The Old Kayla Can’t Come to the Phone Right Now
A love letter to the Reputation era.
Tim and I went Eras costume shopping one week before The Eras Tour tickets were even available for presale. Consider us delusional. I sent a text to a friend saying “If you don’t hear from me it means I didn’t get tickets, and will be in need of a mental health evaluation” but I was quietly optimistic. Surely all of my good deeds over the years were adding up to this moment. How could I possibly not get tickets to at least one of her three Sydney shows? How could the girl writing love letters to every Taylor Swift era on her blog not get tickets to The Eras Tour?
It was a delightful Saturday afternoon in Newtown, as I browsed racks of sequinned dresses, taking photos of my favourites. The shop assistant asked me if I needed help and I politely declined. I couldn’t tell her I was shopping for an event 9 months in advance that I didn’t even have tickets to yet. I knew the whole thing was a little unhinged, but saying it aloud would make it even more so. Every few seconds I would call out to Tim, trying to bring his attention to another glittery and overpriced outfit. “Are you sure you don’t need help?” the shop assistant asked while I was checking the tag on a mannequin’s outfit. I felt inclined to accept her help. “Well, I was just wondering if you have this in a size small?”. Before I knew it, I had a rack of sequinned outfits to try on.
The two shop assistants were so lovely and made me feel comfortable enough to share my secret. “Well, I know it’s lame, but I’m actually shopping for a costume for The Eras Tour” I said squinting my face, pursing my lips. One of them replied “I think it is really fun to dress up and get excited about things” which was surprisingly refreshing for me to hear. I feel like I’m constantly having to dilute my enthusiasm for people who think excitement is lame and uncool. “Are you a Taylor Swift fan?” the other shop assistant asked Tim while I was in the change room. “Well, I’m definitely not as big of a fan as Kayla, but she has definitely made me a Swiftie” he replied. The girl laughed, finding his use of ‘Swiftie’ endearing. “Oh don’t lie…you love Taylor!” I said, popping my head out of the changing room.
Sure, the concert wasn’t for another 9 months but a little organisation never hurt anyone. I justified the whole thing by comparing it to brides who buy their dresses years in advance. “This is my Met Gala” I told Tim.
“We had a lot of people come here to buy outfits for the Harry Styles concert” the shop assistant told us. I explained that not organising an outfit ahead of the Harry Styles concert was a big part of why I wanted to purchase my Eras costume well in advance. “I was a victim of the feather boa crisis” I told her. She laughed, which was an interesting response to hearing about my trauma.
I left empty handed because even I could recognise amid my Lavender Haze full of glitter, sparkles and sequins that buying an outfit for an event you don’t have tickets to yet is a bad omen.
Cut to: the presale on Wednesday. I was flooded with messages of support from friends the night before. Variations of “Good luck tomorrow!!!” and “You got this!!! I believe in you!!!”. Truthfully, I had never felt more supported. I practised navigating the Ticketek website by pretending to buy tickets to a football game. Card details were saved in iCloud Keychain. My friend Sarah was going to help me all the way from Canberra. Tim told me I needed to take care of myself and that I was making myself sick from stress. “I don’t think you understand what is at stake here, Tim” I said with dark circles and my lips splitting and bleeding from dehydration.
I woke up with a violent flu, but I had no time to waste. My body hunched over the keyboard, sipping on ginger and lemon tea to soothe my throat, my skin getting progressively more pale by the minute. I texted Sarah that I would send her 3x heart Emojis if I got in and she said she would do the same, in case we didn’t have time to compose a proper text amid the ticket buying stress. After hours and hours of it almost being my turn to purchase tickets, all the presale tickets were gone. I wrapped myself in my weighted blanket and collapsed on my bed, replying to all my text messages with sad face Emojis. Despite the bloodbath, I was blindly optimistic about trying again on the Friday for the general sale tickets.
Come Friday, I’m still sick and after ruminating all of Thursday, I was entering The Great War with wounds and leftover anxiety from the presale. I was thrilled Taylor had added a fourth show to appease the demand, and was fairly certain that I would get tickets. They may not be the tickets I had dreamed of, but I would be in the stadium and that’s all that mattered. “LET US IN” Sarah messaged me in frustration after waiting hours and hours and not even getting a chance to try and purchase tickets. It was becoming abundantly clear I had brought a knife to a gun fight. My body was breaking down when I started getting messages from people with screenshots of Ticketek Tweets saying only single seat tickets were left. We had a couple of close calls where we got in but the site moved so slow that it timed us out. Shortly after, only VIP packages were left. I just couldn’t get past that damn Ticketek lounge for the life of me. “I’m going to close all my tabs now and give you some space” Sarah texted me. It was game over and I hardly had anytime to emotionally process the loss because my body was so unwell. I will spare you the details of my bodily functions but let’s just say that I was a soldier who was returning half her weight.
Statistically more people missed out on tickets than didn’t, but (un)fortunately everyone I know who wanted them got them. The world has never felt more unjust. But truly, I’m really happy for you all. Ignore my face twitching.
I’ve officially entered my Reputation era. I will be slithering like a snake trying to find reseller tickets. This is not the end. I will be the actress staring in your bad dreams, and I’ll also be at The Eras Tour.
Are you Ready For It?
Reputation 🐍
On the 24th of August 2017, Taylor released her track Look What You Made Me Do after an over a year long hiatus and blacking out her social media.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. I’m dead.” I said to my sister over the phone 13 seconds into the song.
This is the official transcript of our conversation after listening to the track:
Me: “Oh my GOD”
Melissa: “I know”
Me: “Holy shit. She’s pissed”
Me: “I’m like, dead. She’s definitely in for a new image”
Melissa: “Oh yeah!”
Me: “Holy shit. I’m so ready”
I had unintentionally answered Taylor’s question in Ready For It? before the track had even been released.
In order to truly appreciate the Reputation era, it is important to understand how Taylor got there. It is her most fascinating era. One that proved her to be a marketing genius and a wildly resilient person and artist. After a massively successful album and world tour with 1989, Taylor had become a fully-fledged pop icon, reaching career heights beyond her wildest dreams. In March of 2016, Taylor decided to take her first extended hiatus since the beginning of her career in 2006. It turned out to be an incredibly challenging, formative and delicate time in her life. With a string of public feuds, failed romances and reaching a level of fame that left her overexposed, Taylor found calm amid the chaos by moving to London and nurturing her relationship with actor Joe Alwyn.
After a year of number one hits, the rise and fall of her ‘Girl Squad’ and parties that had her “feeling like Gatsby for that whole year” to then hiding out and having her security team make like a military mission to prevent her from being seen. “Nobody physically saw me for a year” Taylor said in her 2019 Miss Americana Netflix documentary. There was even speculation that she was being moved around by her security team in a suitcase. Taylor’s priorities had shifted and she wanted to find balance and normalcy in her life, even if her life was anything but normal.
In July of 2016, it had become popular to hate Taylor Swift with the #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty hashtag trending worldwide and people spamming Taylor’s comment sections with snake Emojis. This online hate campaign was the direct result of Kim Kardashian posting videos of a private phone call conversation between Taylor and Kanye West. The videos were edited and later proven to have left out important parts of the conversation, however much damage was already done to Taylor’s career, mental health and family before this revelation. Taylor responded at the time with what I assume was the first ever public statement screenshotted from the Notes app, famously saying “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.” Kanye’s weird obsession with Taylor is something that needs to be studied, but one thing we know about Taylor is she always comes back stronger than a 90s trend. And that her nemeses will defeat themselves, before she has a chance to swing.
For many artists, this type of public scrutiny and cancellation would’ve destroyed their careers forever. Whether you are a Taylor Swift fan or not, you have to respect her ability to rise and reinvent herself. Jesus may have done it first but Taylor did it better. On top of this, she had a very public breakup with DJ Calvin Harris which resulted in him lashing out at her on Twitter, her Bad Blood with Katy Perry was still unresolved and her whirlwind romance with actor Tom Hiddleston received extensive media attention. She had been dubbed “Regina George in sheep’s clothing” and was accused of being cunning, calculated and a liar. It was another example of Taylor being held to a different standard than to her male counterparts. Men in power, who have a strong point of view and take their careers seriously are called The Man. When women have personal fallouts or are the Mastermind behind their own operation, they are labelled crazy, manipulative and dangerous. Taylor has learned this the hard way and has used it to her advantage. I think people underestimated her because of her earlier wholesome country girl image, but after years of media scrutiny and being adored by the public only to be rejected again, Taylor was all grown up and back with a vengeance. Her makeover and new attitude was the media’s doing and a response to all of her criticism. In LWYMMD, Taylor sings “But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time, Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time”. It was reminiscent of when American philosopher Blair Waldorf said “Haven’t you heard? I’m the crazy bitch around here.”
Taylor leaned into public criticism and created an album marketing campaign that addressed her public image and put her back in the drivers seat. It was the old tale of the good girl gone bad, except she wasn’t spiralling out of control, she was very much in control. She opted out of doing press interviews like she had done for previous album releases and had an unapologetic attitude. Bangs with wavy hair, camouflage, dark lipstick, platform boots and black sequinned outfits had become her new uniform. It has become the blueprint for artists to reset their social media approaching a new era, but Taylor was actually the first one to do it. Seeing her profile without a picture or any content was a very puzzling and confusing thing at the time. Ahead of releasing Reputation, she posted to her Instagram that “There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation.” She was always one step ahead of the media, offering no explanations and allowed her music speak for itself. It all came together when she embarked on The Reputation Stadium Tour, which went on to become the highest grossing tour of all time.
If you compare the concert footage from The 1989 World Tour and The Reputation Stadium Tour, there’s a massive difference. Footage from The 1989 World Tour shows Taylor looking frail and exhausted, with every step memorised and perfected, whereas The Reputation Stadium Tour revealed a healthier, happier and more carefree Taylor who seemed to be genuinely enjoying the experience and allowing herself to be in the moment.
Tim and I went to The Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018 and it was truly the best concert I’ve ever been to, and we could not have had worst seats. We were right up the back of the stadium but still managed to feel connected to Taylor. There’s something so liberating about having terrible seats. You don’t need to get to the stadium early to fight for your spot in the standing area. You can just be obnoxious and have the best time, because that is all that is required of you. Charli XCX was the opening act. I wore black eyeliner and straightened my hair. Tim played the invisible triangle during Gorgeous. We screamed-sang along to Love Story. I was also the only person in our seating area who knew all the lyrics to the Long Live/New Year’s Day mashup. Long Live may have been on the Speak Now album, but I think the lyrics of gratitude for her fans held more weight this tour after everything Taylor had been through. “I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you” Taylor delicately sang over her piano, looking out to the sold out crowd who stood by her.
Aside from her music, a large reason why I have remained connected to Taylor as an artist over the years is how much of our lives have had parallels. When I tell people I’m in my Reputation era, I don’t mean I’m feuding with Kanye West, I mean I’m not leaving the house and I’ve deleted all of my pictures off social media. Like Taylor, I had a hard year in 2016 and chose to find solace and peace in 2017. I had been broken down and was slowly rebuilding my life. It is a time in my life I now look back on very necessary for my development. A chapter that led me to an immense amount of gratitude for the people in my life. I now look back on that season of my life fondly because while I was laying brick by brick, overwhelmed by all that needed to be done, I looked over to my side and saw my partner Tim looking back and smiling at me, and my wonderful family reminding me of who I was and how much I was loved.
I consider Reputation to be more romantic than Lover. Lover may be Taylor’s most overtly love-themed album but Reputation is surprisingly sweet, delicate and let us in on her most mature and private relationship yet. In Dress she references a love that “Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me.” Her relationship with Joe Alwyn brought her a sense of comfort and protection during a challenging time in her life. A time where she was afraid her career may never be revived. Anyone can love you at the best of times, but if your love can blossom behind closed doors, when the world isn’t watching, that’s when you know you have something real. Perhaps the most romantic thing someone can do for their partner is make them feel like they’re enough all on their own. In King of My Heart, Taylor sings “Drinking beer out of plastic cups, say you fancy me, not fancy stuff, baby, all at once, this is enough.”
Coming down from the high of a world tour and wildly successful album must be difficult, particularly if you don’t have a balanced and healthy private life. To build a regular life with routine, morning coffee, boundaries and genuine relationships would allow Taylor to find happiness in a way that she may not have experienced since becoming famous.
In the Miss Americana documentary, Taylor said:
“I felt alone, I felt really bitter. I felt sort of like a wounded animal lashing out. I figured I had to reset everything. I had to reconstruct an entire belief system for my own personal sanity. I also was falling in love with someone who had a wonderfully normal, balanced life. We decided together we wanted our relationship to be private. Even though it [Taylor's 2016] was really horrible, I was happy. But I wasn’t happy in the way I was trained to be happy. It was happiness without anyone else’s input. We were just…happy.”
Taylor also reevaluated her relationship with social media and her fans. She used to allow all-access into her private life, posting birthday shoutouts for friends and pictures from her 4th of July parties, to now only really sharing about her upcoming projects and the odd picture of her cats. She learned to live her life without public opinion and approval. In Call it What You Want Taylor sings “Nobody’s heard from me for months, I’m doing better than I ever was” and I think that song captures the true essence of the Reputation album.
My only criticism of the Reputation album rollout was the choice of singles. If the singles were different, the album would be remembered more fondly by the public. It was important for Taylor to release LWYMMD as the lead single to acknowledge the controversy with Kanye and allow her to rewrite the narrative. It also had a music video that foreshadowed The Eras Tour where she dressed up as her former selves in order to tell everyone that the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. However, I also feel that could’ve been achieved with I Did Something Bad as the lead single because it has similar lyrical themes, and is just a better song in my opinion. The second single should have been Don’t Blame Me as it has a powerhouse chorus and one of Taylor’s most provocative songs yet. I was happy that Delicate was a single as it gave us a glimpse into her relationship with Joe Alwyn and how it blossomed amid the drama. It also references the album title when she sings “My reputation’s never been worse, so you must like me for me”. Lastly, obviously fan favourite Getaway Car should’ve been a single. Her relationship with Tom Hiddleston will forever remain one of the world’s biggest unresolved mysteries. Oh what I would do to be a fly on the wall at the Met Gala in 2016! Taylor was the co-chair and she managed to dance up a storm with Tom Hiddleston on the dancefloor and made such an impression on him that he was later seen wearing an ‘I ❤️ TS’ singlet. Then somewhere brooding in a corner was Joe Alwyn with his buzzcut. Her power.
Watching this era unfold from the sidelines taught me many valuable lessons, particularly the importance of prioritising creativity. In a 2019 interview with Zane Lowe from Apple Music, Taylor shared the advice she gives to new artists is to “Don’t let anything stop you from making art. Just make things.” Being a creative takes an enormous amount of dedication, vulnerability and tenacity and when constantly criticised, it would be easy to forgo creating and sharing your work. Taylor has continued to challenge herself creatively and it is important to have female public figures, who can show young women that although people will want to tare you down, you cannot allow them to stop you from doing what you love.
This period of her life also forced Taylor to become more versed in politics after regretfully not speaking out against Donald Trump in 2016. She was finding her voice and actively rejecting any guidance against speaking her truth. In the Miss Americana documentary Taylor says to her Dad “I need you to forgive me because I’m doing it” when talking about her plans to publicly share her disapproval of politician Marsha Blackburn. The documentary also details how a radio DJ named David Mueller groped her at a meet and greet during The Red Tour in 2013. He attempted to sue her for $3 million declaring her accusations were false and cost him his job. Taylor countersued for sexual assault asking for just $1. The documentary shows Taylor talking to a sold out crowd in Tampa, Florida about how one year ago she was in a courtroom in Denver, Colorado. She described the dehumanising process and offered empathy for women who had been through a similar ordeal. As she comes off stage, Taylor’s Mum hugs her and expresses that she is proud of her for making the best out of a bad situation, or more specifically a “shit bag of shit”. Taylor hugs her, closes her eyes and says “It’s okay. It’s over now.” The symbolic $1 was included in the bath of diamonds and jewels in the LWYMMD music video. Taylor has become an advocate for women everywhere, and is a great example of a woman who stands up for herself after years of good-girl conditioning.
Some artists, even despite their best efforts, have been unable to revive their careers after media backlash or a ‘Flop Era’ and I wonder how things may have turned out differently for them had they been in Taylor’s position. To go on and have four wildly successful albums after Reputation in the space of four years, spanning across multiple genres, two career defining tours and to be bigger than ever. I really can’t think of any artists today who could’ve done it.
All of that to say, if you didn’t love me during my Reputation era, you don’t deserve me in my Eras-era.