In my most recent post, I speculated that the reason pseudonyms on the internet enjoy telling Emily Ratajkowski or Margot Robbie or Taylor Swift of whomever that they’re ordinary-looking could be that these are men who do not leave the house. I did not say that I knew this—pseudonyms are pseudonyms, I too have seen the New Yorker cartoon from a million years ago, where the face behind the posting is a dog—but it was a theory. I did not point to any of the (many! countless, truly) individual accounts and claim that they were men, let alone men who had not left their homes.
As for why I theorized this, it was not to be like, ugh, loser men, nor to do a think-of-the-mens. It was a neutral guess as to what’s going on, and if anything is more sympathetic than the usual interpretation, namely that the people posting on these lines are committed misogynists.
Anyway! I have heard, publicly and directly, from the person who had had the thoughts on Swift’s silhouette, and in the interests of transparency, but more than that, some other stuff I’m going to get to, here goes, from the well-named @AttentionMaster on Twitter:
Phoebe, I enjoyed your Substack post, but I do want to clarify: my profile pic is Soupy Sales, but I'm not a man, let alone an incel. I'm a woman in her 40s who works in the fashion industry, has a grad degree in performance studies, & an abiding interest in deciphering culture.
The Attention Master—whose avatar is indeed a sketch of a man, and not one I had heard of, mes excuses—takes me to task for “constructing an adversary you would like to have, rather than contending charitably with the one you do have.”
Well. They do say that women’s worst critics are one another, which might account for the initial post, which was, recall, not merely about unflattering leotards, but waiting breathlessly for someone to admit that Swift is no longer thin. I repeat, this time with the link:
Who will be the first person publicly to acknowledge that Taylor Swift is no longer “thin”, and that those sequined leotards they've imposed on her for some inscrutable reason hardly flatter her mid-section?
This is no mere discussion of costume choices. It is an old fashioned calling-a-woman-fat. That it comes from a woman and not a man (allegedly; do you think I have investigated this? and with gender self-ID, what would that even entail? but it seems too specific to be made up) does indeed cast doubt on whether this critic of Swift’s appearance is driven by ignorance about the contours of the natural female form.
It does not, however, tell us that the overall phenomenon of famously hot women being called mid is in fact driven by 40-something women with grad degrees in performance studies, though it would be hilarious if that turns out to be the case. And no, I cannot say that anything in my lived experience makes me think a woman would be less likely than a man to look at a photo of an obviously thin woman and say that the woman isn’t thin.
If anything, the knowledge that the person snarking about Swift’s “mid-section” is a woman who works in fashion makes me less charitable about the whole thing. This is comparing Swift not to AI sexbots but to runway models, who are indeed, once again—fashion being cyclical—not just thin but emaciated-looking. Or, to be charitable (why though tbh) it is about the leotards themselves.
What are the leotards? It’s like a glittery Speedo. As modest and pragmatic as you can get while still being in something tight and limb-revealing. If the point were that these costumes are in keeping with Swift’s image as someone girls find relatable, then that would be… true? It’s like her haircut, with the bangs. If you’re going to be someone girls identify with, you can’t be the intimidatingly hotter-than-thou queen bee. Even if, based on what you physically look like, you very easily could be that with different styling. If the Attention Master had wanted to have that conversation, we could have had that conversation, or rather, she and people more interested in Swift than I am could have done so.
No, what jumped out was, rather obviously, the calling of a thin woman not-thin. If this sort of thing annoys me, I guess it’s that I grew up in a culture big (so to speak) on doing that. I am, dare I say, a not-thin thin woman myself. As in, I know what I look like, and do not have body dysmorphia. But I know that there are worlds (ballet, fashion, certain neighborhoods at certain times) where women no one actually believes to be anything but slim are picked apart for, I suppose, taking up any space at all. I know the damage this does, not to 40-year-olds like me who live in Canada and work from home and are probably guilty of caring too little about their personal appearances, but to girls and young women, and to some women my own age and older.
So no, I do not look on this generously. I liked it better when I thought it was just incels.
I think, setting the very stupid Taylor Swift Fat stuff aside, two things are true:
1) Taylor's aesthetic is very "for the girls." A lot of the Eras costuming evokes playing dress up, especially one song where she runs around in a velvet cape. Appearing to be super thin is just not relevant to what she's doing. I think framing this as "she is deliberately mediocre to be relatable" (to paraphrase your interlocutor) is disingenuous because…
2) The Eras tour is incredibly physically demanding. Taylor is not a great dancer but she's still working the stage and she is basically on there for the full three and a half hours, the costume changes are quite fast. People also don't go there to be thrilled by her dancing, they go there because they love her songwriting.
In general I think there's a specific aesthetic that fashion people tend to value, which is this hyper-thin, woman-as-canvas look. (There is a post about that coming, though not by me.) Taylor does favor aesthetics that feel more attainable by normal people, but I don't think that's really mediocrity so much as a different set of values. She did try the hyper thin look and she (imho) looked pretty bad and also has been open about how it meant she had very little energy for performing. (edit: here's the clip of her talking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTou2PKsiKs)
"I liked it better when I thought it was just incels." If this doesn't encapsulate my descent into adult cynicism....
The little insight I have into male communities revealed that there are plenty of men who think her NFL guy is out of her league, which can only be based on appearance and is also so bizarre, probably the very shut-ins you talked about.
(In my fandom corners I've unfortunately witnessed a lot of fat shaming of male celebrities as well which is so bizarre, not your beat, but it's another case of "oh this is a bigger problem than I thought"-pill situation. It also doesn't revolve around fat men, but those who happen to have love handles or a slight tummy bulge in candid pics. Perhaps another shut-in phenomenon.)