegory for life, for the way we require literature and art to mediate the messy business of living for us, and this commitment to carrying a message even if we require a medium in order to do it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2024
Just finished reading this and having a lot of thoughts about fiction vs. truth in writing, unreliable narrators, where the author ends and the narrator begins, subjectivity in memories and all the different layers of meaning in this story about a friendship that ended because it is difficult to be both fan and friend of someone you idolize, because how can you see someone as a real person when you put them on this pedestal? How can you truly get to know someone who you already have an idea of? Taylor is often perceived as an idea more than a person and this is reflected here. I think my favourite line was "We could've found each other again, could've had a real friendship. Instead, you have chosen the story." Whether this line stems from Tavi's pen or from Taylor's - it is devastating and sums up the tragedy of this entire story.
I can imagine that in a couple years, this could be a perfect read for a lecture on Taylor Swift and her cultural phenomenon. On that note, no idea how Tavi managed to actually release this without legal issues from Taylor's team? Were the emails real? Were they fake? We will never know.
I can imagine that in a couple years, this could be a perfect read for a lecture on Taylor Swift and her cultural phenomenon. On that note, no idea how Tavi managed to actually release this without legal issues from Taylor's team? Were the emails real? Were they fake? We will never know.
June 15, 2024
some of the most beautiful writing in taylor’s work. i think this could only be truly understood by someone who has had such a strong, nostalgic relationship with her and her music and so much of hit wayyyy too close to home. made me realize how much of taylor’s music informed who i was growing up. i can be critical of her work and her persona as a whole but it’s hard to separate yourself from something that felt like true love. honestly, i’m not so sure what i got out of it as a whole other than my own personal thoughts about taylor and how this honestly emphasized her actual presence and influence in my life. a heartbreaking ending honestly. but worth discussing and reflecting on nonetheless.
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June 19, 2024trust (díaz, 2022) para centennials con cuentas de twitter.
está fabuloso cómo tavi arma a una "tavi" y una "taylor" completamente creíbles basadas en lo que nos imaginamos de ellas. las tres partes son igual de fuertes porque la primera sí tiene una perspectiva nueva e interesante sobre el texto de taylor, la segunda es un fanfic platónico porque nos creemos que pasó de verdad, y la tercera está genial porque hace que nuestra narradora se vea patética, suplicante y poco confiable, enriqueciendo lo que habíamos leído hasta ese momento.
¡¡BRAVO TAVIII!!
lo mejor- se puede leer gratis en https://www.mirrorball.org/
está fabuloso cómo tavi arma a una "tavi" y una "taylor" completamente creíbles basadas en lo que nos imaginamos de ellas. las tres partes son igual de fuertes porque la primera sí tiene una perspectiva nueva e interesante sobre el texto de taylor, la segunda es un fanfic platónico porque nos creemos que pasó de verdad, y la tercera está genial porque hace que nuestra narradora se vea patética, suplicante y poco confiable, enriqueciendo lo que habíamos leído hasta ese momento.
¡¡BRAVO TAVIII!!
lo mejor- se puede leer gratis en https://www.mirrorball.org/
August 7, 2024
I asked my friend Shane Savitsky to recommend me something "short, weird, but good." He delivered
I've not read anything quite like this. It was fun, playful and so meta -- but also genuinely perceptive and insightful. Tavi explores reality and perceptions of reality and the stories we tell about our reality in an age of constant storytelling and moment capturing for the internet/social media. She tells it through the lens of Taylor Swift's song writing and fanbase, but really through Tavi's own young celebrity, early internet rise and complex relationship with Swift. Just like listening to a Taylor Swift song, the whole time you can't help but ask, "how much of this is true"
I've not read anything quite like this. It was fun, playful and so meta -- but also genuinely perceptive and insightful. Tavi explores reality and perceptions of reality and the stories we tell about our reality in an age of constant storytelling and moment capturing for the internet/social media. She tells it through the lens of Taylor Swift's song writing and fanbase, but really through Tavi's own young celebrity, early internet rise and complex relationship with Swift. Just like listening to a Taylor Swift song, the whole time you can't help but ask, "how much of this is true"
May 16, 2024
This is uncomfortably brilliant. I don’t care a lick about Taylor Swift, yet I still don’t understand everyone isn’t talking about this piece. The first email from “Taylor” is so interesting and angry. Talking about fame is so much more interesting than fame itself. As someone who helped run a lesser tween entertainment website and also aged out of her own work, this really felt like that x1000000. I want MORE pieces from the people involved with the mechanisms of ultra stardom, ESPECIALLY the fans.
June 14, 2024
I don’t know enough about Tavi to fully understand this as satire without research (which I hate) but there are still some really excellent turns-of-phrase here. I’m always deeply interested in reading about cultural commentary as it pertains to fame, especially how social media has made us all into micro-micro-celebrities with public images and fear of fallout. I don’t know that this did anything not accomplished by Bo Burnham with Make Happy, but that’s just my personal bias.
July 26, 2024
I stumbled across this quite randomly and was compelled enough to drop everything and read it ASAP, especially since it was so short. Huge fan of the zine formatting as it really captured the nostalgia.
Tavi is a brilliant writer, and I’ve loved her work for years. This one is really bizarre. Totally fucking weird. Unhinged? Almost certainly— but extraordinarily captivating, introspective, and real (even if those emails aren’t)
Tavi is a brilliant writer, and I’ve loved her work for years. This one is really bizarre. Totally fucking weird. Unhinged? Almost certainly— but extraordinarily captivating, introspective, and real (even if those emails aren’t)
May 8, 2024
“I could not love Taylor. I was too much of a fan.”
the smartest people of our generation live in fandoms and have stan accounts. tavi gevinson’s satirical work acts as mirror to show us how how much the media we can consume can act as a living, breathing person to who we were and who we’re becoming.
the smartest people of our generation live in fandoms and have stan accounts. tavi gevinson’s satirical work acts as mirror to show us how how much the media we can consume can act as a living, breathing person to who we were and who we’re becoming.
May 29, 2024
i physically can't stop recommending this. as an erstwhile rookie girl and a person with complicated feelings regarding taylor swift, nostalgia, celebrity, and a tendency to self-mythologize, this shit banged. i'm no literary critic so i don't have much to say other than that. just a rly great (and, at times, wacky) read.
May 9, 2024
Pt. 1 was poetic and observant. Pt. 2 was voyeuristic and engaging. Pt. 3 was arrogant and heartbreaking. I’ll never live any of it, but I’m glad I got to understand a little more about each piece of it.
May 22, 2024
Read in a single sitting in my office. A ruthless self-drag of millennial raised-on-early-internet-blogs girlies who love to think about themselves (ourselves) as impervious to the cringiest parts of fandom but are actually moment-hoarding squirrels just like everyone else. :-)
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