fundamentally people have been trying to push taylor swift into some kind of britney-esque public meltdown for over a decade and they're angry it hasn't worked. everything she does publicly is evidence that it didn't work. they hate her writing songs about her relationships with the press and the public because they hate that she's expressing those feelings in a work of art that she chooses to release and profit from instead of by breaking down sobbing in a parking lot for the benefit of paparazzi. they hate that she never had to check herself into a psychiatric facility. they hate that she was cold and collected and snarky during her SA trial instead of breaking down crying on the stand.

i wanna be clear, here; i'm not blaming britney for what the press (and her family, for that matter) did to her. i'm not saying that taylor is a better person or stronger or smarter for not breaking down in a grocery store, for not breaking down on the stand, for expressing her feelings on how she was treated through music and art instead of through public meltdowns. i do think taylor is strong and smart; i also think she's very lucky to have had a solid support system from the very beginning of her career. (i genuinely in my heart believe that if taylor had a family like britney's, she could very well have ended up similarly.)

my point here is that people love watching women suffer and be humiliated. the press loves it because it's profitable, and it's profitable because people are obsessed with it. only once you've been publicly humiliated can you receive public sympathy as a woman. and taylor just refuses to do that. everything she shares about her life and her inner world is on her own terms and in her own words. taylor has the audacity to be loved without having suffered (publicly) enough to have "earned" it.