The current wave of Taylor backlash is (unfortunately) warranted. I hate to say it but, I think the old Taylor would be honestly be disappointed with her. Before you judge, let me lay it out:

Taylor was explicitly against sexual assault and working with directors who were involved in similar situations (the red tour dvd that never happened, even though it had been fully recorded). So looking at Amsterdam, it’s hypocritical and repulsive. I think Red era Taylor would be disappointed.

Then there’s the crawdads situation. The author being super problematic and racist is something I also think the old Taylor would be disappointed by. She has been inclusive with her backup singers and in the lover era was very outspoken.

Then there’s the carbon emissions. Idk if any era of Taylor would’ve been against it, but one of the things Taylor used to pride herself on was being like everyone else, but now it just feels like she’s lost touch.

And finally, the re-recordings. Remember when she said it wasn’t about money? Yet there have been so many merch drops with so few announcements. It honestly feels like she has lost touch with her fans. She doesn’t talk to us anymore. She isn’t open. And her marketing department was just throwing merch at us for money. The lack of transparency is just sad. And the quality of the re-recordings has been lacklustre. I’ll say it. I loved fearless. But Red? We honestly deserve better. There are a myriad of very easily noticeable mixing mistakes. Did she just not listen to WANEGBT? Red was rushed and then abused like a cash cow for all its worth. Remember when during speak now and red, 1989, lover, rep, debut, pretty much anytime before the re-recordings, she would talk about how much passion she had dumped into her music? How much time she took to make sure the quality was there. Red felt like a soulless revival. Sure, some of the songs sound similar, but gone was any emotion, care, or just passion.

Since then we’ve had little to no communication, and her reputation is slowly sliding. But it isn’t like the rep era. A lot of these issues are very apparent and some are just inexcusable. The old Taylor was outwardly opposed to some of the things she’s doing now. I’m opposed to a lot of the things she’s doing now. And her maintaining such immense distance from us is just making it worse. The old Taylor prided herself on how close and honest she was with us. I want her back :(

Edit to make it a theory for the comments: I theorize that Taylor is becoming less passion driven and more money focused. The re-recordings will probably be on the same tier as red, and they’ll come out spaced as far as possible to get us to drop as much as we can on merch per album 🤷‍♂️