Why Can't We Be Normal About Taylor Swift? | Gen X Meets Gen Z (XwhyZ)

Faith was four years old when she started singing “Our Song” everywhere we went.

The grocery store. The car. The little ice cream shop where the lady behind the counter thought she was the cutest thing she had ever seen.

She has been a Taylor Swift fan for as long as Taylor Swift has existed, and I have had a front-row seat watching my daughter grow up right alongside Taylor’s career.

So when we sat down in a coffee shop to plan our next XwhyZ episode, it was only a matter of time before we landed here.

Faith came in with a thesis, a notebook full of research, and a warning:

We have never been able to be normal about this woman.

Her argument is that Taylor was never really the underdog.

She has been a businesswoman since she was 16, running her own career in an industry built by and for men, while playing the girl next door who wears T-shirts and sits on the bleachers.

That gap between the relatable persona and the mogul is where a lot of our complicated feelings come from.

We loved her when she was humble, then got tired of her acting surprised.

We love her success, then bristle when she asks for more of it.

And then we got to the part where we actually disagreed.