Taylor Swift Writes Pointed, Damning Message To Fans in ‘Reputation’ Booklet
Taylor Swift's new reputation? She's forthright as hell.
Swift, whose sixth studio album drops today (November 10), includes an unusually direct message to fans in the LP's booklet. The note, which vacillates between damningly pointed and hopefully sweet, is, at times, curt and unrestrained, and centers on what it's like to trust people only to learn they're — very frequently — not who they appear to be.
"We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us," she notes. "We know our friend in a certain light, but we don't know them the way their lover does. Just the way their lover will never know them the same way that you do as their friend. Their mother knows them differently than their roommate, who knows them differently than their colleague. Their secret admirer looks at them and sees an elaborate sunset of brilliant color and dimension and spirit and pricelessness."
Swift also touches on the "me" generation — those who document each waking moment on social media — and how related habits can often be curses.
"And yet, a stranger will pass that same person and see a faceless member of the crowd, nothing more," she continues. "We may hear rumors about a person and believe those things to be true. We may one day meet that person and feel foolish for believing baseless gossip. This is the first generation that will be able to look back on their entire life story documented in pictures on the internet, and together we will all discover the after-effects of that."
"We are all a mixture of selfishness and generosity," she adds. "We are mosaics of our worst selves and best selves."
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