Taylor Swift has publicly addressed her feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, telling a packed arena that she has reclaimed the snake motif to counter the “bullying” she has received.
Between songs at the first leg of her Reputation tour in Glendale, Arizona, Swift spoke about the time she claimed Kanye never had permission to reference her on the track Famous – before Kardashian posted Snapchat footage of a phone call between the two musicians which proved the exact opposite.
When the footage was posted, someone deemed Swift a snake. The taunt caught on.
“And then a lot of people called me a lot of names on social media,” Swift told her adoring audience.
And I went through some really low times for a while because of it. I went through some times when I didn’t know if I was gonna get to do this anymore. And I guess the snakes, I wanted to send a message to you guys that if someone uses name calling to bully you on social media, and even if a lot of people jump on board with it, that doesn’t have to defeat you. It can strengthen you instead.
After discussing her Tyrion Lannister-esque approach to insults, Swift said “I think the lesson is that you shouldn’t care so much if you feel misunderstood by a lot of people who don’t know you, as long as you feel understood by the people who do know you, the people who show up for you, and the people who see you as a human being.”
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Critics noted that despite omitting names from her speech, Swift still revelled in performing tracks written about the feud. That’s obviously her prerogative, and the speech coupled with her song choices demonstrated we’re way past the Taylor Swift who wished to be excluded from the narrative – this is a Taylor Swift attempting to reclaim the narrative.
Oh, also, the snakey set designs also echoed Meshuggah‘s Catch Thirtythree artwork.
Is Swift trying to tell us the pressure of the conflict has turned her into a fan of Swedish technical death metal? Undoubtedly, yes. Expect a cover of New Millennium Cyanide Christ at her next gig.
