Taylor Swift - ‘Opalite’ music video

[Teletubby 156,966]

 

Edited February 8 by Teletubby

[elsamars 6,889]

Can she not

[LGAte 415]

I think this song dog whistles pro-whiteness. 

and I think people who say that’s a bad take….should consider how smart Taylor is…and how weird it is to write a song about this in that way.
 

Let’s be very clear. because I know people will come for me….but even if “Opalite” wasn’t written with intentional racism, it is still deeply ignorant, and that matters even more when you are someone with the power, wealth, platform, and self-proclaimed “mastermind” status of Taylor Swift. Context matters. This is a song about a man whose dating history was primarily women of color. Then he dates Taylor. Suddenly his life becomes “opalite,” a white, translucent, glowing gemstone associated with purity and light. That framing is not neutral. The narrative becomes: he dates Black and brown women, then he dates Taylor, and now his world is luminous, rare, elevated, purified. You do not get to write that and pretend it exists in a vacuum.

This is classic aestheticized whiteness. Not overt racism. Not slurs. But symbolic hierarchy. Whiteness as restoration. Whiteness as upgrade. Whiteness as glow. And before anyone says “she didn’t mean it like that,” here’s the thing: Taylor wants credit as a high-brow lyricist. She markets herself as hyper-intentional. She dissects metaphors. She plants easter eggs. She controls narrative. She literally calls herself a mastermind. A real high-brow lyricist thinks about cultural context. A real high-brow lyricist asks how this reads in the real world, what it implies, and what it reinforces, especially when you are a white billionaire writing about a man’s romantic past with women of color.

She could have chosen literally any metaphor. She chose a white gemstone. That is not accidental in outcome, even if it was accidental in intent. And intent does not erase impact. What makes this worse is the privilege baked into it. Taylor lives in a bubble where she gets to romanticize her own desirability without ever having to sit with how that story lands for Black women. The song centers her elevation while implicitly downgrading the women who came before. That is textbook white feminism.

It is also why people are right to side-eye who she’s aligning herself with this era. When your art starts leaning into purity imagery, hierarchy narratives, and romanticized superiority, people are allowed to ask questions. Especially in a political climate where MAGA aesthetics thrive on coded language rather than explicit statements. Dog whistles do not announce themselves. They arrive wrapped in poetry.

So no, this is not about calling Taylor a cartoon villain or pretending she is wearing a hood. It is about acknowledging that she used imagery that reinforces a racialized hierarchy, failed to interrogate it, and released it anyway. If you want the praise of being a serious lyricist, you also inherit the responsibility. She missed that responsibility here, and that deserves to be called out.

Edited February 5 by LGAte

[Decodekid 29,439]

I’ll give her a pass for not debuting it last weekend 

Edited February 5 by Decodekid

[IllusionLover 7,166]

Finally!!!!  I'm excited to see what she did for this video

Edited February 5 by IllusionLover

[Cody James 1,537]

1 minute ago, LGAte said:

I think this song dog whistles whiteness. 
 

What does her song “Red” “dog whistle”? 

[Teletubby 156,966]

5 minutes ago, LGAte said:

I think this song dog whistles whiteness. 
 

where?

[DESTROY UR DISEASE 15,072]

oh so she is releasing this as a single, I already started to think this would never happen

[timdrake 1,516]

yeah yeah cool cool whatever, how about she restocks the Reputation vinyls instead, that's all I care about rn

[elsamars 6,889]

They already ditched YouTube as the music video platform since views don't count anymore.

[DESTROY UR DISEASE 15,072]

3 minutes ago, elsamars said:

They already ditched YouTube as the music video platform since views don't count anymore.

OH WAIT I didn't even notice they're doing a different premiere date for YouTube until you pointed it out  

[MindTrapper 68]

As per expected she is already jumping on Spotify/AM premiere, but kudos to her team.

[Hydrangea 6,700]

Must be running low on jet fuel the poor thing 

[PartySick 167,721]

42 minutes ago, LGAte said:

I think this song dog whistles pro-whiteness. 

and I think people who say that’s a bad take….should consider how smart Taylor is…and how weird it is to write a song about this in that way.
 

Let’s be very clear. because I know people will come for me….but even if “Opalite” wasn’t written with intentional racism, it is still deeply ignorant, and that matters even more when you are someone with the power, wealth, platform, and self-proclaimed “mastermind” status of Taylor Swift. Context matters. This is a song about a man whose dating history was primarily women of color. Then he dates Taylor. Suddenly his life becomes “opalite,” a white, translucent, glowing gemstone associated with purity and light. That framing is not neutral. The narrative becomes: he dates Black and brown women, then he dates Taylor, and now his world is luminous, rare, elevated, purified. You do not get to write that and pretend it exists in a vacuum.

This is classic aestheticized whiteness. Not overt racism. Not slurs. But symbolic hierarchy. Whiteness as restoration. Whiteness as upgrade. Whiteness as glow. And before anyone says “she didn’t mean it like that,” here’s the thing: Taylor wants credit as a high-brow lyricist. She markets herself as hyper-intentional. She dissects metaphors. She plants easter eggs. She controls narrative. She literally calls herself a mastermind. A real high-brow lyricist thinks about cultural context. A real high-brow lyricist asks how this reads in the real world, what it implies, and what it reinforces, especially when you are a white billionaire writing about a man’s romantic past with women of color.

She could have chosen literally any metaphor. She chose a white gemstone. That is not accidental in outcome, even if it was accidental in intent. And intent does not erase impact. What makes this worse is the privilege baked into it. Taylor lives in a bubble where she gets to romanticize her own desirability without ever having to sit with how that story lands for Black women. The song centers her elevation while implicitly downgrading the women who came before. That is textbook white feminism.

It is also why people are right to side-eye who she’s aligning herself with this era. When your art starts leaning into purity imagery, hierarchy narratives, and romanticized superiority, people are allowed to ask questions. Especially in a political climate where MAGA aesthetics thrive on coded language rather than explicit statements. Dog whistles do not announce themselves. They arrive wrapped in poetry.

So no, this is not about calling Taylor a cartoon villain or pretending she is wearing a hood. It is about acknowledging that she used imagery that reinforces a racialized hierarchy, failed to interrogate it, and released it anyway. If you want the praise of being a serious lyricist, you also inherit the responsibility. She missed that responsibility here, and that deserves to be called out.

Her stans always tout her ability to hide things in her lyrics until the hidden thing is potentially racist, then we're digging too deep  

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 28,786]

1 hour ago, elsamars said:

Can she not

She’s like the only artist who can save post-album singles… her ambition is very needed