Taylor Swift’s fans are still recovering from her springtime “dirtbag summer” with Matty Healy.
It’s hard to watch someone you love make a mistake, even if the love is parasocial. Swifties should count themselves lucky that their long national nightmare only spanned a few weeks.
But Taylor has had other entanglements with men who were, frankly, worse than the controversial The 1975 singer by far.
John Mayer comes to mind. But Taylor is asking her fans to not go on the warpath. Not on her behalf.
On Saturday, June 24, Taylor Swift performed to a crowd of innumerable fans in Minneapolis.
This was, of course, a stop along her “Eras” tour. Taylor has been performing numerous hits, to widespread acclaim among Swifties.
Some of her songs have been surprises. Some, fans believe, revealed hints about her life — even revelations about her split with Joe Alwyn.
And one of those “surprise” songs was a very old one. “Dear John” dates back to 2010, to Taylor’s Speak Now era.
She has, of course, begun to release “Taylor’s Version” editions of her music in order to reclaim some portion of her ownership. We all remember that Scooter Braun shadiness, right? Right.
“Dear John” describes Taylor’s dalliance with an older man. The ballad refers to “dark twisted games.” The subject of the song has never been a mystery.
Taylor and John Mayer dated back in 2009.
There are several things to know about John Mayer. He is significantly older than Taylor. Rumor has it that he has a pretty sizable dong. He is famously good at sex.
Oh, and perhaps the best known thing of all is that he’s a terrible person. Like, deeply terrible. He once described that prodigious dong of his as “racist.” Not on a hot mic, but in an interview. Total douchecanoe.
Sometimes, Taylor’s performances can cause Swifties to pounce — verbally, and on social media — upon whichever ex they identify as the offender.
However, Taylor had a request ahead of performing the acoustic portion of her concert on Saturday.
“I was hoping to ask you that as we lead up to this album coming out,” she began. “I would love for that kindness and gentleness to extend into our internet activities.”
Taylor emphasized that she has a lot of pride in her album’s songs. But that doesn’t mean that she still resonates with the pain from her, let us not forget, teenage relationships and breakups.
“I’m 33 years old,” she noted. Later this year, she will turn 34. “I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19.”
Taylor added: “I’m not putting this album out so that you can go and should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”
You know what? We’re going to have to agree.
People shouldn’t swarm all over John Mayer’s name on social media for heartbreak that Taylor felt well over a decade ago.
The guy has given people plenty of reasons to give him a hard time for his own sake.