The Skinny Shaming of Taylor Swift
November 14, 2014 4:49 PM   Subscribe

The Washington Post breaks down what Diplo's "skinny shaming" of Taylor Swift has, is, and will continue to do to the body image war being waged on women.
posted by ourt (213 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh, also, Lorde jumped to defend her.
posted by ourt at 4:51 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


From the article ...

What is body shaming?

Uh … Body shaming is when [you] shame a person because of what his or her body looks like. You shouldn't do it. Just … don't do it. Don't be a Diplo.

What is wrong with Taylor Swift's body?

Sigh


Can't we just stop here?
posted by philip-random at 5:01 PM on November 14, 2014 [4 favorites]


Could we just ignore this asshole and enjoy the Blank Space video instead?
posted by grahamparks at 5:05 PM on November 14, 2014 [6 favorites]


I think when Kanye interrupted her 'award moment', she picked up a contagious "Everything I Do Or Am Will Now Be Annoyingly Controversial" virus from him.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:08 PM on November 14, 2014 [11 favorites]


So that will be Diplo as in docus rather than macy, then.
posted by Grangousier at 5:14 PM on November 14, 2014 [14 favorites]


"Don't be a diplo" should be a saying.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:16 PM on November 14, 2014 [12 favorites]


What that guy did? Shitty.

What Lorde did? Also body shaming.

The thing I think we all know about body shaming is that it doesn't just affect the person you say it too. It also affects everyone else that has the attribute that's being shamed. Doing body shaming in retaliation for body shaming isn't helping anyone.
posted by No One Ever Does at 5:16 PM on November 14, 2014 [12 favorites]


What Lorde did? Also body shaming.

No it's not. Diplo was commenting about Taylor Swift's actual body, comparing it unfavorably to others. Lorde was using a metaphor about a part of Diplo's body which isn't really on display for comparison to make a statement about Diplo's personality, which is.
posted by localroger at 5:21 PM on November 14, 2014 [57 favorites]


Yes, an eye for an eye etc. but people who think it's acceptable to go on twitter and say hurtful things shouldn't expect to not hear hurtful things in return.
posted by bleep at 5:21 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


Lorde was using a metaphor about a part of Diplo's body which isn't really on display for comparison to make a statement about Diplo's personality

Either that or she was just using the lowest common denominator go-to insult for men.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 5:22 PM on November 14, 2014 [9 favorites]


So apparently Diplo is an asshole? And he's dating Katy Perry? That's kind if disappointing.

But yes, don't say nasty things about people's bodies. Also, careful what you say about Madeleine Albright on Twitter, because apparently she reads that shit.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:23 PM on November 14, 2014 [16 favorites]


Well, actually I think Diplo's dick pics leaked a while ago so uh there's that. Why do I know this
posted by sonmi at 5:23 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


I like Taylor Swift and I don't think she should be body shamed. I also understand that she's basically a role model for a vast number of pre-teen and teenage girls so she's always going to be under a certain degree of scrutiny concerning her life choices including her body weight because so many people aspire to be just like her but I also think to a certain degree that is putting a vast amount of pressure on a young woman to be absolutely perfect all the time which is completely ridiculous and unfair and merely highlights some of the negative aspects of celebrity culture.

I do like that a lot of her music basically presents a type of confidence in the face of a ton of slings and arrows so I'm pretty much willing to support her choices because on aggregate she tends to present a very female positive message without seeming fake or affected.
posted by vuron at 5:23 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


Wow. Didn't we just land on a comet for the first time in the history of humanity? Jeesh!
posted by McMillan's Other Wife at 5:25 PM on November 14, 2014 [56 favorites]


>So that will be Diplo as in docus rather than macy, then.

I just learned that it is in fact from diplodocus, from Diplo when he was interviewed by Kai Ryssdal of all people. Who I have to say was a little bit at a loss for things to ask a big-name DJ. But somehow I *did* think it came from diplomat what with his world-traveling musical-trend magpie schtick.
posted by atoxyl at 5:26 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


I like to remember the world where Twitter didn't exist yet, and there weren't whole news articles written about the latest dumb thing some celebrity said on Twitter because if a celebrity wanted to say something dumb, it wasn't so easy for the celebrity to casually announce it to the world at any given moment.
posted by wondermouse at 5:27 PM on November 14, 2014 [21 favorites]


No it's not. Diplo was commenting about Taylor Swift's actual body, comparing it unfavorably to others. Lorde was using a metaphor about a part of Diplo's body which isn't really on display for comparison to make a statement about Diplo's personality, which is.

So she's just shaming the bodies of other people, not her target.
posted by No One Ever Does at 5:27 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]


Damn, McMillan, I was just typing a comment to the effect that I really want his take on the condition of the Philae lander now.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:28 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wait we are equating the very real phenomenon of constant body shaming of female celebrities which basically helps reinforce the idea that women's bodies are not their own and everyone including male celebs is free to comment about their perceived deficiencies with a comment from another celebrity about how engaging in body shaming might be about Diplo's own feelings of inadequacy.

Yeah it can be construed as body-shaming or just a way of calling Diplo out for being a metaphorical dick but I don't see how it can be seen as remotely comparable and I think it tends to reinforce the idea that anytime women complain about how they are treated in society that someone is going to pull out some moral equivalence as a way to silence them.
posted by vuron at 5:37 PM on November 14, 2014 [92 favorites]


also lorde is 18, so there's that
posted by likeatoaster at 5:37 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]


I was just typing a comment to the effect that I really want his take on the condition of the Philae lander now.

Maybe if the lander had put on a little weight it wouldn't have bounced off the comet like that.
posted by uosuaq at 5:42 PM on November 14, 2014 [4 favorites]


Didn't we just land on a comet for the first time in the history of humanity? Jeesh!

I didn't.
posted by maxsparber at 5:47 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]


Stop. Discussing. Women's. Bodies.

Just STOP.
posted by harrietthespy at 5:51 PM on November 14, 2014 [18 favorites]


/me bookmarks vuron's comment to link back to next time some bullshit false equivalence gets lobbed into a thread.
posted by Etrigan at 5:53 PM on November 14, 2014 [4 favorites]


There's seriously no way to win. If you're any bigger than Taylor Swift, then you're a fatty who is a terrible role model because you're teaching girls that it's ok to be fat. But if you're Taylor Swift's size, then you're also a terrible role model, because you're teaching girls that they need to be thin. Also, this week it is very important to have an ample booty, but watch out, because next week the tide will turn and it will be equally important to have enormous boobs, and in two weeks it will be something else. It's enough to make a woman not want to write songs and sing them in public, which I'm pretty sure is kind of the point.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:55 PM on November 14, 2014 [58 favorites]


hastag, NOT ALL DIPLOS!
posted by wcfields at 5:57 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


FINALLY a thread where it is completely appropriate to post about Taylor Swift replying to a rando on Tumblr to post a bomb-ass cookie recipe, say some encouraging stuff, and end on a pun of her own song, just because they asked.
posted by almostmanda at 5:57 PM on November 14, 2014 [76 favorites]


Also, this week it is very important to have an ample booty, but watch out, because next week the tide will turn and it will be equally important to have enormous boobs, and in two weeks it will be something else.

...and if you have any or all of those attributes, are a mother, and don't cover that shit up? You're the worst woman in the world, how dare you, you whore.
posted by MissySedai at 6:00 PM on November 14, 2014 [16 favorites]


I am inexplicably delighted that Taylor Swift is a Smitten Kitchen fan. Taylor Swift has good taste in food blogs!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:01 PM on November 14, 2014 [13 favorites]


Her music doesn't do anything for me but Swift has always sounded smart and self-aware in interviews. There's just no reason to try and shame her, and it's just one more shitty thing in a long list of shitty things.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:01 PM on November 14, 2014


I don't know about Diplo's thoughts about Philea, but Taylor Swift was surprisingly prescient:

Flew me to places I'd never been
Now I'm lying on the cold hard ground
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
posted by Gorgik at 6:02 PM on November 14, 2014 [6 favorites]


What Lorde did? Also body shaming.

If I were to call somebody an asshole, would I also be body shaming?
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:06 PM on November 14, 2014 [12 favorites]


Haha that chai spiced cookie comment for Taylor Swift is insane. For the longest time the cynic in me basically I think wanted to believe that the only way a celeb could be so completely earnest and sincere all the time is due to a completely controlled and managed media personality but over the years sheer evidence that she's just a genuinely nice and supportive individual that acts in a completely earnest and sincere way despite being a colossal celebrity seems to have overcome my natural cynicism. I'm pretty sure that she's in fact superhuman because I know that if I was put into her position and even if I had countless minders my natural tendency towards being a sarcastic mean asshole at times would bleed out in some egregious ways.

So honestly more power to her, unless she's playing a really long con and will turn into a completely horrible person when she is inevitably elected president decades from now I have to assume that she's just simply a nicer, better person than I am.
posted by vuron at 6:06 PM on November 14, 2014 [15 favorites]


I just learned that it is in fact from diplodocus

I don't know anything about Diplo, but upon hearing of him I assumed it was from Duplo.
posted by aaronetc at 6:08 PM on November 14, 2014 [6 favorites]


It's gotta suck to be a decent guy with a small penis and know that you're the go-to insult in situations like this.

Pyrogenesis: "If I were to call somebody an asshole, would I also be body shaming?"

No? Why would it be?

You could even go a step further and talk about Diplo having an asshole where his mouth should be.
posted by Bugbread at 6:11 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


Also, I'm pretty sure it's "Diplo" from "Deplo-rable", doing that funky young thing where you switch out letters.
posted by Bugbread at 6:12 PM on November 14, 2014


One need only read the lyrics of the current song Anaconda to glimpse the hostile milieu in which Taylor Swift must compete.

In the 'immortal' words of Nicki Minaj, "Fuck the skinny bitches!".
posted by fairmettle at 6:17 PM on November 14, 2014


It's gotta suck to be a decent guy with a small penis and know that you're the go-to insult in situations like this.

yeah, that must sting like a bitch.
posted by floweringjudas at 6:24 PM on November 14, 2014 [10 favorites]


So she's just shaming the bodies of other people, not her target.

No, because it's a common shorthand for a collection of male behaviors which are well documented and common to many primates. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
posted by localroger at 6:26 PM on November 14, 2014


But, like, what ABOUT the men, right?
posted by almostmanda at 6:30 PM on November 14, 2014 [58 favorites]


yeah, that must sting like a bitch.

The smaller the prick, the sharper the needle?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:31 PM on November 14, 2014


You know how mainstream porn sites are usually emblazoned with half a dozen blinking ads for penis enlargement? The other day, as I was walking down the street, I started thinking about how that might change if porn sites were primarily directed at women.

I imagined a site cluttered with flashing and overlapping banners for each of the weird and contradictory ideals that women are supposed to worry about when it comes to their bodies: ads for breast enlargement and reduction, and ass enlargement and reduction, and FUPA banishment, and bingo wing elimination, and what to do about your labia, and your cankles, and your fivehead, and...

And then I realized that I was just imagining a women's magazine, but with pornographic videos in place of the feature articles.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:33 PM on November 14, 2014 [60 favorites]


Have You Heard The Latest Controversy About [Lena Dunham] [Kim K] [Taylor Swift] [Diplo] [Lorde] [Tina Fey] [Comet Shirt Guy] [This Is Exhausting] [Are We Going To Continue To Live Like This]
posted by naju at 6:33 PM on November 14, 2014 [47 favorites]


aaronetc:
"I don't know anything about Diplo, but upon hearing of him I assumed it was from Duplo."
Duplo is crap.
Hanuta 4 Lyfe!
posted by Hairy Lobster at 6:35 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


I just learned that it is in fact from diplodocus

NO

WHY

DINOSAUR RUINER
posted by poffin boffin at 6:39 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


this is aN OUTRAGE
posted by poffin boffin at 6:39 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


#notallteenyweenies
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:43 PM on November 14, 2014


almostmanda: "FINALLY a thread where it is completely appropriate to post about Taylor Swift replying to a rando on Tumblr to post a bomb-ass cookie recipe, say some encouraging stuff, and end on a pun of her own song, just because they asked."

Taylor Swift has also been rumored to post on 4chan.
posted by wcfields at 6:47 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm happy that this thread is partially about ignoring this asshole and focusing on how great Taylor is. I know it's important to explain things like body shaming, but it's nice to see the other side. In addition to the cookie thing, she recently sent some surprise presents to some big fans on Tumblr. Stuff she bought on her recent press trips, like a friend buying stuff for you when she's overseas. It's easy to assume it's an act, but I think she's actually like this.

Why yes I did spend too much on Taylor Swift tickets today, why do you ask?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:47 PM on November 14, 2014 [6 favorites]


There's seriously no way to win.

Actually...
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:51 PM on November 14, 2014


I just was reading about her random present-giving on tumbler! That is so so sweet! My normally cynical heart is warmed.
posted by NikitaNikita at 6:54 PM on November 14, 2014


Is it really possible to not play the game though? I mean unless there is a secret underground railroad to Themiscrya or something I think ever female ends up playing on a playing field with the rules basically defined by males with all sorts of hidden gotchas because fuck ever having a female win.
posted by vuron at 6:55 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


What Diplo said was wrong and all, but I just want to reiterate the rule that anything written on Twitter should never be taken seriously and should have an import equivalent to a brain fart. Please.
posted by fungible at 6:55 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]


Taylor Swift has also been rumored to post on 4chan.

Well fuck now I'm wondering which one of you wonderful people is secretly Taylor Swift.
posted by almostmanda at 6:57 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]


Everyone is a little bit Taylor Swift.
posted by um at 6:58 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


Taylor Swift has also been rumored to post on 4chan.

Hah! I remember when that whole rumor swept /b/. Comedy. And of course some of the worst comments I've ever seen on 4ch.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 6:59 PM on November 14, 2014


Had a response but deleted it because I don't think that this conversation is what's best for the thread.

I am digging Taylor Swift's new album.
posted by No One Ever Does at 7:00 PM on November 14, 2014


What bothers me is how Lorde gave credibility to his tweet by responding it.

Lorde saw that that tweet was part of a male posturing game. What she did was hit back within the context of that game. You can't stamp out testosterone by ignoring guys who are dick-waving, but you can make them think twice about doing it in public because when you play that game in public you might metaphorically get some part of your anatomy handed to you on a platter.
posted by localroger at 7:03 PM on November 14, 2014 [24 favorites]


Well fuck now I'm wondering which one of you wonderful people is secretly Taylor Swift.

You're thinking of Scott Adams.
posted by localroger at 7:05 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


I am digging Taylor Swift's new album.

Taylor Swift's first couple albums were alright pop pretending to be country for "authenticity's" sake, and their attempts to sound country-ish and wise rather than teenaged were precisely what made them so painful to listen to.

Red was really damn good pop trying to drop the faux-country cutesiness, and for that it still felt like mostly filler, every one of its singles was terrific.

1989 is fucking brilliant pop, because Taylor Swift took all the country out and replaced it with even more pop hooks than Red had, which was already more than your average pop songwriter knows how to combine into a single entity. Pretty much every song on it is excellent, and a bunch of them are near-unparalleled in their multilayered bubblegumosity, and everything about it is freaking fantastic, down to the fact that it sounds like a young twentysomething writing down her thoughts about boys sans wisdom or perspective or basically anything.

I recommend that any and all thread-readers who think they don't like Taylor Swift give 1989 a listen, unless y'all are not fans of bubblegum, which is perfectly understandable. It is sheer joy. I've been recommending it to basically everybody I know (and I have to call out MetaFilter's Own lutoslawski for bringing it to my attention in the first place — yay music!).
posted by rorgy at 7:09 PM on November 14, 2014 [20 favorites]


I used to not be a big TSwift fan (this old article sums it up pretty well) but I've really come around on her music lately. Yay Taylor Swift!
posted by kmz at 7:10 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


You're thinking of Scott Adams.

An aside: That choad plussed a comment of mine on G+, in which I was making fun of him for his stunt on MeFi.
posted by MissySedai at 7:10 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


kmz: What's funny is that that article is still as pertinent as ever, only Taylor Swift grew up a bit and became totally awesome. Which she so totally is.
posted by rorgy at 7:15 PM on November 14, 2014


"Mean" is on my all-time list of favorite songs, and that's pretty apt right now.

I'm awfully tired of all the celebrity shock we all follow these days. I manage to avoid the tabloids/magazines/celebrity news shows, but my husband is an addict of TMZ, was of Fashion Police, and also watches certain reality shows because of the awful fascination of it all. It drives me off into another room.
posted by Peach at 7:22 PM on November 14, 2014 [4 favorites]


Oh, and, responding to the actual (extremely idiotic) debate about whether or not calling a dude's dick tiny is the same as criticizing a woman for her ass:

We live in a society that prides men on being able to obtain women, and women on being particularly obtain-worthy. While it's true that both sides of this coin are shitty, there's an enormous difference between the two of them: men are expected to be active agents, and rewarded for being so, whereas women are passively judged and belittled for a series of conflicting values, the impossibility of which to achieve only underscores the grotesqueness of giving a shit in the first place. Men, at all times, have the power and the freedom to determine their behaviors for themselves. Women do not.

Diplo chose to be a sexist prick. Mocking him according to his self-chosen series of values is problematic if you think that said mockery feeds into that value system, which to some extent it does, but you can also look at it as retaliating to a person on a playing field of their own choosing. Taylor Swift did nothing whatsoever to invite sexist prickery, other than be a woman who appears in public which means that we get to say anything we think and feel about her appearance and pretend like it matters.

It's possible to simultaneously reject a way of thinking and have fun with people who think that way by telling them all the things they least want to hear. Reducing people who think they have power to objects of ridicule is sometimes even more powerful when you're ridiculing them in precisely the way that they'd consider meaningful. It's immature, sure, but didn't we just have an article FPP'd about how the notion that conversation about Serious Things be Grown-Up and Respectable inherently favors men, who occupy positions of privilege, power, and repute? Immaturity can be a powerful ally and holy shit why am I even still talking about this, Lorde is pretty awesome EoM
posted by rorgy at 7:24 PM on November 14, 2014 [36 favorites]


Why did Lorde respond to that, rather than some other stuff? Seems kinda self-serving.


I seem to remember hearing earlier this year that Lorde was upset about some pretty vile things being said about her and her boyfriend on the internet (c'mon she was, like, 17 at the time). Hearing about it, TSwift reached out and offered support; now they're pretty tight friends. At 17 I would have talked all sorts of shit about anyone who said something mean about one of my besties.
posted by echolalia67 at 7:35 PM on November 14, 2014 [8 favorites]


One need only read the lyrics of the current song Anaconda yt to glimpse the hostile milieu in which Taylor Swift must compete.

Maybe, although I think those lines are more of a reaction to/defense of the most body shamed person in the US, the black woman.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:36 PM on November 14, 2014 [17 favorites]


What bothers me is how Lorde gave credibility to his tweet by responding it. Sure you got some new followers, but you also pointed out a nasty thing someone said rather than just ignoring it. Just like Taylor swift ignored it. People say shit about her all day long. Why did Lorde respond to that, rather than some other stuff? Seems kinda self-serving.

The Microagression Punnett Square:
If you ignore someone attacking you, you're not standing up for yourself, and you're wrong.
If you respond to someone attacking you, you're letting them get under your skin, and you're wrong.
If you ignore someone attacking someone else, you're not expressing solidarity, and you're wrong.
If you respond to someone attacking someone else, you're self-serving, and you're wrong.

R.A. Montgomery hasn't even been dead a week and he's already rolling over in his grave.
posted by Etrigan at 7:44 PM on November 14, 2014 [102 favorites]


Having just read the Wikipedia entry on the origin of Swift's album 1989 I am thinking this may be the first album I end up buying in close to 20 years. I remember being struck the first time I heard Shake It Off how much it sounded like the music of a lost era when music was, like, musical and you could dance to it and it involved various instruments and techniques and stuff. Turns out she was deliberately harkening to that era, and she nailed it.
posted by localroger at 7:46 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


uosuaq: "Maybe if the lander had put on a little weight it wouldn't have bounced off the comet like that."

Since you can only consider an object's weight in relation to the bigger object it happens to be on/near, it's just as much the comet's responsibility.
posted by adamrice at 7:48 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]


It can be terrible to bodyshame women AND ALSO AT THE SAME TIME somewhat cissexist and not great to use a small dick insult against a man. But it's pretty clear which of these things came out of nowhere (because misogyny) and which was a defensive response (because fuck misogyny), and it's not a good look to pick apart women's defenses against patriarchal bullshit to the exclusion of picking apart the initial patriarchal bullshit.
posted by Corinth at 7:49 PM on November 14, 2014 [46 favorites]


We totally teledildonically rogered that comet. Then our avatar had a cigarette and went to sleep.
posted by localroger at 7:50 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]


Hope she can do that to all 20million comments aimed at her female friends.

it's amazing--and by amazing I mean sad--that no matter what a woman does in any situation, she still loses. As with what Etrigan said; so Lorde, who is what 18? Got pissed off and struck back. So she didn't take the moral high road.

So. Fucking. What.

First, she is eighteen. Second, so fucking what? Some utter douche acted like a total douche and she turned it right back on him. But no, that's wrong, and because she didn't do it for 20 million other women she's also wrong? Screw that. She stood up for her friend. Did she do so perfectly? Perhaps not. But she's eighteen. And it doesn't matter anyway. When there's parity about how men and women are body shamed, and when there is the same history (outside of the queer community) of men being body shamed that women have to bear every day, maybe then we can talk about tone and how she didn't say things the right way and oh she should be doing the same thing for every single woman ever.

Until then? No. She spoke up in defence of her friend and told this idiot what a waste of space he was being in, again as pointed out already, a way that would actually hit home in a really visceral sense for him. I don't care if it was 100% sensitive and right and morally pure. Women have to put up with this shit all day every day, and famous women a million times more so. I will neither blame a teenager for fighting fire with fire nor for somehow failing by not defending every woman everywhere.

it's not a good look to pick apart women's defenses against patriarchal bullshit to the exclusion of picking apart the initial patriarchal bullshit

yeah, that. Said much better than me.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:54 PM on November 14, 2014 [48 favorites]


It's stuff like this that always makes me feel really grateful I'm not famous.
posted by rancher at 7:59 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]


Oh, and the Blank Space and Shake It Off music videos also manage to nail the best of the 1980's in a way I've rarely seen since, with a risky sense of extravagance that you hardly ever see, because hey there's no more music on MTV.
posted by localroger at 7:59 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wait, so a diplo is a person?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:01 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


I was wondering why I already had a confusing connection between diplo and ass in my head and I have remembered that it's because of the bizarre looming he does in this New Orleans bounce video.
posted by Corinth at 8:03 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


I don't care if it was 100% sensitive and right and morally pure.

In a totally different context it was recently pointed out here that you can't win a fight if you're observing the Marquess of Queensbury rules and your opponent is kicking and hitting below the belt.

Lorde hit Diplo the way he hit Taylor. And that's how you stick up for your besties.
posted by localroger at 8:03 PM on November 14, 2014 [10 favorites]


Apparently so. And he's a douche--that is to say, something unequivocally terrible for women--not because of what he does (there are lots and lots of really lovely DJs out there) for a living but because of what he has to say about Taylor Swift's body.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:04 PM on November 14, 2014


it's amazing--and by amazing I mean sad--that no matter what a woman does in any situation, she still loses.

I love you, FFFM. Truly. Thank you.
posted by MissySedai at 8:04 PM on November 14, 2014 [8 favorites]


Don't. I'm just mansplaining I think. I mean, thank you--coming from you specifically that really means a lot--but we should be listening when women say this. Dunno if this counts as using privilege for the forces of good. I hope so.

tldr HEY GUY-MEN LISTEN TO WOMEN PLS.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:07 PM on November 14, 2014 [9 favorites]


I like Taylor Swift.

She's a good egg.
posted by Bonzai at 8:12 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


I'm just mansplaining I think.

Oh please FFFM don't do that. Taylor Swift is pretty darn awesome -- actually I have been ignoring current music for so long I didn't realize just how awesome until this threat prompted me to go looking. Lorde is awesome, and her I knew about because FUCKING ROYALS. Is a woman's decision to engage a douche only justified when it's "mansplained?" That's a word that seriously needs to fucking go away. It does nothing but poison the conversation.

Anyway I think it's actually kind of funny that Diplo named himself after a dinosaur, since dinosaurs are basically birds and like birds probably had no external genitalia. He probably didn't know that, and might still not know it, though if I was on twitter I'd probably be thinking of a few tweets. Hint, hint, twitterfolken.

Anyway I shudder to think what a dick Diplo would be if his parents had named him after his penis.
posted by localroger at 8:16 PM on November 14, 2014


I dunno, I try to think of 'mansplain' as 'this is exactly what women will say but you'll only listen if it comes out of a man's mouth.' Other uses, I agree, are poisonous.

I guess... I dunno. I'm (and yeah this is coming from the privilege of being a man) sick and bloody tired of this world where women have to scream just to be heard, and then get shot down for screaming. I truly don't know if echoing--and it is only an echo, if heartfelt--what they have to say alleviates or perpetuates this problem. And what I feel doesn't matter, really; what women feel is what actually matters here.

Are more women listened to when men are saying what needs to be heard? Is this a matter of playing the (stupid) game until men will listen? Or is the very fact of playing that game buying into its premises? Is even saying "How about you go listen to women instead" buying into the bullshit?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:25 PM on November 14, 2014 [15 favorites]


sick and bloody tired of this world where women have to scream just to be heard, and then get shot down for screaming.

AMEN.

I truly don't know if echoing--and it is only an echo, if heartfelt--what they have to say alleviates or perpetuates this problem.

Rejecting an ally because that ally has a privilege you are forbidden is like being a poor person who rejects Robin Hood's redistirbution programme because money is evil. Yes, there might be a theoretically more perfect world and that world might even exist one day, just as we now live in a world that doesn't have separate water fountains and toilets for black people. But the road to that world is paved with alliances with those who do have privilege, and therefore access and a soapbox.

There is a common and unfortunate mindset that assumes anyone with privilege is automatically poisoned by their privilege. While it's often true it isn't always true, and in the cases where major change has come it's usually been through alliances with people who had privilege who weren't poisoned by it. If you can't accept that such people exist, or even that people who are a bit poisoned might be reformed with some effort, then you really lose the possibility of change through anything but apocalyptic means.
posted by localroger at 8:38 PM on November 14, 2014 [4 favorites]


That's a word that seriously needs to fucking go away. It does nothing but poison the conversation.

The thing is, while it can be overextended, and used where it perhaps doesn't strictly work, I've found self-applying the word when catching yourself in the act of doing it is actually just about the best simultaneous apology and acknowledgement of what you're doing possible.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about egg donation, and for some idiotic reason had decided that menopause was brought on when a woman had literally run out of eggs. I was patiently walking her through the simple, but, sadly, entirely, entirely wrong math of, therefore, what the average age of menopause told us about the number of eggs and what we could conclude about their market value, before the silence, the increasingly arched eyebrow, and actually listening to a few of the words falling confidently out of my embarrassingly, tiresomely wrong mouth told me that I was mansplaining on an epic level.

So I stopped talking, and embarrassedly stated that I suspected that "I am mansplaining on an epic level, aren't I?"

My friend confirmed that yes, that was definitely what was happening.

Now, casual holding-forth in a conversation is fine, especially if you're in a bar, but if there's a shorter, more succinct way of describing what is happening when a man is confidently lecturing a woman about an aspect of her own reproductive system, based on knowing nothing about it, either by experience, or, apparently, by scientific fact, I don't know what it is.

Thankfully I have only done this once, and have no plans to do it again. Less thankfully, it seems like the same thing on a much larger scale seems to be happening with things like the access-to-birth-control debate. So - I say we keep the word.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 8:40 PM on November 14, 2014 [15 favorites]


Yeah, I think I agree with you localroger. But I think we're sucking up the air here so maybe we could get back to not taking up the space that should be taken up by women we should be listening to? (I am at fault much more than you here; not levying criticism at you.)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:44 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


I am mansplaining on an epic level, aren't I?

LOL. Yes, I am not saying a thing that could properly be called "mansplaining" doesn't happen. The problem is that it's all too easy to apply that word to situations where a person with a penis actually knows something that you just don't want to hear.

Anyway on preview FFFM is right the oxygen is getting low here, and I think there might be another 1989 track on YouTube I haven't seen yet.
posted by localroger at 8:46 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


the arm-cat in Blank Space and in the photos tho. What's up with that? It just likes hanging out there?

I liked the video for Blank Space but slightly miffed it didn't keep getting bigger and more destructive
posted by The Whelk at 8:57 PM on November 14, 2014


Oh yeah, how could I forget! In the hilarious Shake It Off video, Taylor surrounds herself with several kinds of dancers and riffs off her inability to follow their moves, including a crawl, as she kind of rolls her eyes incredulously, between the legs of a troupe of well-endowed dancers shaking their ample booties.

So, you know, I don't think Taylor and Lorde really need us to mansplain it for them. They're handling it. Which is, of course, what strong people do.
posted by localroger at 9:02 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]


Kinda tangential, but related in a celebs on Twitter way, did you guys read the Azealia Banks tweet in defense of Lana del Ray after Eminem rapped about punching Lana in the face? NME link
posted by ChuckRamone at 9:13 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wow ChuckR looks like somebody read Tipping Point.
posted by localroger at 9:15 PM on November 14, 2014


Oh boy.
posted by notyou at 9:47 PM on November 14, 2014


how she's standing up for people by not letting her music be played on spotify (where she made like $6m last year

The CEO of Spotify claimed that Swift would have made $6mil but gee she pulled her music and now she is fucked and won't be getting all that money too bad so sad.

Based on what other artists have reported (admittedly they are not as popular as Swift) getting paid out from Spotify, that amount seems a couple orders of magnitude higher than what we should be expecting her to make. I think it was just a sour grapes response from the CEO.
posted by sideshow at 9:57 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


This cat? I think it's just a chill cat and/or Taylor Swift emits a loving, lulling smell of chai that's like catnip.


I know it's mostly over but seriously the idea that someone can't follow Philae's epic quest and also spend two seconds on Twitter looking at something other than a comet photo is just ridiculous, like I hope no one tried following Philae and also football, they might die!
posted by jetlagaddict at 10:26 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]


Oh, so that was the right thing to do? Cool. Hope she can do that to all 20million comments aimed at her female friends.

It does seem like a lot of work. Maybe some men could pitch in and also call out that shit when they see it?
posted by maxsparber at 10:52 PM on November 14, 2014 [25 favorites]


It's possible to simultaneously reject a way of thinking and have fun with people who think that way by telling them all the things they least want to hear.

Except for he makes fun of his own dick size (which I only know cause I googled it; this is the first time I've heard of diplo), so Lorde's retort isn't quite as cutting or deep as people are making it out to be. It's a nice attempt, but it kind of misses the mark.

But it's also just a tweet, not a major statement of position. I think we can say "Lorde missed the mark" without implying "women can't win & whatever they do is wrong."

Also, I can't believe this made the Washington Post.

Also x 2 - I guess I need to listen to Taylor Swift. I was confusing her with all the interchangeable American Idol contestants, and just learned all of 90 seconds ago that she was never one of them.
posted by kanewai at 11:01 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


But it's also just a tweet, not a major statement of position. I think we can say "Lorde missed the mark" without implying "women can't win & whatever they do is wrong."

But can we really? This does seem like an awfully pedantic nitpick, and it's really quacking like a duck quite loudly to me.

The fucked up thing is that essentially nothing diplo says is ever going to meaningfully hurt his career. He can talk shit all day, hurtful shit, and it's basically just "boys will be boys".

Knowing that, why does it even matter if the response to it is "stooping to his level"? Playing nice isn't going to do anything either.

All the criticism of the response stinks to high heaven of just basically saying "pipe down" to me. I'm not saying everyone criticizing it means that implicitly, but this is a lot like that street harassment video and thread. Just because some guys really are just earnestly saying hi or whatever, doesn't mean that it doesn't add to the background radiation of "shut up" via "you're doing it wrong".
posted by emptythought at 11:08 PM on November 14, 2014 [12 favorites]


The problem is that it's all too easy to apply that word to situations where a person with a penis actually knows something that you just don't want to hear.

This is quite possibly the best sentence I have read today on about three levels.
posted by Corinth at 11:10 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


"...thin shaming is in no way comparable to what fat people go through. Fat people get food-policed at an entirely different level. There are fat taxes in the name of ‘reducing obesity.’ There are school lunch programs and food-policing in public schools in the name of reducing the population of fat people. Fat children are ritually abused by their parents and doctors, the people they’re supposed to be able to trust before anyone else in the world, forced on diets, sent to fat camps. Fat parents are getting denied custody simply for the size of their bodies, and prospective parents the right to adopt due to the size of their bodies. Fat women are being denied the same access to contraceptive, fertility, and pregnancy services. Fat employees are penalized and all but ordered to starve themselves in order to get the best rate on their employee insurance plan. And don’t even get me started about shopping while fat. Sure, something might be baggy on you, but at least you can still cover yourself. Fat people can’t make too-small clothes bigger."
posted by ShawnStruck at 11:28 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


Diplo is Katy Perry's hookup/bf and Katy is jealous of Taylor Swift and her career and probably that Taylor Swift is lovable and didn't come from a crazy Christian family that left her with emotional baggage.

I have a gut feeling Diplo's doing this for Katy.
posted by discopolo at 11:29 PM on November 14, 2014


I knew there was a way this could all be a woman's fault!
posted by Corinth at 11:36 PM on November 14, 2014 [15 favorites]


I am so sick of men and their bullshit men bullshit I can't even breathe sometimes.
posted by bleep at 11:51 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]


Diplo is a dj, which means he's a douche by profession. Nothing he says matters. He's in the same category as Paris Hilton.

The things diplo says don't matter because of what he says, not what he does for a living. What is this ham-fisted trolllery?
posted by 1adam12 at 11:52 PM on November 14, 2014 [4 favorites]


Those of you who've said "it's possible to dislike what diplo said but also think Lorde also said something sucky", consider - then why is it LORDE's statement, and not diplo's, that seems to have people in here most bent out of shape?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:04 AM on November 15, 2014 [20 favorites]


Diplo is not very DIPLOmatic.

Douche-plomatic.

Thinking thoughts.
posted by discopolo at 12:04 AM on November 15, 2014


Those of you who've said "it's possible to dislike what diplo said but also think Lorde also said something sucky", consider - then why is it LORDE's statement, and not diplo's, that seems to have people in here most bent out of shape?

Because the peen!
posted by discopolo at 12:05 AM on November 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


the arm-cat in Blank Space and in the photos tho. What's up with that? It just likes hanging out there?

That "arm cat" is TV commercial and music video star kitten Olivia Benson, 1 of Taylor's 2 kitties. Yes, she enjoys hanging out there. John Cleese was mean about what Olivia looks like. So Taylor called his cat a monster.
posted by discopolo at 12:17 AM on November 15, 2014


All the criticism of the response stinks to high heaven of just basically saying "pipe down" to me.

I guess I'm not hearing that.

Diplo's comments were bad. I think there's a general consensus here on that, so there's not much there to dissect.

Lorde's tweet has a lot of different interpretations on here, so there's a lot more to discuss and analyze. Is she body-shaming herself, or not? Is she playing the game, or confronting it? All these sides have some truth to them. Was it a smack-down, or a near miss (my own take). Unless comments have been deleted I'm not noticing any hints that she needs to "pipe down." It's just that, she's given us more to talk about.
posted by kanewai at 12:54 AM on November 15, 2014


I camped with a sound camp at Burning Man in 2013. Major Lazer aka Diplo, et al. performed on our stage, absolute crap. Really those nimrods are just famous for being famous not because they know music. I'll just quote Blondtron :

DON'T: play the exact same set two nights in a row and yell on the mic, "Who wants a free Major Lazer bandana!?" Everything is free at Burning Man you douche canoe.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:24 AM on November 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


I knew there was a way this could all be a woman's fault!

Was that meant for my comment re Katy Perry dating Diplo and him being an asshat for her? Or do you mean all the folks blaming Lorde for defending her friend?
posted by discopolo at 1:39 AM on November 15, 2014


There's no way Katy Perry is jealous of Taylor's career, discopolo.

They've sold similar amounts of records but Perry has pretty much set the agenda for witty female pop since 'Teenage Dream' and Swift is still catching up, having wasted years in soft country.

Perry can also do 'dress-up bonkers' or 'sexy' as she pleases, whereas Swift seems to have settled into a terrifyingly edge-free gossip girl designer-label existence.
posted by colie at 1:45 AM on November 15, 2014


There's no way Katy Perry is jealous of Taylor's career, discopolo.

1989 outsold Katy's last album in under 2 weeks.

I think Katy is primarily mad about the "Bad Blood" track. But I think Swift alluded to Katy saying insulting things to her in the guise of jest. Then I guess she thought Perry hired dancers out from under her during her Red tour.

Perry doesn't have the brains and support Taylor Swift has. Nor does she have the longterm marketability or talent for songwriting. Swift is also better poised for having a lifestyle brand.

Perry also has a history of saying incredibly stupid things, so I'm not sure she'll amount to much in the longterm.

Perry can also do 'dress-up bonkers' or 'sexy' as she pleases, whereas Swift seems to have settled into a terrifyingly edge-free gossip girl designer-label existence.

Meh. Swift has enough edge. She doesn't need cupcake bras or all that shit to be "edgy."
posted by discopolo at 2:08 AM on November 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


Swift is better poised for having a lifestyle brand.

That's kind of my point - count me out.

You make fair points, but compare the two artists' childhoods and I think Perry has access to an interesting dark side.

Taylor's songs were often dull and mawkish until she hired Max Martin et al who'd produced Teenage Dream, and then we got stuff like Never Ever etc.
posted by colie at 2:20 AM on November 15, 2014


I think maybe we could not project ideas into women's heads, especially as an excuse to hypothetically explain a woman's boyfriend's shitty actions?
posted by Corinth at 2:29 AM on November 15, 2014 [17 favorites]


the entire "he did it for his girlfriend" thing is really bizarre. even if that's maybe somehow true who... cares? he's an adult, and that's diaper baby behavior. and it seems to be somehow bringing her in to it to shoulder some kind of blame as some terrible harpie who would even want their boyfriend to do stuff like that.

it just seems like really weird irrelevant speculation, and adds logs to the fire that yea, this entire thread has been a discussion about the women involved in this and not the dude being a huge manbabby.

i have some vague sympathy to the "well i mean what he did was obviously dumb and bad and we don't need to talk about that" thing, but it turning into some referendum on how lorde was so out of line, and now about how he totally did it for his jealous girlfriend just... makes for a really gross thread.

It's just that, she's given us more to talk about.

Except that it seems the only discussion to really be had is "is she doing it wrong or not". Which is well, pretty boring.

Because yea, if you agree she is or that this is a "near miss" or whatever, then it's a pretty crappy because guys being assholes like this demonstrably don't have to play by any real rulebook, but women responding to them in kind are breaking the rules and deserve to be scolded?

Yawn.
posted by emptythought at 2:32 AM on November 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


I think maybe we could not project ideas into women's heads, especially as an excuse to hypothetically explain a woman's boyfriend's shitty actions?

Old Diplo's still responsible. But Katy Perry's been writing passive aggressive tweets aimed towards putting down Swift recently. And the article (as well as others) addressed that that's enough motive for Diplo to suddenly try to be a dick to Swift.

Not that it matters. Ed Sheeran unfollowed Diplo. So did Zedd. So did Lorde, of course, and she has a collab w/him on the Mockingjay Soundtrack. Everyone's laughing at Diplo, tweeting him pics of burn ointment.
posted by discopolo at 2:32 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Good grief. It's just awful, all the way down. I'm so exhausted by twitter and fucking millionaires bickering. Up against the wall, already, the lot of 'em.

(Diplo is clearly the biggest POS involved in this. Or, for that matter, in anything he's involved in)
posted by still bill at 2:39 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Who knows? Who cares?

We have no idea about the personal goings-on of these celebrities who know/date/love/hate each other.

Diplo's tweet? Inexcusable. Lorde's tweet? Same shit--but reflecting and reinforcing powerful male insecurities rather than reflecting and reinforcing age-old patriarchal body-shaming of women.

If he started this, then she gets something of a pass--she's standing up for a friend and his tweet was vile.

But do we know if he did? I don't. Apparently his girlfriend hates Swift. Maybe Swift did something unutterable to her? Maybe not!

Which is why I don't understand why we care, why we invest our emotions in the spats of distant bazillionaires. We can take sides against patriarchy and oppression (or, if we're more seriously fucked up, we can be misogynist MRAs), but none of that really has much to do with these people and none of that will make up for the fact that we really have no idea about the minutiae of their sordid lives. Why would we even want to? Why must we pretend we know about this, about who's bad, who's worse, who's right, who's wrong?

I admit I now feel the need to preempt the predictable "you care enough to comment!" comments: I mostly ignore popular and celebrity culture, but every now and then I poke my head in to see what's up. This is my one for the month or whatever. I still don't care about any of these people (who might as well be imaginary to me since I don't know and won't ever know any of them).
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:42 AM on November 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


So many great gifs of Katy on that link!
posted by colie at 2:44 AM on November 15, 2014


Wait, people are upset at Lorde for her comment? For a response that would have been perfectly acceptable coming from a guy? Seriously?

All this attention on the female side of things ignores the guy code*. In guy code, you can only talk crap about someone if you're OK with someone else talking crap about you. And if they do it better than you**, you're required to acknowledge their superiority. That's how guys work. If Diplo didn't see Lorde's reply, laugh and say to himself, "yeah, I was being a bit of an ass", then he's no longer following the code.

* Oh, the irony of setting aside the woman's perspective to discuss this from a man's perspective, in order to support the woman's perspective. "Can we talk about men for a change?"

And yes, this does not apply to all men. But it does apply to the subset Diplo apparently belongs to, who have no trouble making insulting comments about your girlfriend's rival in a public place. That elevates his comments from "attempt to insult" to "attempt to incite millions to join in the insult".

** And yes, Lorde's reply was better. A 36 year old guy attacking a 25 year old woman's appearance? Pathetic. An 18 year old woman doing the same to a 36 year old guy? Fair play.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:45 AM on November 15, 2014 [8 favorites]


The only time the article mentioned Perry was to say that "Katy Perry and Taylor Swift have history." In trying to figure out what the hell was being referenced, I found out that a link I expected to simply confirm that Perry and diplo were in a relationship actually mentions a tiny amount of two month-old supposed beef (in the goddamned twee-est sense of the word) between Perry and Swift, but no implication that this is why diplo said his dumb shit.

I understand your frustration, Joseph Gurl, but I don't think there's much celebrity worship in saying "yep, what this dude said is misognynist." I do feel that dragging in other unrelated people to try to explain that behavior is gross though, whether those people are famous or not!
posted by Corinth at 2:51 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Joseph Gurl: But do we know if he did? I don't. Apparently his girlfriend hates Swift. Maybe Swift did something unutterable to her? Maybe not!

Can we get some kind of citation on this before it becomes canon? because all i've really seen of it is some weird conspiracy theorizing in this thread.

Ghostinthemachine: Wait, people are upset at Lorde for her comment? For a response that would have been perfectly acceptable coming from a guy? Seriously?

This pretty succinctly sums up what i was trying to say above. It just feels like she's being held to a ridiculously high standard of behavior here

One that's actually so high that i've never seen it before, and in a very tiresome "gotcha! nice try" sort of way.

There's an equivocation being made that if we're going to take issue with what he said, then we like have to take issue with what she said or we're hypocrites even though there's a big age/power/many other things differential here. And it pulls the pants off it being some slimy gotcha when you examine it the way you just have for even a second.
posted by emptythought at 3:17 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


The only time the article mentioned Perry was to say that "Katy Perry and Taylor Swift have history." In trying to figure out what the hell was being referenced, I found out that a link I expected to simply confirm that Perry and diplo were in a relationship actually mentions a tiny amount of two month-old supposed beef (in the goddamned twee-est sense of the word) between Perry and Swift, but no implication that this is why diplo said his dumb shit.

I doubt it would interest you, though it interests the hell out of me for many reasons, but you can google all their names and find out loads more about it.

But i doubt the backstories would interest you. And it's not really twee in the least, not where one party believes another purposely sabotaged a world tour by poaching backup talent. That's personal for someone like Taylor Swift, who actively strives to find supportive allies in the entertainment industry and build positive relationships with them. Essentially she's a strong networker, a great businesswoman, and tends to win people over with her genuity and graciousness. It's unsettling when you usually do and suddenly you can't just because someone doesn't care about having positive relationships.
posted by discopolo at 3:21 AM on November 15, 2014


Can we get some kind of citation on this before it becomes canon? because all i've really seen of it is some weird conspiracy theorizing in this thread.

Google it and hit the news tab. Read whatever source/sources you prefer.

Here's one where Lorde also claims it's a joke.
posted by discopolo at 3:28 AM on November 15, 2014


> Well fuck now I'm wondering which one of you wonderful people is secretly Taylor Swift.

it's a Moot point.
posted by jfuller at 3:39 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Katy seems very astute in the Mean Girls tweet.
posted by colie at 3:39 AM on November 15, 2014


This thread... has developed in a really odd direction.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:40 AM on November 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Taylor Swift has also been rumored to post on 4chan.

All it takes to spread a rumour on 4chan & reddit is to repost something from Swift's twitter before someone writes an article about the tweet, and everyone gets excited even though the article clearly mentions when Swift posted it...
posted by effbot at 4:12 AM on November 15, 2014




Diplo? Didn't he shill for Blackberry?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:37 AM on November 15, 2014


I thought Diplo was those training Legos for toddlers.
posted by jonmc at 5:24 AM on November 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


Diplo's comments were bad. I think there's a general consensus here on that, so there's not much there to dissect.

You don't think there's much to dissect about his comment? Really?

*laces fingers together, flexes them*

1. When did we get to the point, and how, that a record PRODUCER became someone who music fans followed? True, with hip-hop it's common to have people who are performer/ producer double-acts. But what else does this guy do but produce, and why is he so convinced people care what he thinks?

2. The whole notion that a small butt is a bad thing -is that only something that's part of the zeitgeist now, or has this been brewing for some time? Isn't it a shame that we can't seem to turn down one form of body shame without turning up another? Why is it that some men seem to see body type as a zero-sum thing?

3. Is diplo perhaps secretly in love with Kim Kardashian and this is perhaps his ham-handed attempt to pitch a little Kardashian woo?

4. What is it about Taylor swift which may have triggered diplo's comment right now? Was it because she was doing something successful? If so, isn't it interesting that when diplo felt most threatened by what Swift ACHIEVED, instead of attacking that, he attacked how she LOOKED?

5. If it was just an off-the-cuff joke that was a reaction to the Kardashian butt thing - why did he single out Swift to begin with? Other small-butted women are in the public eye. Did he perhaps single her out because she is also relatively young and thus perceived to be non-threatening? Is he just a bully picking in a younger kid in the playground?

*shrug* I can keep going if you want more Diplo tweet discussion points. ....presuming you do want them, that is, and you wouldn't rather go after Lorde for being a woman who didn't know her place.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:38 AM on November 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


But what else does this guy do but produce, and why is he so convinced people care what he thinks?

He has 1.3 million Twitter followers, so some people must care what he thinks.

Making modern pop is as much about the production as anything else anyway.
posted by colie at 5:55 AM on November 15, 2014


He has 1.3 million Twitter followers, so some people must care what he thinks.

How did he GET them, though? How did his name become known? Is the rest of his twitter feed similar catty slams and so he's just a bête-noire?

...and anyway, my point about "what is there to deconstruct about his comment anyway" seems to be false, as there's plenty to say. In fact, TFA is only about his comment.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:01 AM on November 15, 2014


Producers, in the diplo sense, have been celebrities in their own way--with the shitty bullshit-spewing megaphone that comes with it--in the pop/rap/radio world since Puff started dancing in front of BIG, if not before that. No idea about the how; I just know that Puff was arguably a bigger star than BIG even before Missing You dropped and he wrecked the motorcycle. As for why anyone gives a shit what they (producers) have to say enough to follow them on a poisonous platform like twitter, I have no clue. Then again, I don't know why anyone would follow any of these rich people on twitter.

Jesus, twitter beef has aged me and made me extra salty with the world, and I don't even use it or read it!
posted by still bill at 6:08 AM on November 15, 2014


Actually his Twitter looks quite entertaining. He just retweeted: "diplo, someone should make you a kickstarter bc no one knows who the fuck you are."
posted by colie at 6:10 AM on November 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


This discussion is acutely awful, and symptomatic of why many ex-MeFites of my acquaintance no longer read or post on this site. Maybe it's that there just isn't any conversation to be held around Diplo saying stupid shit beyond "Christ, what an asshole," and then the only people who post are the ones with differing opinions which lead to more outrage and graaariness, but this happens on a lot of threads about "something happened that sucked", so much so that I can't readily think of a counterexample.
posted by rorgy at 6:20 AM on November 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


The whole notion that a small butt is a bad thing -is that only something that's part of the zeitgeist now, or has this been brewing for some time?
My guess, which is just a guess? Appreciating butts is a new thing in mainstream culture, but it's not a new thing in black culture. Ample butts are associated with black women, and Taylor Swift is kind of the whitest white person in the history of whiteness. Diplo is a white guy who made his name producing artists of color and dabbling in musical styles that were created by people of color, and he gets credibility points from that background. I think that he probably thought that by dissing Taylor Swift's body, he could put himself on Team Cool POC and distance himself from Team Uncool White People. And that's incredibly shitty, in a way that something like Anaconda could never be.

As to why he's a big name, I think it's partly because he's a successful DJ and music producer, but I think it's partly because he dated MIA for a long time, and that put him in the public consciousness.

He also has to be uncool, because I've heard of him, and I am very, very out-of-it musically speaking.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:30 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


The whole notion that a small butt is a bad thing -is that only something that's part of the zeitgeist now, or has this been brewing for some time?

Small butts are bad because there is no reason to be alive if you can't do deadlift.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 6:32 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've always enjoyed Diplo's instrumentals. Maybe his Twitter is kinda the same: better when there are no words coming out of it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:56 AM on November 15, 2014


localroger: "What Lorde did? Also body shaming.

No it's not. Diplo was commenting about Taylor Swift's actual body, comparing it unfavorably to others. Lorde was using a metaphor about a part of Diplo's body which isn't really on display for comparison to make a statement about Diplo's personality, which is.
"

Yeah - and maybe people who happen to have small penises (ahem) still have issues surrounding it. It's not the same type and the effect is different, most assuredly, but it IS body shaming and it causes a lot of problems for people who do want to have a healthy sex life.

Again, I'm not saying the two are equivalent, but it is absolutely body-shaming and it absolutely DOES have an effect on individuals. Maybe we can just say it was in bad taste without making a crack about the size of his truck or whatever.
posted by symbioid at 7:16 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


This is a long thread.
posted by vicx at 7:25 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah - and maybe people who happen to have small penises (ahem) still have issues surrounding it. It's not the same type and the effect is different, most assuredly, but it IS body shaming and it causes a lot of problems for people who do want to have a healthy sex life.

And maybe people who happen to have small butts have issues surrounding that. Where's your ire towards diplo for making his crack?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:09 AM on November 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


This discussion is acutely awful, and symptomatic of why many ex-MeFites of my acquaintance no longer read or post on this site.

Out of interest, where have they all gone where the discussion of Diplo's assessment of Taylor Swift's buttocks, Lorde's Tweeted response and Katy Perry's interior monologues are so much less awfully debated?
posted by colie at 8:15 AM on November 15, 2014


As to why he's a big name, I think it's partly because he's a successful DJ and music producer, but I think it's partly because he dated MIA for a long time, and that put him in the public consciousness.

Diplo's a total asshole and everyone knows it just from listening to his music. That said, back in 2003 or whatever Favela on Blast and Piracy Funds Terrorism were total revelations. Maybe if I were cooler I would have known about baile funk without diplo leading me to it, but, well, I'm not, so I didn't.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:20 AM on November 15, 2014


Appreciating butts is a new thing in mainstream culture, but it's not a new thing in black culture.

The UK has had an annual award called 'Rear of the Year' since 1976. But it does seem like society gets more and more anally fixated. We may be heading for a Human Centipede type of future.
posted by colie at 8:24 AM on November 15, 2014


Out of interest, where have they all gone where the discussion of Diplo's assessment of Taylor Swift's buttocks, Lorde's Tweeted response and Katy Perry's interior monologues are so much less awfully debated?e

Outside, maybe? That's where I'm headed now, anyway, and I'm pretty confident this isn't going to come up.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:27 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


We'll be here when you get back.
posted by colie at 8:33 AM on November 15, 2014


Seriously though I don't know what to do with the knowledge that Taylor Swift is a super cool person now.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:34 AM on November 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


Appreciate that there is a super-cool role model that millions of young girls look up to, maybe.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:35 AM on November 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


Yeah, that sounds solid.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:46 AM on November 15, 2014


> Maybe it's that there just isn't any conversation to be held around Diplo saying stupid shit

I think the subtopic of what "Diplo" is derived from is quite interesting. I'm going to guess it's from Diploceraspis. Picked Diploceraspis over Diplocaulus because I had heard of Diplocaulus but had never heard of either Diploceraspis or Diplo, so those two go together. Hey, the internet functions on worse reasons than that.
posted by jfuller at 8:53 AM on November 15, 2014


EmpressCallipygos: "Yeah - and maybe people who happen to have small penises (ahem) still have issues surrounding it. It's not the same type and the effect is different, most assuredly, but it IS body shaming and it causes a lot of problems for people who do want to have a healthy sex life.

And maybe people who happen to have small butts have issues surrounding that. Where's your ire towards diplo for making his crack?
"

You act as if I don't have ire? You act as if I'm not a feminist and an ally who speaks about this issue (for both fat and thin people alike?) Gaze upon other threads where I have spoken on the issue?

Jesus Christ people. I even explicitly said that they are different cases, and I am not saying what Diplo did isn't body shaming, it most certainly is, and as such IS WRONG. Is that better?

And it is certainly of greater harm in general due to the overwhelming reach of our social attitudes, both as it pertains to women's bodies as not allowed to be owned by their selves, and as judgement on "individual willpower" (or whatever bullshit that is) and lack of recognition of various disabilities (that may cause people to metabolize differently) to say nothing of eating disorders (My sister was hospitalized her senior year in high school for months due to anorexia, so I am first hand aware of the damage body-shaming can do), and it's not right when it happens to fat people and it's not right when it happens to skinny people, a fact I was made aware of from a very thin friend who just metabolizes food very fast and talked about his own struggles on the other end (I being morbidly obese, he being quite underweight) in 2005 or so...

So yes, I'm aware of the issue, and have seen it first hand in various guises, and suffer it myself, the shame of wanting to be healthy, but fear of being judged/shamed when going out in public leading even more to less exercise, etc...

I'm merely stating that when someone does state that small-penis callouts are body-shaming, and maybe it might be nice to not engage in anti-body-shaming rhetoric while using body-shaming, that when someone replies that "it's not body shaming" (even though, by very definition AS POSTED IN THE ARTICLE, it most certainly IS body shaming). Both are wrong. That doesn't mean, AS I SAID IN MY PREVIOUS POST, that they are equivalently wrong. The form of body shaming that women have to deal with is 1000x worse than small-penis "jokes". And I don't mean to derail, but when someone says "it's not body shaming" and shakes off any attempt to deal with that issue as also body shaming and maybe something we ALSO shouldn't engage in (as opposed to being mutually exclusive body-shames or whatever the fuck we think must be going on), suddenly we're not allies and how dare we ask that in speaking out against body shame, we recognize that there is another form and start to be aware of that, and it will make our arguments overall that much more cohesive and appear less like a hypocrite to say one opposes body shaming, then engages in it in the very act of refuting it.

It does our side a disservice to ignore this; I am not "concern-trolling" (I cannot speak for the person who brought this up), as I am legitimately a feminist (as much as I can be, I try to be a good ally), and I certainly think Diplo is wrong.

I also think there's a lot we can unwrap and construct regarding the social mores on "big booty"-ness, the racial implications of the current trends and the gender lines, and what it means for a particular social phenomenon to be as it is with regards to this apparently newfound trend for whatever reason it's big now. There is a lot going on with this, and body-shaming is one part... It's interesting from a cultural study standpoint. From a moral standpoint, a woman is a woman and has a right to be who she is, how she is, how she wants to be. She has a right to be thin or fat or hairy or not hairy, or tall or short, or lesbian or straight or bi- or pan- or trans- or a - sexual, she has a right to be who she is, period, and nobody has a (moral) right to tell her she isn't or doesn't have a right to be who she is.

Is that unequivocal enough for you?
posted by symbioid at 8:59 AM on November 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


Also, Empress...
Eponysterical.
posted by symbioid at 9:00 AM on November 15, 2014


Somewhere there's a couple of publicists laughing all the way to the bank. Welcome to the future, where fame is just a disgusting opinion away.
posted by Catblack at 9:05 AM on November 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


This discussion is acutely awful, and symptomatic of why many ex-MeFites of my acquaintance no longer read or post on this site.

There is a common and unfortunate mindset that assumes anyone with privilege is automatically poisoned by their privilege.


These two comments sum up why I go back and forth about leaving MeFi after many wonderful years.

But, Taylor Swift! I don't listen to pop music/radio, but feel like she's gotten a raw deal since forever: from Kanye interrupting what should've been the biggest night of her life (seriously, how rude and mean do you have to be to do that to someone?) to a recent NPR interview in which they basically chastised her for naval-gazing and for not using her voice to communicate the more important things to young girls, because she has the responsibility (why?), she can't win. Then I read that she replied online with an actual complicated cookie recipe and know she's awesome and will be OK. She's probably reading this thread and laughing her head off.
posted by sfkiddo at 9:05 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


but we should be listening when women say this.

Yes, in an ideal world, where patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny weren't already so deeply ingrained into the collective consciousness, we WOULD. But I'm stuck living in a world where we don't, so I appreciate it deeply when a dude speaks up and says "HEY! KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF!"

Dunno if this counts as using privilege for the forces of good. I hope so.

My vote is for "Yes, it does." We need all the decent allies we can get. Even better when those allies truly get it, as you so obviously do. Hell, I'll even be happy with the men who maybe don't quite get it, but try like hell to understand anyway. They're a damned sight better than the ones moaning "But Lorde body-shamed a man, wah, that's sexist, too!"
posted by MissySedai at 9:09 AM on November 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


It's unfortunately always been a double standard. A great looking woman is both wanted by men and admired by women, but many men revile them because they can't have them and many women hate that they can't look like them. This is so even if NONE of these people actually know her personally or have spent more than 20 seconds actually speaking to them.

A great looking man doesn't really go through this. Women want them and have only good things to say about them. Men admire them and are quick to befriend them.

But despite the "plight" of hot women we all know that they are still better off in most cases than women who are considered unattractive.

In a general sense the luckiest people in this world are males who are white, handsome and extroverted. The rest of the 99.9% have to deal with all sorts of unfair shit. That's just life and the world. As the buddha said: "Everything in this world ultimately sucks and the only sane thing to strive for is Nirvana."... or something like that. :)
posted by rancher at 9:23 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


symbioid, I get where you're coming from, but to me it feels like going there is actually kind of setting up an equivalency. I mean yeah, sure, body shaming is not a good thing. But as someone else pointed out above, this is turning someone's weapon back upon them in a way that will actually have meaning for them.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:26 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I really wanted to step away from this thread but I think something positive can still be gained in regards to how we choose to approach issues like this not as victims but as allies.

I tend to view this from the Buddhist standpoint of Right Speech:

"Even if I know that the words that I write or say are factual, true, beneficial, etc. I also understand there is a time and a place to say them."

So while it's possible to agree with the sentiment that it's very possible for a female celeb to body shame a male celeb I also understand that in the context of the conversation being had in this forum i.e. that body-shaming female celebs is a consequence of this societal desire to equate female worth in regards to how sexually attractive she is and that everyone has the right to criticize a women that it's not a good time to be saying "But guys get body-shamed too".

It's factual correct and could even be the source of a great post in a different thread but in the context of this thread it just reinforces a dominant paradigm that females shouldn't complain because men have it just as bad. I think almost everyone understands that isn't what people are trying to do in their comments but those comments contextualized to the broader discourse concerning how men and women relate to each other about bodies and sexuality isn't really that helpful.

Sometimes being supportive isn't about providing examples of how men can be impacted by body shaming but maybe using one's own experiences about being body shamed to understand how destructive being victimized by it in a public setting can be. It's basically about empathy and we don't always have to express why we are empathizing sometimes it's enough to just be supportive to each other.
posted by vuron at 9:31 AM on November 15, 2014 [11 favorites]


Just saw this on Twitter; excellent encapsulation of why criticizing Lorde is totally misplaced:
.@SidnellD Why is it considered more wrong to call out sexism than to have done the sexist thing in the first place?— Jacquelyn Gill (@JacquelynGill) November 15, 2014
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:41 AM on November 15, 2014 [10 favorites]


Symbiod -

The article being discussed did not mention the content of Lorde's tweet at all. It strikes me that simply not acknowledging the comment which introduced it, or at least saying "yeah, that's not cool either, but let's get back to how much of a jerk diplo was" would have been wiser, or at least it would have avoided this thread turning into YET ANOTHER INSTANCE of how a discussion of the very real, FAR more pervasive, and FAR more visible issues of body shame ALL WOMEN deal with from turning into another conversation about how a woman trying to combat that was wrong because she made a man feel bad.

And as for your comment on my name - interesting that you cannot resist throwing in an instance of commenting about appearance against me, in this thread about how body shame issued as a weapon against women. I will deign not to respond in kind, although I believe I certainly could.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:42 AM on November 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


(even though, by very definition AS POSTED IN THE ARTICLE, it most certainly IS body shaming).

I dunno, man, I think the definition in the article is pretty facile and simplistic.

Because I think the context is more complex than (to quote the article): "Body shaming is when shame a person because of what his or her body looks like. " The aspect about commenting on publicly visible parts of people's bodies (or the whole of their bodies) is a different dynamic than comments on body parts that are relatively private.

It seems to me that it's because there are aspects of bodies that are publicly visible that (some/lots of) people feel it's OK to comment on someone else's body - a person is "too fat", or "too skinny", or "has nice big boobs", or "needs more ass" or what-friggin-ever. It's socially acceptable, on some level, that someone's public appearance is an appropriate subject for public discussion. But when it's something that's not available for public observation, a body-shaming comment doesn't really get any traction, because nobody has any real info on the aspect of the body they're commenting on.

IOW, Diplo felt it was fine to comment on Taylor Swift's butt, not on what she does with her pubic hair. Because he thinks everyone else in the world can & should have an opinion on her butt because her butt is pretty much publicly visible just as a side effect of her walking around in normal clothes. But only a handful of people close to Taylor would know what her pubic hair looks like, so a comment on same would just fall flat.

Add that "publicly visible" aspect to vuron & Empress Callipygos' points about how the body shaming dynamic plays out very differently for women as opposed to men, and that's why Diplo's tweet about Taylor Swift's butt is body-shaming in a way that Lorde's crack about Diplo's dick (which neither she nor the general public has any actual knowledge of) isn't.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:07 AM on November 15, 2014


Diplo's tweet about Taylor Swift's butt is body-shaming in a way that Lorde's crack about Diplo's dick (which neither she nor the general public has any actual knowledge of) isn't.

This is somewhat complicated by the fact that Diplo has actually tweeted a dick pic and then apologised for having a small one. Diplo's dick is in fact public property and perhaps that's part of why he's issued a dumb tweet about someone else's body.
posted by colie at 10:21 AM on November 15, 2014


Mod note: Several comments deleted. Symbioid has said he's leaving the thread and regrets derailing.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:22 AM on November 15, 2014


perhaps that's part of why he's issued a dumb tweet about someone else's body.

I really really really doubt that Diplo genuinely thought that his own public dick pic is what gives him license to comment on Taylor Swift's butt. I doubt it even crossed his mind.

"Taylor Swift is a hot chick" was most likely where his thought process started and ended.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:31 AM on November 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


This thread utterly fails the Bechdel Test.

Appreciating butts is a new thing in mainstream culture, but it's not a new thing in black culture.

This is indeed a subtext that I see: Diplo is making a race-traitor gambit. History is full of white guys latching onto black culture for professional reasons where their personal lives do not (see also: Jimmy Iovine). "Booty" is an ingratiating signifier.
posted by rhizome at 11:20 AM on November 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


i continue to really like lorde. another thing that happened with her recently involves another butt - this time kim kardashian's. [consider an nsfw potential for all links] lorde tweeted this in response to the paper mag pics. some people though she was making the same shitty comment as a naya rivera. lorde took the time to clear up the misunderstanding.

i used to not really like taylor swift, but she is slowly winning me over. among a lot of the things already detailed in this thread, one of the things she's done recently that made me laugh out loud is when she stepped out wearing a no it's becky shirt.
posted by nadawi at 12:31 PM on November 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


also, the whole "what's the feud with katy perry and taylor swift about" thing - yes, there seemed to be some bad blood. it might be about dancers (who actually say t.swift knew the whole time they wouldn't be staying on the tour as they were actually katy perry's dancers on some time off and their role for katy perry was much larger than it was for taylor swift) - but it could also be about their shared ex, john mayer, which would make it even weirder if diplo was doing this on some sort of mission for perry (which is a pretty fucked up dodge of responsibility some are extending to him). or it could a million other things either personal or business or it could be really nothing. regardless, diplo was a gigantic shithead douchebag long before he was dating katy perry.
posted by nadawi at 12:35 PM on November 15, 2014


diplo was a gigantic shithead douchebag long before he was dating katy perry.

What's the basis for this assertion?
posted by colie at 12:48 PM on November 15, 2014


I can't--or won't, for laziness--provide real cites there, but nadawi is absolutely right. Diplo's been accused of lots of foul shit, from exploiting women on his instagram, to hopping from culture to culture using his privileged position as a white tastemaker DJ to make lots of money for himself. I don't think it's too hard to take a look at the guy and his career and walk away thinking he's a shitheel. His thing with Taylor Swift seems to me to be no departure from what he's been all along; an asshole.
posted by still bill at 12:52 PM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]




there's also that whole thing where a bunch of people slobber all over themselves to call him the mastermind behind m.i.a. and instead of him denying it he feeds into it with dumb little comments and constantly slagging her, and her post-relationship work, off. he plays at being in that world but is not at all sensitive to how white people and dudes have been taking credit for what women and black people do for forever.
posted by nadawi at 1:05 PM on November 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


but it could also be about their shared ex, john mayer,

Katy Perry actually dated that douche for 2 years and was in an actual relationship. John Mayer hooked up with Taylor at best more than 5 years ago. Suffice to say, aside from 1 song on her old album, she doesn't give a shit about him. I doubt she cares at all.

(Everybody, say away from John Mayer's peen. )
posted by discopolo at 1:48 PM on November 15, 2014


i don't know who she does or doesn't give a shit about. everywhere i read about the mayer speculation it was more that mayer was all in his feelings about the song and that after he and perry got together perry started sort of privately getting in digs about taylor swift when she came up. even before the dancers/mean girls thing there was gossip that their friendly acquaintance with each other had soured.

i can totally agree that everyone should stay away from mayer's peen.
posted by nadawi at 2:04 PM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Nadawi, we are soul sisters #againstjohnmayerpeen
posted by discopolo at 5:09 PM on November 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


Well, Metfites, thanks for inspiring me to finally go out and buy 1989. Shake It Off has been in my head for days. And now... CATS AND CHAI COOKIES! I have a new pop-diva crush now!
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 7:50 PM on November 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


diplo is being messy about this on twitter/instagram today.
posted by nadawi at 8:25 PM on November 15, 2014



Well, Metfites, thanks for inspiring me to finally go out and buy 1989. Shake It Off has been in my head for days. And now... CATS AND CHAI COOKIES! I have a new pop-diva crush now!


It's okay, Steve Carell loves Taylor Swift too.
posted by discopolo at 9:45 PM on November 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Glad we agree.

way to miss every point that is being made.

Why is the 18 year old girl being held to a higher standard than the asshat adult guy who behaved asshatly in the first place?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:53 PM on November 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


She is a teenager. He isn't. When else do we hold teenagers to higher standards of behaviour?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:55 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


I dunno, Lorde has far more fans and Twitter followers than Diplo. She's a full grown woman. Her joke was funny and Diplo's wasn't. Doubt she requires standards to be adjusted.
posted by colie at 5:02 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


In controversial and calamitous events like this, I always ask myself, "What would British songstress Adele do? (WWBSAD)".
posted by Chitownfats at 5:02 AM on November 16, 2014


There's no way Katy Perry is jealous of Taylor's career, discopolo.

Oh, she for sure is salty. Taylor has 7 grammies, Katy has 0, and while Perry's last album did well and hit the top of the charts, 1989 is breaking records everywhere and blowing everyone else out of the water.

I've never in my life been inspired to follow celebrity gossip but the Katy Perry stuff is like going down a rabbit hole. I can't believe I know all this, but I'm gonna give the backstory for Diplo's tweet. If you want to read the background about the Taylor Swift/Katy Perry friendship, you can do so here. Suffice to say they were friends once, maybe, but really don't like each other now. Taylor's side of the story is that Katy put her down a lot in the guise of "friendship", and I don't know Katy's side of the story.

So 1989 has a few allusions to this. Some are super entertaining. A while back right after a big Rolling Stone piece about Swift, Katy tweeted "Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing..." and if you check out the Blank Space music video, there's this reference.

Taylor wrote Bad Blood about Katy, and next to the lyrics put a picture of a grammy. SHADE. (Imogen Heap helped with another song on the album - she wrote a blog about it, and it's an impressive look into Swift's song-writing process. She comes off really well. The picture is of Imogen's grammy from when Taylor visited her in London.)

Since 1989 has rightfully blown-up, due to some smart business decisions Taylor made and because it's a really fantastic album, Katy keeps tweeting passive-aggressive stuff: "Tbh I don't really trust people that continually look down the barrel of a paparazzi lens" (Taylor frequently smiles at or acknowledges the paparazzi.)

Anyway, I bring this up because Katy Perry is dating Diplo. I'm absolutely not saying that this is Katy's "fault" or whatever. This is Diplo being an ass. But the whole thing is clearly a "my girlfriend hates this other woman so I'm gonna make a nasty comment about that person's body to impress my girlfriend."

I find that even grosser than if he were just commenting randomly, because it implies that not only does he feel justified in judging Swift's body, but he's doing it because he thinks shaming another woman's body is the way to show his girlfriend he likes her more. It's like those dudes who hit on you by putting other women down. GROSS.

For the record Diplo's still tweeting about it.

> he quotes Lorde's tweet and writes (👸 the moment u realize she's a high school student)

>Disappointed the swift boat veterans didn't get my tiny dick a fundly going (enlarge me bae 🙌)

>When I'm not being bodyshamed by a teenager we are collaborating on cool music http://m.spin.com/articles/ariana-grande-major-lazer-mockingjay-all-my-love-stream/ … @MAJORLAZER @lordemusic @ArianaGrande

(That last one is fucking rich.)

While the music industry is awful to women, I don't know if this says as much about the industry as it does about Diplo just being a total douche.

(Also I can't believe I just wrote so much about a music industry feud. This is what I get for reading so much about 1989. It's just so good. WHO AM I.)
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:15 AM on November 16, 2014 [5 favorites]


Maybe I'm too freaking old to be writing in a thread about taylor swift.


Maybe we can collectively agree that when something sexist happens, we spend our time talking about the sexism, and not instead make the discussion primarily about how we feel about how women respond to it.
posted by maxsparber at 9:22 AM on November 16, 2014 [13 favorites]


maxsparber absolutely lays out the basic rule on this. These threads would go way smoother if we could keep that in mind.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:23 AM on November 16, 2014


I agree totally with maxsparber as well and the main reason I'm chipping away at this thread is because IMO Swift is massively talented but musically and culturally a boring and safe pop artist compared to Perry (they represent the intuitive bad lunatic sponge Lennon vs the calculated stable genius McCartney).
posted by colie at 11:29 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


Katy Perry is anything other than bland? She occasionally wears weird clothing and has said some shockingly racist stuff about Japanese people. She's not John Lennon.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:00 PM on November 16, 2014 [4 favorites]


The problem is that the thread is itself a response. Talking about the response in the thread is almost by definition MeTa.
posted by localroger at 12:01 PM on November 16, 2014


Katy Perry is anything other than bland? She occasionally wears weird clothing and has said some shockingly racist stuff about Japanese people. She's not John Lennon.

I dunno, "presents self as weird while being a famous millionaire" and "says bigoted things" could easily be boxes for your John Lennon Bingo card.
posted by Copronymus at 12:20 PM on November 16, 2014 [6 favorites]


katy perry also isn't a child abandoning wife beater.
posted by nadawi at 12:29 PM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


Katy Perry is the nearest thing we have to Lennon. His stated aim was to get rich and famous, and he did it by absorbing whatever sounds he could sharpen to his particular direct hit of sound. Whatever he did in his private life is irrelevant.

Taylor is a bore - having seen her three times in concert, I really wanted to love her but there is no 'there' there.
posted by colie at 1:34 PM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


the whole lennon/perry comparison is silly. they do completely different things from top to bottom.
posted by nadawi at 4:12 PM on November 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


Katy Perry steals ideas from Katy Keene, Sara Bareilles, and pretty much everybody else. She doesn't have an original thought in her head. She's never moved past being 14 years old, having never even been properly educated or had intelligent parents. The latter isn't her fault, but it kind of shows that she's going to find herself making troubled choices, like making an enemy of Swift, who is getting to be universally adored.

(I welcome Meredith and Olivia Benson as our new cat overlords.)
posted by discopolo at 4:29 PM on November 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


Taylor is a bore - having seen her three times in concert, I really wanted to love her but there is no 'there' there.

Ugh can't believe you saw her 3x. I want to hate you for that but I just can't. Your love and loyalty for Katy Perry is too darn adorable. (It's fun to be a fan of anything, I think.)
posted by discopolo at 4:36 PM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


In the 'immortal' words of Nicki Minaj, "Fuck the skinny bitches!".

So, I am so SO late to this thread but this made me think of an ongoing discussion I've been having with my daughter about Megan Trainor, especially the "All About That Bass" video that makes a skinny woman look foolish and includes the lyric "Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that--no, I'm just playing" ...anyway my daughter thinks this is gross, a woman shaming another woman.

I fully agree with her principles but still lean toward thinking the song is meant in good fun and expresses a valid perspective. Of course there's plenty to be criticized about Trainor's lyrics (cultural appropriation, boy-centric view of women, etc) and I might be trying to give her a pass because her music is so damn catchy* and her general persona/attitude makes me happy.

*kinda like how I felt enormously guilty last year for loving "Blurred Lines" ...bad, bad torticat.

(Pop music isn't even my thing but I get into this stuff because I have kids That Age. And I do love critical discussions of it. This thread, bumpy as it was, is a pretty interesting read.)
posted by torticat at 11:46 PM on November 16, 2014


She's never moved past being 14 years old, having never even been properly educated or had intelligent parents. The latter isn't her fault, but it kind of shows that she's going to find herself making troubled choices, like making an enemy of Swift, who is getting to be universally adored.

This actually sums up my view basically. Being properly educated by intelligent parents is not rock and roll. Being the blondest tallest best looking and most popular girl in the school while constantly acting like 'who? little ol' me?', with wealthy parents and a lovely home is not very rock and roll either. This could also be why her heart isn't in it when she performs live.
posted by colie at 11:48 PM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


This actually sums up my view basically. Being properly educated by intelligent parents is not rock and roll. Being the blondest tallest best looking and most popular girl in the school while constantly acting like 'who? little ol' me?', with wealthy parents and a lovely home is not very rock and roll either. This could also be why her heart isn't in it when she performs live.

I've seen her perform on TV and I think her heart is in it. I don't think you need to be strung out backstage or deeply damaged or depressed to be able to put your heart into performing.

If it doesn't reach you personally, that's one thing. But that's just your view and your opinion. It doesn't, obviously, make it true. Because there are more people who love her and her shows and think she's fantastic at performing and writing and collaborating.

What is and isn't rock and roll seems like a really silly thing to think or care about for me. Who cares?
posted by discopolo at 12:31 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


"What is and isn't rock and roll" is basically The Meaning of Life.

:-)

Most discussions of pop music seem to end up interminably circling the issue of who is more 'authentic' as a person rather than what they sound like (see Minaj vs Azalea for example) and to be honest I seem to have fallen into that trap here as well. They're both good performers.
posted by colie at 3:08 AM on November 17, 2014


I don't think anyone would ever claim Taylor Swift is rock and roll, but neither is the person who read an excerpt from On the Road and turned it into "Firework".* If you're talking about popular female musicians who are rock and roll, and you're not talking about either Kesha or Nicki Minaj, you're wrong.

*I actually like Firework a lot more than On the Road, but the transformation is basically the opposite of rock and roll.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:07 AM on November 17, 2014


pink also fits in the popstars who evoke rock & roll. and really, if we're making a list, i'd put katy perry and taylor swift pretty near the bottom of rock & roll type stars.

the argument about nicki minaj and iggy azalea isn't about authenticity as much as it's about full scale appropriation and racism.
posted by nadawi at 6:30 AM on November 17, 2014


Iggy is being divorced by a dude who she says isn't even married to her. That's rock and roll.
posted by colie at 6:43 AM on November 17, 2014


iggy is involved in a common law marriage issue with a dude who seems super odious and abusive. also i wasn't discussing if she was rock & roll or not.
posted by nadawi at 6:49 AM on November 17, 2014


I thought we were making a list. This issue needs clearing up.
posted by colie at 6:56 AM on November 17, 2014


i think it's pretty clear we have entirely different lists.
posted by nadawi at 6:59 AM on November 17, 2014


A certain amount of serious chaos in your private life is part of being a rock star. It's not a touchy subject.
posted by colie at 7:09 AM on November 17, 2014


i don't even know what you're on about at this point.
posted by nadawi at 7:33 AM on November 17, 2014


It's just a little chat on the internet about pop music stuff. I'm bored at work. For me, the side issue is based around peoples' investment of credibility in some artists rather than others and I find it interesting. That's all. :-)
posted by colie at 7:40 AM on November 17, 2014


Hey everybody, I think we just witnessed people discussing who of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry is more "rock and roll."
posted by rhizome at 9:21 AM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]


also lorde is 18, so there's that

Or she might be a 45 year old geologist
posted by LizBoBiz at 11:28 AM on November 17, 2014


Hey everybody, I think we just witnessed people discussing who of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry is more "rock and roll."

It wasn't me. I don't really care about rock n roll, unless it has to do with diners.

Btw, Swift's been sending her fans gifts from all over the world and essentially making them cry. I thought this was super cute. She didn't know how to pack and ship it so she brought it over to the little boy's house. He's apparently frequently in the hospital and Swift reads his mom's (who is a fan) Tumblr.

The mom took video of Taylor driving the little car and mixed it to "Ridin' Dirty."
posted by discopolo at 2:13 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


also lorde is 18, so there's that

Or she might be a 45 year old geologist
posted by LizBoBiz at 11:28 AM on November 17


She's 300 and knows all the secrets of the world. That's why her hair is so big.
posted by discopolo at 2:14 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


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