Rapturists run around preaching nonsense about tsunamis wiping out cities and civilizations resorting to Hunger Games-like factions to stay alive. My version of this has been warning people that criticism as a profession will no longer exist in a few years, telling anyone who will listen to engage with critical media while they still can until I’m blue in the face.
This week, it was announced that Pitchfork, the music-centric digital publication that helped changed the lives of hundreds of indie artists and liberal arts students alike, is merging with the fashion-forward men’s magazine GQ. As you can imagine, the consequences that this will have on the already uncertain future of criticism will be nothing short of devastating.
Unlike Rolling Stone, Pitchfork never feared the backlash that came with a well-deserved punch below the belt — in fact, it’s probably what the publication is best known for. While other brands coddled pop stars with networths beyond our wildest dreams, Pitchfork refused to compromise its voice, integrity, and vision. If an album didn’t live up to the hype, they wouldn’t just call it bad and move on — they’d double, triple, even quadruple-down on their opinions, leaving no room for softened blows or open-ended takeaways. We watched the occasional ego massage to spare celebrity relations become the industry-wide practice in just a few short years, but the approach of “ending on a positive note” was not one that Pitchfork ever lived by. And thank goodness for it.
Time and again, the writers willingly (and commendably) resigned themselves to losing battles against dozens of stan armies in the proverbial shooting range that is the internet, all in the name of good music criticism. In its final years, it often felt like Pitchfork was the only remaining publication brave enough to do so.
You don’t need to be in my industry to know that criticism is rapidly being devalued, which is why most people agree with my catastrophic belief — at least, they do initially. But as soon as I present my leading piece of evidence, something shifts. Their faces fall as if I’ve just insulted a beloved member of their family, and their body language quickly changes in a way that lets me know they’re disengaging — perhaps out of loyalty, or more accurately, out of fear.
The evidence in question is: Taylor Swift.
Much like the rapturists who believe our only savor is the great Lizard King in the sky, the mere mention of Swift immediately makes me lose all sense of credibility, due to the fact that I’m famously not a fan of the pop star. But in many ways, the dismissal of my dissenting opinion only proves my point.
Swift doesn’t have a thick skin when it comes to critiques of her work. We know this. From harmless award show jokes to reasonable concerns about her relationship with her fans, wealth, or the environment, she’s quick to write off every less-than-favorable assessment of her career as yet another misogynistic takedown (even though the critiques she receives as a white woman are nothing compared to those that her POC counterparts are subjected to, but I digress). She fights back with fury and vitriol, while simultaneously spinning the narrative to make it seem like she’s standing up for woman everywhere. In reality, she’s trying to send a message. “Don’t fuck with me,” the message says in the cheugiest BIC Glitter pen ink on the market.
If she cared enough to view criticism not as an insult but as a valid profession, she wouldn’t feel the need to puff out her chest and unleash the wrath of millions of Swifties onto underpaid staff writers every time her ego has been damaged. But instead of pretending that she’s “listening and learning” like other celebs in her position might do, she sticks her fingers in her ears and screams until the other person backs down. That’s how she has managed to effectively bully publications like Rolling Stone into naming Midnights an “instant classic” the day it was released, and manipulated the reporter behind her TIME Person Of The Year cover story, Sam Lansky into writing Swift’s story in her own words instead of synthesizing the material for himself. (I’m not projecting here, he basically admits this towards the end.)
To be clear, I’m not blaming Taylor Swift for Condé Nast’s shortcomings, nor am I using this tragedy to place blame on someone I don’t like just because. I do, however, blame Swift for her complicity in ushering in this era of cushioned journalism that we’re currently in.
She set the precedent that we can’t criticize women without being labeled as misogynists, or that any mention of her name beyond a glowing endorsement may as well be an attack. And without the biggest pop star in the world at the helm of this movement, we wouldn’t have mid-tier hitmakers like Charli XCX cryptically declaring that “they don’t build statues of critics,” or Halsey calling for another 9/11 at the Pitchfork office.
As a music criticism rapturist, I’ve been preaching this gospel for what feels like years now, and look at where we ended up.