The behaviour of the Reddit community r/travisandtaylor goes far beyond fair criticism of Taylor Swift — it’s devolved into full-on hating for the sake of hating, with a dash of misogyny.
Upon entering the subreddit r/travisandtaylor, I expected to find people who are fed up with hearing about Taylor Swift levying justified criticism at the megastar. I thought I might have stumbled upon an interesting place to learn about and respectfully discuss some of the celebrity’s nefarious deeds.
It turns out I put too much faith in the internet.
Instead, what I found was a barrage of unnecessary and concerning hatred being thrown at Swift, oftentimes for what appeared to be the supposed crime of simply existing.
The subreddit, which boasts a staggering 150,000+ members as of writing, makes its mission clear in the community’s description:
“We’re here to roast and criticize Taylor Swift’s PR stunts (looking at you, Travis), her questionable ethics and the never-ending antics she wants fans to (literally) buy. If you’re here to defend Mother, you’ve come to the wrong place. Let us be clear: fan behaviour will incur bans, and harassment of our members will be reported to Reddit admins. Remember, ‘silence is actually showing restraint.’”
I quickly realized that my idea of a safe haven to constructively criticize T-Swift was falling apart before my eyes. If the moderators were willing to enact bans on people for speaking in support of Swift, then there’s no way this community could facilitate any proper discussions. Silencing the voices of those who disagree with their narrative and rejecting such arguments by equating it to “fan behaviour” means there’s no feasible way to respond to inaccurate claims that might be made by this army of haters.
To be fair, the moderators have every right to do this. It might be censoring an entire side of a fairly interesting argument, but as long as they hold power over the subreddit, they’re not technically obligated to allow free discussion on their platform. It might be unfortunate, but they still hold the authority to make their own decisions on who they allow in their community.
However, this also means we cannot possibly consider this subreddit a place that’s trying to find or share the truth. If this were the case, they would allow people on both sides of the argument to speak their minds. The fact that speaking out in support of Swift is banned proves that this community isn’t interested in meaningful discussion or constructive criticism — they’re just here to hate, and they seem fine with that.
Now, let’s be clear: there are various valid criticisms that can and should be directed at Swift. Things like her ludicrous amount of jet usage and her suspicious tendency to stop younger women artists from topping the charts through timed releases definitely deserve investigation and criticism — and believe me, this subreddit is full of that. But that just makes this feel like even more of a wasted opportunity, since again, this community is more interested in blind hatred than actually getting to the truth.
I’m no fan of celebrity worship, and I can understand how it might become frustrating constantly hearing about one person all over social media. Yet, it needs to be recognized that Swift having accrued a massive fanbase doesn’t justify transforming her into a communal verbal punching bag. No one is forced to be a fan of Swift’s, nor do they have to enjoy her music, and she shouldn’t be thrown under the bus through strangely personal attacks meant to discredit her character for the sole purpose of joining a bandwagon online. If you’re going to attack someone’s character, do it when their actions have justified it, not just because you’re tired of hearing about them, which is exactly what I suspect is going on here.
So, what exactly are these posts? Here are some of the subreddit’s most topical posts as of writing.
“She’s been making up stories and playing the victim since the beginning,” reads the title of one post sharing an old video of Swift describing her supposed friends lying to her. To back up this baseless assumption, the poster adds that “this is obviously a lie, we all know Taylor was and still is the mean girl bully. This really showcases her need to always be seen as an innocent victim. It also shows her lack of creativity because, really? She couldn’t have come up with a more believable sob story? She should have asked one of her ghostwriters for help.”
Yikes. And the comments are just as bad:
“Even if it is true, it just shows that no one liked her, probably [because] she was a bully lol,” reads one of the top comments.
“Classic narcissist behaviour. They love to paint themselves as the victims and life’s underdog,” assumes another.
“I don’t blame the friends. Would you want to hang out with someone who is all about herself and constantly needs attention?!?” another adds.
As you can likely imagine, the remainder of the 120+ comments on this post are more of the same. More assumptions, more accusations and more insults.
Remember that these commenters aren’t here to actually discuss Swift’s behaviour from a realistic perspective; by the subreddit rules’ own implied admission, they’re here just to berate her. While it’s technically possible that Swift is indeed a “mean girl,” they have no way to know this for certain, and are flinging verbal attacks in her direction while operating under the assumption that they’re all true.
It’s also ironic that many of these commenters are attacking Swift based on her supposedly being a “mean girl” when they themselves seem much meaner than anything I can find about Taylor online. It might be fun to hide behind the veil of anonymity provided by a computer screen and keyboard, but it brings into question whether these commenters are equally unpleasant to their online personas in real life.
Regardless, let’s look at another post:
“At this point, she really can’t stand Travis,” reads another post in reference to NFL player and Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce.
“Honestly, I don’t think their relationship is completely fake — they are dating — but they’re both in it for their own benefit. I think they pretend to be interested in each other, even in private, though they both know it’s all just for show. But after the Super Bowl, Taylor couldn’t even fake it anymore, and that’s why they disappeared for a while. It would’ve made sense for them to show up somewhere after the game to make it look like Taylor still supports and loves Travis. But she was so done with him she couldn’t even pretend. Now that they’ve been spotted again, all we’ve got is a blurry video where Taylor’s face is completely out of sight. She doesn’t even try to put on a mask of interest anymore. Maybe she’ll pull it together, and they’ll go back to their usual lovey-dovey act soon. But it won’t last long. She’s clearly had enough of him. This is just my opinion, but I’d love to hear yours!”
(…provided, of course, that “your opinion” agrees with this post, otherwise you might find yourself banned from the subreddit for disagreeing with the hivemind.)
It’s equal parts humorous and disconcerting that this community spends so much time obsessing over Taylor Swift, inspecting clips of her relationship to find evidence supporting their theory that everyone in her personal life hates her and she’s a miserable person to be around.
There seems to be some type of obsession going on here; it’s almost a cult-like mentality where anyone who disagrees with the general sentiment is ostracized and excluded. This community clearly has an extreme interest in Taylor’s personal life, conducting detective work with old clips and analyzing any blurry footage they can find. This hatred, in a strange way, seems parasocial.
Wait a moment — this sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?
Could it be that these ravenous haters are just as obsessed with Taylor Swift as the celebrity’s parasocial fans that they outwardly despise so strongly? Is it possible that the cult-like mentality of Taylor’s most obsessive fans extends to the philosophy of her biggest critics?
See, what these people don’t realize is that they’ve fallen into the same trap as Taylor’s parasocial fans; the only difference is that they’re revelling in their shared hatred rather than shared support. To someone like me, who is neither a fan nor a critic of Swift’s, they just appear like two separate groups who share a joint obsession with Taylor Swift.
It’s also hard not to see this whole thing as misogynistic. While I’m not trying to suggest that some men don’t face online hate campaigns of their own, it’s a little tricky trying to imagine Swift getting this same backlash if she were a man. Would her apparent “mean girl” attributes be seen as perseverance and passion? Would her romantic relationships be praised rather than deeply scrutinized? Would people place a greater focus on her accomplishments rather than trying to find reasons to tear her down?
Indeed, it feels like part of this aggression would be curbed if Swift simply wasn’t a woman. While none of these critics come right out and say they’re being especially harsh on her for this reason, it’s difficult to imagine she’d face this same whirlwind of rage if she were a man.
Either way, that doesn’t stop this community from being one devoted to hating Taylor Swift, unintentionally sharing the same parasocial obsession with her most devoted fans. If these people dislike her so strongly, perhaps they’d be better off not spending so much time thinking about her and instead going on to focus on things they do enjoy.
There may be a sense of excitement that comes from complaining on a computer like a de facto keyboard warrior, but especially in turbulent times like this, maybe it’s time to focus on putting a bit more positivity into the world rather than rotting in hatred over people whose lives don’t affect your own.