don’t you worry folks, we took out all her teeth

real. people were genuinely acting scandalized because taylor said “you’re mean and you do coke” about the artist who created a hit album explicitly about being mean and doing coke

it should be studied.

In fairness it’s a bit hard to compare folklore to anything else because it’s a long form work that was both written and released in spring/summer 2020. But for me the social media and pop culture atmosphere at the time was uniquely rancid and sad. I’m thinking of the imagine video, of the bon appetit test kitchen fad, of the performative “staying at home is so awesome!” content contrasted with LA influencers having superspreader house parties while people died. And just the overarching reality that so many of us were stuck getting the bulk of our human connection through a screen is so unsettling to reflect on. To this day if I hear so much as a bar of one of those songs that was trending on TikTok in 2020 I feel slightly nauseous. And then folklore came out and broke through all that noise and it was beautiful and true and relevant to the moment without trying to make any grand sweeping statements about the meaning of the moment we were in. Does that make sense?

why did my dumb ass go for a 3-mile walk in these conditions with no water