Taylor Swift - ‘Opalite’ music video

[Jill 30,665]

1 hour 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.

But there's no indication of this. Sure, it's an interpretation you can make I guess, but the onyx/opalite metaphor follows up from earlier metaphors of night/day pretty explicitly: "Sleepless in the onyx night /
But now the sky is opalite" says the chorus after it's implied she didn't know love or how to love/be loved. The song is a run of the mill pop song about the ups and downs of love, like the ones Taylor always makes. Nothing in the song says anything of what you wrote.

Edited February 5 by Jill

[ThisGuyTony 32,764]

And she keeps getting away with releasing the most mediocre bland “music”  

[Alxjcgn 1,558]

How nice of her to wait a while so that she can spike up in streams and whatever again. Like bitch, go get married and just enjoy your life 

Edit: Sorry if it sounds rude, but I just can't stand her anymore since her last album

Edited February 5 by Alxjcgn

[NemoMyName 1,575]

So she's really really hollow, only caring about the numbers. She have the artistry of a moldy wall.

[HotLikeMexico 5,914]

2 hours 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.

I thought people were exaggerating till I looked at the lyrics and then saw his dating history... big yikes.

[julz 7,839]

Im excited for this!!! Opalite is such an earworm, and already a hit here. 

[zevthepaparazzo 1,453]

Ugh

[Obobo 3,738]

like a cockroach, she just keeps coming back

[LGAte 256]

3 hours ago, Jill said:

But there's no indication of this. Sure, it's an interpretation you can make I guess, but the onyx/opalite metaphor follows up from earlier metaphors of night/day pretty explicitly: "Sleepless in the onyx night /
But now the sky is opalite" says the chorus after it's implied she didn't know love or how to love/be loved. The song is a run of the mill pop song about the ups and downs of love, like the ones Taylor always makes. Nothing in the song says anything of what you wrote.

Yeah and for someone who touts themselves as a mastermind and a poet she couldn’t have seen that conclusion drawn?
 

Put yourself in the position of the black woman that was his ex hearing that she was “darkness” before he met his “Opalite” dream white girl….

 

are we pretending Taylor is dumb now????

 

also contextually Taylor started openly hanging out with a lot of MAGA people and I don’t care how much she donates (rich people donate to both democrats and republicans allll the time), it’s weird to choose this as a metaphor when you know how the MAGA people you are around would eat this narrative up of the white girl being the dream and the ex being the darkness.
 

maybe just don’t even write a song about his exes and enjoy your man? 
 

it’s just a very odd thing to me to claim you are growing as an artist and trying to be a good person and intelligent and everything….and then you so blatantly write a song like this with disregard to the context of the black women and how they might feel differently.

Edited February 5 by LGAte

[Flippy 13,731]

I’m so excited! My favorite off TLOASG! 

[Lucas 28,922]

5 hours ago, MindTrapper said:

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

Apparently it's because Billboard changed its rules, Youtube data isn't taken into consideration anymore on the Hot 100. Girlie didn't want to lose a few charts points from people that would stream the song on Youtube 

[VTV 13,184]

Shes gonna be overexposed again huh. Thanks Gagz for The Requiem. 

[Kayi 2,929]

Swifties, assemble !!

[bpmMonkey 6,815]

Who is she trying to block this time? 

[elegidadedios 3,285]

Interesting! I wonder if this is what artists will start doing now since views from YT don't count anymore on streaming numbers. May YouTube will try to push deals with artists/companies to release music videos there too. Mhmm. Let's see what happens

Edited February 5 by elegidadedios