Podcast — 29 Minutes
Episode 33: Taylor Swift
Podcast — 29 Minutes
Episode 33: Taylor Swift
Jackson Hamilton makes his debut on the podcast to join Dr. Gwynette in indulging their mutual Taylor Swift fandom. Or, rather, how Swiftie fandom provides fertile ground for the discussion of various mental health topics.
Dr. Gwynette: Hello and welcome to the Autism News NetWORK. My name is Dr. Gwynette and I am joined by two producers and stars of the Autism News NetWORK. First of all, our producer, which is…
Magnus: Well, hello there, my name is Magnus.
Dr. Gwynette: Magnus will be chilling in the background, making sure that the ones and twos are handled with our recording.
Magnus: Yes, sir.
Jackson Hamilton: And I am Jackson Hamilton.
Dr. Gwynette: And Jackson. You are a producer of the Autism News NetWORK. And what are we going to talk about today?
Jackson Hamilton: We’re going to talk about Taylor Swift for the most part, but a little bit of Kanye West and a little bit of Britney Spears. For the most part Taylor Swift.
Dr. Gwynette: Cool. And we’ll be delving into some fandom topics. We’ll talk about music, talk about what it’s like to be a star, from our perspective as fans, we’ll talk a little bit about psychology, and maybe what drives stars to be so productive, and also what drives them to hold on to grudges that they come across is that fuel them in their careers. And talk a little bit about the qualities that make a recording artist able to be successful over decades and not self sabotage. Some very interesting topics we’re going to cover today. I’m really pleased. And we’re off and running.
Jackson Hamilton: We are here today discussing the Taylor Swift fandom in the context of psychological science. This is the first podcast in a series that’s covering the Kanye-Taylor feud from it’s beginnings in 2009 at the VMAs, for her videos and the Fearless album, whereupon Kanye stormed onto the stage and said that Beyonce should have gotten the award instead. While that may have been crass, Kanye was later diagnosed as bipolar. And a lot of people believe that interruption was a bipolar episode, specifically depressive episode, and that the way Taylor Swift handled it was not the most appropriate or the most empathetic given his psychiatric diagnosis. And that the famous feud contributed to the… Not the best treatment of people with bipolar and related disorders. So what we’re hoping in this podcast is not to lash out in heavy criticism of Taylor Swift or Kanye West… we’re Swifties here.
We’re both Taylor Swift fans. And what we hope to do is to give people the tools to handle mental crises like a bipolar episode in real time. So if they have a friend or an associate that is having a mental health crisis of a similar nature, they’ll know what to do, both in the short term, how to address the crisis, and in the long term, how to have a relationship with someone who has these crises.
And in so far as we will criticize them, we believe that criticism is warranted in legitimate, especially because of the power and influence that the characters in the saga hold, especially Taylor Swift, who could have used her influence to reduce the harm to all of the people who saw that incident and her reaction to it, to reduce the harm to people who are suffering from these conditions, by giving their friends and associates the tools to handle them so that when they’re having a bipolar episode or a similar episode, they don’t lose their jobs, they don’t lose their friends, they don’t get in trouble with HR or even legal trouble over this stuff, and that we can hopefully create more love and reduce as much suffering as possible. And that is what we are trying to do in this series. Dr. Gwynette do you want to pick it up?
Dr. Gwynette: What a great introduction Jackson, I wanted to thank you for launching the series of pods and give a shout out to Magnus for producing today’s podcast. I think the genesis of this show has been our mutual fandom and Taylor Swift. And we’ve talked about her genius as a musician, but just as an icon in America throughout the world, multi talented, just seems like everything she does turns to gold. And this incident I think was a turning point in her career and potentially Kanye’s career. So I do think it’s interesting, from an entertainment standpoint, but then also from a mental health standpoint, we are going to talk with very broad brushstrokes based on information Kanye himself disclosed to the public. I think it’s always tricky when you’re speculating about someone’s diagnosis, but he has disclosed that. So we’re going to kind of talk through it. But the first episode that is today, we’re going to really dive deep into Swiftie fandom. And I wanted to ask you Jackson, tell us how you got to be a Taylor fan.
Jackson Hamilton: Well, that started in the late 2000s. I grew up in white, Southern suburbia, so Taylor Swift, wasn’t that big of a deal to people across the world or even across the country, back in 2008, when this incident happened. She was a pretty big deal where I was growing up, which was Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: And, I heard her music and it was obviously really catchy. It was really flowing. The rhythm was relatively fast paced, but not too fast paced.
Dr. Gwynette: And it was country, right?
Jackson Hamilton: It was semi-country at that point. 2006 Taylor is full on country. That’s Our Song. That’s Tim McGraw. By 2008, Fearless album, it’s semi country. There’s country songs in there, but the degree to which Love Story is a country song or a pop song is a matter of debate.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay, because I had read somewhere that she was heavily influenced and inspired by Shania Twain earlier.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: Pure country.
Jackson Hamilton: Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: And then, so she started in country, but then you said… what’s the first album, Fearless?
Jackson Hamilton: Well her first studio album is the eponymous Taylor Swift album in 2006.
Dr. Gwynette: Right.
Jackson Hamilton: Which she didn’t actually redo, even though she has the same problems with that album as she has with the other albums.
Dr. Gwynette: And that’s something we can talk about, is the dispute with record companies. But what does the Taylor Swift album look like on the cover?
Jackson Hamilton: It’s of her and a bunch of translucent designs on it.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: It’s not that interesting. I don’t actually have that many songs from that album…
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: … On my playlist. I do have Our Song and Tim McGraw from that album. And it launched her into B-list stardom in 2006. And obviously she wouldn’t get to A-list stardom without having done that. But apparently it wasn’t close enough to her heart that she decided she was going to rerecord it. Which I was actually disappointed in because I did want to hear the rerecording of the songs they did have on my playlist, see what they were like. And also if there was any In the Vault stuff from way back in 2006 that she had, that would be really interesting to see what she threw out back then.
Dr. Gwynette: What was the song that got you hooked?
Jackson Hamilton: I wouldn’t say that any song got me hooked on her. My favorite song is Love Story, which is kind of classic,
Dr. Gwynette: Was that an early song?
Jackson Hamilton: That was an early song and it comes out in the Fearless album in 2008. So it’s a fairly early Taylor Swift song. And I think it actually is an anthem song we could use in the psych department since I consider it to be an anti-suicide anthem.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: It’s happy ending Romeo and Juliet and, can’t really get more anti-suicide than rewriting the most famous suicides in history to not be suicides.
Dr. Gwynette: Very interesting, I didn’t realize that what it’s about.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. I mean, you said you’re a Swiftie, you don’t know…
Dr. Gwynette: I’m an old man.
Jackson Hamilton: I know…
Dr. Gwynette: So I’m trying to get to the last three or four albums, I can’t go back to the…
Jackson Hamilton: Okay. Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: You were a teenager when she came on the scene, I was already old.
Jackson Hamilton: But you can always go back and she re-released the entire Fearless album this past April, so that’s not an excuse. She rerecorded Love Story and released that on April 9th. So, so anyway, Love Story is a happy ending Romeo and Juliet. And so I figured, that seems like a very appropriate song to have in a psych department.
Dr. Gwynette: Sure, it’s ending on hopeful note.
Jackson Hamilton: An anthem note. It was an anthem for the department. So I think you could propose that to the students if they wanted to do that.
Dr. Gwynette: So in my humble opinion that the album 1989 was just like… when I grew up Michael Jackson’s Thriller was the biggest album of all time. It still could be, where it was just every single song was a potential number one, and 1989 seemed to have that same aspect. Would you say that there’s a particular song either on 1989 or another album that just made her a worldwide number one artist?
Jackson Hamilton: So, my favorite song on 1989 is Blank Space. With regards to her music, I don’t think there’s any particular song that stands out. There are certainly songs they like more than others and the way I like them could be I like some more musically, I like some more lyrically. I like Love Story in part content reasons. Again, I work in mental health and I’ve had mental health crises and since that it’s an anti-suicide song. I think that relates to me personally. And a lot of the people that I work with, it’s also, since it’s about Romeo and Juliet, it’s also anti sectarian conflict, and anti feuding, which is a bit ironic for her, so there’s also a political aspect to the song as well. And so I like it for those reasons, but I wouldn’t say that there is a particular song that got me hooked where that made me really like. It’s not like Kurt Cobain’s Toothache where he had like one hit of heroin it and it just set them off.
Dr. Gwynette: Right. So, with the song Shake it Off for example, that to me again, as not an OG fan, that seemed to be the song that really catapulted her from A-list to THE list. She is absolutely the queen now, and Shake it Off, that might have some mental health aspects too, right? Cause it’s about letting the criticism and the haters…
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. So I think that could also have some mental health aspects as well. And I would love to go into all of this stuff later episodes as we go into a psychiatric analysis of things Swiftie. Talk about the employment of her music for therapeutic purposes or if not therapeutic purposes, at least anthem purposes for therapy.
Dr. Gwynette: There’s an emotional component to her songs too. There’s a lot of them about break ups, or tough relationships.
Jackson Hamilton: All of them are autobiographical to a lesser or greater degree, and sometimes it’s really good, but sometimes it’s not so good. I like her as a celebrity. I’m a member of her fandom, but I am not an unquestioning loyal fan, member of her cult if you will.
Dr. Gwynette: Right. So.
Jackson Hamilton: I’ll give criticism what criticisms due.
Dr. Gwynette: How does she treat her fans?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, she’s fairly loyal to her fans. I don’t have any criticism in terms of being disrespectful to them.
Dr. Gwynette: But have you heard stories about cool things she’s done for her fans or with her fans?
Jackson Hamilton: I have. She’s helped them out when they’re in financial situations.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: She has come to their houses if they’ve been in a crisis. She’s done anti bullying concerts. So I think…
Dr. Gwynette: Is that right?
Jackson Hamilton: Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: That’s really cool.
Jackson Hamilton: She has. And she’s also very charitable with her money. So she’s used the money she’s made as an A-list celebrity to help a lot of people in various social causes. But one of my criticisms of her, she has failed in her responsibility as a public figure to reign in her fandom. And…
Dr. Gwynette: What do you mean by that?
Jackson Hamilton: John Mayer got death threats after the most recent rerecording, the recording of Red.
Dr. Gwynette: I see, so that album contained a song about their breakup. It was a…
Jackson Hamilton: It was mostly about the Gyllenhaal breakup.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: You had other songs about the Mayer breakup, but Gyllenhaal, I also believe got death threats.
Dr. Gwynette: Because of breaking up with Taylor and her fans…
Jackson Hamilton: Because her fans are… at that point, you go from being a fan to being a cult member.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And that gets a bit dangerous. First, one of my more general criticisms of Taylor Swift is that she lingers on to her grudges for so long and that she holds on to them so intensely.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And as a Christian and as a human, I believe that you should try to love and make up with everybody if you can.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: It’s especially pertinent to Kanye’s case because he was suffering from a severe mental health crisis. And so I think that it’s especially important that she publicly forgive him and try to show empathy so people who are in similar crises do that.
Dr. Gwynette: It’s interesting. I think that part about forgiveness versus… there’s also things that can motivate people to greatness. Like I think about in the NBA, years ago, Michael Jordan had rivalries with other great players that drove him because he was such a competitor that he wanted to be the best and it really drove him, and he didn’t alienate other people in the process. He was able to do that while still building a huge fan base and doing great in the sport. Do you feel that’s part of Taylor, like because she is the greatest, it seems right now. Do you think she needs that fuel to motivate herself?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, it depends. There are multiple types of feuds, right?
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: I think there’s a sportsman type feud, where its good sportsmanship. There’s good chivalry, we’re competing in the music industry and we’ve had some fun insults at each other, but we don’t actually hate each other and we’re willing to break bread, get coffee and laugh about life. And I think it’s one thing to have a school spirit level feud like that.
Dr. Gwynette: Right.
Jackson Hamilton: But when it becomes cult level, or nationalist level, at that point it becomes problematic. And at that point-
Dr. Gwynette: So you feel she could have directed her fans and say, “Hey guys, cool it, lets not make death threats towards my exes.”
Jackson Hamilton: Well I would hope that she would go above and beyond that. I think what she should do is not say, “Hey, it’s okay to hate people on my behalf, but don’t go so far as to send death threats at them.”
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: I don’t want her to be saying that. I want her to be saying, “Look, they were sucky boyfriends. It was a long time ago. I’m over it. We’re friends now, or we’re acquaintances and I’m willing to get coffee with them and break bread with them. I’ve completely forgiven them. And if you are a loyal fan of mine, you will express the same sentiments in your life, both towards my exes and towards the exes in your life. That you will use my example of forgiving my exes and making up with them and moving on psychologically. And try to do it yourself.” That’s what she should have done.
Dr. Gwynette: And it’s interesting because, that’s a really great approach. And I would imagine that when she rerecorded the albums, she must have re-experienced a lot of the feelings she had when she made the original recordings. Did you ever think-
Jackson Hamilton: I think she admitted to that in interviews. And also, she had been mildly feuding with Mayer and Gyllenhaal up to that point. Those had been on the back burner for her. They were on bad terms, but she hadn’t been actively pursuing the feuds until she decided to rerecord her albums, which dug all that stuff up…
Dr. Gwynette: Gotcha.
Jackson Hamilton: …which makes the death threats a bit more absurd.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: Because not only are they sending death threats to John Mayer, her and John Mayer broke up in the year 2010.
Dr. Gwynette: It’s a retroactive…
Jackson Hamilton: They didn’t just send death threats to one of her exes. They sent death threats to someone she broke up with 11 years ago. So it makes it even more absurd.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And I think later we can talk about… One of the later podcasts in the series. We can talk about para social relationships and how strong they can be.
Dr. Gwynette: Sure. One other question that I wanted to ask you, do you feel like… Could you explain to the audience first, we mentioned the rerecording a couple times.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: Why that was necessary for those who don’t know.
Jackson Hamilton: Okay. So Taylor Swift, like most up and coming artists, didn’t have the capital or resources at her disposal to go big on her own. So she was signed to a label and that label got the rights to her masters, to the original recordings of her songs. And she got into some dispute with them, I don’t know the exact details of it, but she ended up leaving Big Machine Records, which was the label she signed up to. And she wanted some type of deal where she would still have the rights to make money off of her songs. And she would still have ownership of them, or at least partial ownership of them. And they refused to let her have that.
And then it was sold to another guy. And then she tried to buy them with her enormous capital. And she’s like, “You want a hundred million for it?” I don’t know what the exact figure was, but something like that. And he said, “Sure, but we’re going to have an NDA and you’re not going to say anything bad about me”, and knowing Taylor Swift, not letting her write diss tracks against you in a literal diss track or a metaphorical one, ain’t something she’s going to sign up for.
Dr. Gwynette: So the rerecording, how does that work from a business standpoint? And what was the fan’s response to the rerecording?
Jackson Hamilton: So my background is in political science, history, and psychology. So I’m not that versed in copyright right. Law.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: So I wouldn’t be able to speak with authority on that.
Dr. Gwynette: But now she has her own masters of those albums.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: And it’s called Taylor’s Version, right?
Jackson Hamilton: Yes. And so I’m still confused as whether she has to pay royalties to the originals when she’s doing this. And she gets money from that too. Again, I have a little background in law, but that’s like constitutional law, civil rights law, stuff like that. In so far as I’ve worked with lawyers and in political science, none of it has involved copyright law. So I’m not going to attempt to pretend to know what I’m talking about.
Dr. Gwynette: But the fans seem to have loved the rerecording. Can you tell us about that?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, I think the reason they love the rerecording has a lot less to do with the recordings themselves. The recordings themselves, are for the most part, very similar to the original. I didn’t bother re-downloading Love Story from the Fearless re-release. I had the original, I don’t need another copy of it.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And it works just as fine. I think they love the re-recordings less because of the differences in quality. They’re not really different quality. They’re about the same. Some are slightly better. Some are slightly worse. But mostly because they have a strong para social relationship with Taylor Swift, and they are rooting for her act of revenge.
Dr. Gwynette: Interesting.
Jackson Hamilton: They like the albums because of the intention behind them and the sweet score she’s settling with the people that she’s against.
Dr. Gwynette: Especially the record companies.
Jackson Hamilton: Especially the record companies.
Dr. Gwynette: Not necessarily the ex-boyfriends.
Jackson Hamilton: No.
Dr. Gwynette: So just for a second, I wanted to step back and acknowledge some of her accomplishments. First of all, she’s an accomplished recording artist, singer, guitarist. She’s also a writer of all her songs, at least writer or co-writer, which is, I think in terms of her creative genius, she’s been able to crossover from country, to pop, to electronic, to now she’s doing more folky, acoustic numbers, and she’s just scored it on every level with all those different genres. And I think it’s time to maybe acknowledge how unprecedented this is for an artist, first of all.
And I’ve really never seen an artist go back and rerecord multiple albums, and all that energy and time. And you think about her level of functioning, and this is where maybe my psychiatrist head comes in, but you got somebody who takes great care of her voice, seems to be physically healthy, is very productive, is successful. She’s recording videos, she’s touring. The amount of productivity that she’s had is just amazing… and the consistency from a very young age to now. She’s 32 now. Even Michael Jackson, when you look at his career, starting at age six or seven, he’s really the only one I can think of in terms of his multi talented multi generational and multi genre ability that he had. Are we looking at the next Michael Jackson?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, I would be reluctant to make that comparison for a few reasons. Firstly, because of what happened to Michael…
Dr. Gwynette: Professionally.
Jackson Hamilton: Professionally… Again, I would probably choose another pop superstar given how Michael Jackson’s story ended.
Dr. Gwynette: The next Elvis, maybe?
Jackson Hamilton: I think Elvis is better.
Dr. Gwynette: Would you compare to the Beatles?
Jackson Hamilton: I would compare it to Elvis and the Beatles, I think the next Elvis. First Elvis starts off country, just like Taylor Swift did, went into pop or rock and roll rather. But I think one principle difference… I think Springsteen, I think would be the comparison I would make… She might be the next Springsteen, I think.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: In terms of her professional popularity. And I would actually say that Springsteen’s a better comparison also, because he’s one, the handful of superstar artists who is managed to survive relatively intact without having some horrible scandal or personal crisis drive them down, which is exactly what you’re talking about with Taylor Swift.
Dr. Gwynette: Substance use can get so many of them.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. I mean Elvis, poly drug addiction and died on his toilet. Kurt Cobain through heroin. Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: I think even Prince, unfortunately he was really a multi talented generational superstar. Unfortunately, his demise seems like it was opiates.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. So Springsteen, I think, is one of the best examples of an artist who makes it to be super A-list.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And doesn’t come crashing down after that. And he also has the background of Americana, which is obviously Taylor’s background.
Dr. Gwynette: He also writes his own stuff. He’s a very talented lyricist as Taylor is. That’s a good comparison.
Jackson Hamilton: And the settings of their songs are also relatively similar. Again, because of her background and country and his background in Americana, there’s this small town setting, which Taylor abandoned during her middle albums, like Reputation and Lover, but she’s kind of coming back to, so I would compare it to Springsteen, say that she’s the next Springsteen. And I don’t believe that she’s going to crash, because I do believe that whatever personal system she has going for it’s working.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And I think she’s going to keep her relative sanity.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. This is maybe a question. Hopefully, I didn’t want to surprise you, but could you talk about Britney Spears for a second, because that somebody who was an international superstar, America’s sweetheart, and then things went horribly off track. Do you want to make a few comments about her path and maybe how it’s different from Taylor’s?
Jackson Hamilton: I’ll say Taylor was not a corporate product from her origins. Britney Spears was discovered by Disney.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And she was a Mouseketeer if I remember correctly, and her father also had some controlling issues over her, and Taylor’s family seems to have been supportive. Firstly, secondly, Taylor’s family also had some experience with stardom before this happened.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: If you listen to the Evermore album, there is a song called Marjorie and it’s not about Marjorie Taylor Green to my dismay, that would’ve been very funny. But it’s about her grandmother.
Dr. Gwynette: Yes.
Jackson Hamilton: I believe her maternal grandmother who was not an A-list celebrity, but she was a B-list celebrity, especially in Latin America, and she’s singing tours and she was relatively famous, again, not an A-list celebrity, but B-list celebrity. I believe that taught them enough about the realities of fame and stardom that it inoculated them against the worst.
They knew what to expect. They knew how to handle it. And so I think those two factors, having a relatively and supportive family, and also having some experience with wealth and fame and notoriety from her maternal grandmother, Marjorie. So I think those are the two significant factors in why Britney collapsed and why Taylor didn’t. This also gets into Kurt Cobain. Who’s had a rags-to-riches story. And that’s one of the things that makes him crash. He was pretty poor when he got started off, he rocketed to success. And then he couldn’t deal with his life, and he ended up blowing his brains out with a shotgun in a closet.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. And that’s definitely something we’re speculating a bit about because we don’t know the full story, but there’s definitely some serious concerns there. And that’s an interesting theory, cause you’re right. There are certain artists that do end up imploding. And many of them are child actors, child stars, it seems like Taylor was able to start a career at a young age where she was formed enough, and it seems like the impetus to become involved in the music industry came from within, came from her.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: She wasn’t just dragged on that path by someone else. And, and I think in terms of staying power, she’s probably 20 years plus in now, and she’s at the top of her game. It’s been really cool to watch her. And I saw some videos of her interacting backstage, with some girls who I guess won to contest or something and got to meet Taylor backstage. And it’s just the most adorable thing to watch, these young people look up to her and how she treats them too, she remembers what it was like to be 10 or 11 years old and want to be, a musician.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. And another thing that I think works in Taylor’s favor is her capacity for metacognition that she’s able to…
Dr. Gwynette: What’s that?
Jackson Hamilton: Oh, right. Yes. So for people who don’t have a background in psych metacognition is the self-awareness of one’s own thought processes and mental landscape and things, the awareness of one’s own psychology. And I believe in the ability to do that gives you much better control over your impulses. It puts your prefrontal cortex in a lot more control of your amygdala for the most part and the other more instinctive parts of yourself. So I think from a psychological perspective from again, not diagnosing anything, but I think Taylor Swift’s prefrontal cortex is a lot more in control of the back of her head than other artists. And it is that in part because she has a better understanding of what’s going on back there.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And she knows what levers and what pulleys to manipulate in order to function in her situation.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been an awesome first episode of our series on Taylor Swift, we talked about her rise to fame, some of her highlights of her career. Some tie-ins with other artists and comparisons. And in episode two, we are going to get into the prime beef. That is the beef…
Jackson Hamilton: Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: … Between Taylor Swift and I love… Magnus. What does he call himself?
Magnus: The one they call Yeezy.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. Yeezy. So we’re going to talk about that beef between those two celebrities and where they’ve gone since then. We’ll touch a little bit on emotional issues and psychological issues in that discussion. But Jackson, I wanted to thank you for doing this.
Jackson Hamilton: Definitely. It’s been fun. And I think we’ve covered a lot of ground and this will be one of the more unique podcasts about Taylor Swift out there by fans, because there are lots of podcast made about Taylor Swift by Swifties. But few that get into the science, and the sociology, and the psychology of these issues, which is both really fun and really educational and hopefully in the end be really helpful to people given what we’re trying to do with it
Dr. Gwynette: Sounds great. Well, Jackson, thank you and Magnus. Thanks for producing today.
Magnus: Yep.
Dr. Gwynette: We will see you guys at the next episode. You’ve been listening to the Autism News NetWORK and we’ll see you next time.
Dr. Gwynette: Hello and welcome to the Autism News NetWORK. My name is Dr. Gwynette and I am joined by two producers and stars of the Autism News NetWORK. First of all, our producer, which is…
Magnus: Well, hello there, my name is Magnus.
Dr. Gwynette: Magnus will be chilling in the background, making sure that the ones and twos are handled with our recording.
Magnus: Yes, sir.
Jackson Hamilton: And I am Jackson Hamilton.
Dr. Gwynette: And Jackson. You are a producer of the Autism News NetWORK. And what are we going to talk about today?
Jackson Hamilton: We’re going to talk about Taylor Swift for the most part, but a little bit of Kanye West and a little bit of Britney Spears. For the most part Taylor Swift.
Dr. Gwynette: Cool. And we’ll be delving into some fandom topics. We’ll talk about music, talk about what it’s like to be a star, from our perspective as fans, we’ll talk a little bit about psychology, and maybe what drives stars to be so productive, and also what drives them to hold on to grudges that they come across is that fuel them in their careers. And talk a little bit about the qualities that make a recording artist able to be successful over decades and not self sabotage. Some very interesting topics we’re going to cover today. I’m really pleased. And we’re off and running.
Jackson Hamilton: We are here today discussing the Taylor Swift fandom in the context of psychological science. This is the first podcast in a series that’s covering the Kanye-Taylor feud from it’s beginnings in 2009 at the VMAs, for her videos and the Fearless album, whereupon Kanye stormed onto the stage and said that Beyonce should have gotten the award instead. While that may have been crass, Kanye was later diagnosed as bipolar. And a lot of people believe that interruption was a bipolar episode, specifically depressive episode, and that the way Taylor Swift handled it was not the most appropriate or the most empathetic given his psychiatric diagnosis. And that the famous feud contributed to the… Not the best treatment of people with bipolar and related disorders. So what we’re hoping in this podcast is not to lash out in heavy criticism of Taylor Swift or Kanye West… we’re Swifties here.
We’re both Taylor Swift fans. And what we hope to do is to give people the tools to handle mental crises like a bipolar episode in real time. So if they have a friend or an associate that is having a mental health crisis of a similar nature, they’ll know what to do, both in the short term, how to address the crisis, and in the long term, how to have a relationship with someone who has these crises.
And in so far as we will criticize them, we believe that criticism is warranted in legitimate, especially because of the power and influence that the characters in the saga hold, especially Taylor Swift, who could have used her influence to reduce the harm to all of the people who saw that incident and her reaction to it, to reduce the harm to people who are suffering from these conditions, by giving their friends and associates the tools to handle them so that when they’re having a bipolar episode or a similar episode, they don’t lose their jobs, they don’t lose their friends, they don’t get in trouble with HR or even legal trouble over this stuff, and that we can hopefully create more love and reduce as much suffering as possible. And that is what we are trying to do in this series. Dr. Gwynette do you want to pick it up?
Dr. Gwynette: What a great introduction Jackson, I wanted to thank you for launching the series of pods and give a shout out to Magnus for producing today’s podcast. I think the genesis of this show has been our mutual fandom and Taylor Swift. And we’ve talked about her genius as a musician, but just as an icon in America throughout the world, multi talented, just seems like everything she does turns to gold. And this incident I think was a turning point in her career and potentially Kanye’s career. So I do think it’s interesting, from an entertainment standpoint, but then also from a mental health standpoint, we are going to talk with very broad brushstrokes based on information Kanye himself disclosed to the public. I think it’s always tricky when you’re speculating about someone’s diagnosis, but he has disclosed that. So we’re going to kind of talk through it. But the first episode that is today, we’re going to really dive deep into Swiftie fandom. And I wanted to ask you Jackson, tell us how you got to be a Taylor fan.
Jackson Hamilton: Well, that started in the late 2000s. I grew up in white, Southern suburbia, so Taylor Swift, wasn’t that big of a deal to people across the world or even across the country, back in 2008, when this incident happened. She was a pretty big deal where I was growing up, which was Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: And, I heard her music and it was obviously really catchy. It was really flowing. The rhythm was relatively fast paced, but not too fast paced.
Dr. Gwynette: And it was country, right?
Jackson Hamilton: It was semi-country at that point. 2006 Taylor is full on country. That’s Our Song. That’s Tim McGraw. By 2008, Fearless album, it’s semi country. There’s country songs in there, but the degree to which Love Story is a country song or a pop song is a matter of debate.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay, because I had read somewhere that she was heavily influenced and inspired by Shania Twain earlier.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: Pure country.
Jackson Hamilton: Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: And then, so she started in country, but then you said… what’s the first album, Fearless?
Jackson Hamilton: Well her first studio album is the eponymous Taylor Swift album in 2006.
Dr. Gwynette: Right.
Jackson Hamilton: Which she didn’t actually redo, even though she has the same problems with that album as she has with the other albums.
Dr. Gwynette: And that’s something we can talk about, is the dispute with record companies. But what does the Taylor Swift album look like on the cover?
Jackson Hamilton: It’s of her and a bunch of translucent designs on it.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: It’s not that interesting. I don’t actually have that many songs from that album…
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: … On my playlist. I do have Our Song and Tim McGraw from that album. And it launched her into B-list stardom in 2006. And obviously she wouldn’t get to A-list stardom without having done that. But apparently it wasn’t close enough to her heart that she decided she was going to rerecord it. Which I was actually disappointed in because I did want to hear the rerecording of the songs they did have on my playlist, see what they were like. And also if there was any In the Vault stuff from way back in 2006 that she had, that would be really interesting to see what she threw out back then.
Dr. Gwynette: What was the song that got you hooked?
Jackson Hamilton: I wouldn’t say that any song got me hooked on her. My favorite song is Love Story, which is kind of classic,
Dr. Gwynette: Was that an early song?
Jackson Hamilton: That was an early song and it comes out in the Fearless album in 2008. So it’s a fairly early Taylor Swift song. And I think it actually is an anthem song we could use in the psych department since I consider it to be an anti-suicide anthem.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: It’s happy ending Romeo and Juliet and, can’t really get more anti-suicide than rewriting the most famous suicides in history to not be suicides.
Dr. Gwynette: Very interesting, I didn’t realize that what it’s about.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. I mean, you said you’re a Swiftie, you don’t know…
Dr. Gwynette: I’m an old man.
Jackson Hamilton: I know…
Dr. Gwynette: So I’m trying to get to the last three or four albums, I can’t go back to the…
Jackson Hamilton: Okay. Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: You were a teenager when she came on the scene, I was already old.
Jackson Hamilton: But you can always go back and she re-released the entire Fearless album this past April, so that’s not an excuse. She rerecorded Love Story and released that on April 9th. So, so anyway, Love Story is a happy ending Romeo and Juliet. And so I figured, that seems like a very appropriate song to have in a psych department.
Dr. Gwynette: Sure, it’s ending on hopeful note.
Jackson Hamilton: An anthem note. It was an anthem for the department. So I think you could propose that to the students if they wanted to do that.
Dr. Gwynette: So in my humble opinion that the album 1989 was just like… when I grew up Michael Jackson’s Thriller was the biggest album of all time. It still could be, where it was just every single song was a potential number one, and 1989 seemed to have that same aspect. Would you say that there’s a particular song either on 1989 or another album that just made her a worldwide number one artist?
Jackson Hamilton: So, my favorite song on 1989 is Blank Space. With regards to her music, I don’t think there’s any particular song that stands out. There are certainly songs they like more than others and the way I like them could be I like some more musically, I like some more lyrically. I like Love Story in part content reasons. Again, I work in mental health and I’ve had mental health crises and since that it’s an anti-suicide song. I think that relates to me personally. And a lot of the people that I work with, it’s also, since it’s about Romeo and Juliet, it’s also anti sectarian conflict, and anti feuding, which is a bit ironic for her, so there’s also a political aspect to the song as well. And so I like it for those reasons, but I wouldn’t say that there is a particular song that got me hooked where that made me really like. It’s not like Kurt Cobain’s Toothache where he had like one hit of heroin it and it just set them off.
Dr. Gwynette: Right. So, with the song Shake it Off for example, that to me again, as not an OG fan, that seemed to be the song that really catapulted her from A-list to THE list. She is absolutely the queen now, and Shake it Off, that might have some mental health aspects too, right? Cause it’s about letting the criticism and the haters…
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. So I think that could also have some mental health aspects as well. And I would love to go into all of this stuff later episodes as we go into a psychiatric analysis of things Swiftie. Talk about the employment of her music for therapeutic purposes or if not therapeutic purposes, at least anthem purposes for therapy.
Dr. Gwynette: There’s an emotional component to her songs too. There’s a lot of them about break ups, or tough relationships.
Jackson Hamilton: All of them are autobiographical to a lesser or greater degree, and sometimes it’s really good, but sometimes it’s not so good. I like her as a celebrity. I’m a member of her fandom, but I am not an unquestioning loyal fan, member of her cult if you will.
Dr. Gwynette: Right. So.
Jackson Hamilton: I’ll give criticism what criticisms due.
Dr. Gwynette: How does she treat her fans?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, she’s fairly loyal to her fans. I don’t have any criticism in terms of being disrespectful to them.
Dr. Gwynette: But have you heard stories about cool things she’s done for her fans or with her fans?
Jackson Hamilton: I have. She’s helped them out when they’re in financial situations.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: She has come to their houses if they’ve been in a crisis. She’s done anti bullying concerts. So I think…
Dr. Gwynette: Is that right?
Jackson Hamilton: Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: That’s really cool.
Jackson Hamilton: She has. And she’s also very charitable with her money. So she’s used the money she’s made as an A-list celebrity to help a lot of people in various social causes. But one of my criticisms of her, she has failed in her responsibility as a public figure to reign in her fandom. And…
Dr. Gwynette: What do you mean by that?
Jackson Hamilton: John Mayer got death threats after the most recent rerecording, the recording of Red.
Dr. Gwynette: I see, so that album contained a song about their breakup. It was a…
Jackson Hamilton: It was mostly about the Gyllenhaal breakup.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: You had other songs about the Mayer breakup, but Gyllenhaal, I also believe got death threats.
Dr. Gwynette: Because of breaking up with Taylor and her fans…
Jackson Hamilton: Because her fans are… at that point, you go from being a fan to being a cult member.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And that gets a bit dangerous. First, one of my more general criticisms of Taylor Swift is that she lingers on to her grudges for so long and that she holds on to them so intensely.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And as a Christian and as a human, I believe that you should try to love and make up with everybody if you can.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: It’s especially pertinent to Kanye’s case because he was suffering from a severe mental health crisis. And so I think that it’s especially important that she publicly forgive him and try to show empathy so people who are in similar crises do that.
Dr. Gwynette: It’s interesting. I think that part about forgiveness versus… there’s also things that can motivate people to greatness. Like I think about in the NBA, years ago, Michael Jordan had rivalries with other great players that drove him because he was such a competitor that he wanted to be the best and it really drove him, and he didn’t alienate other people in the process. He was able to do that while still building a huge fan base and doing great in the sport. Do you feel that’s part of Taylor, like because she is the greatest, it seems right now. Do you think she needs that fuel to motivate herself?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, it depends. There are multiple types of feuds, right?
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: I think there’s a sportsman type feud, where its good sportsmanship. There’s good chivalry, we’re competing in the music industry and we’ve had some fun insults at each other, but we don’t actually hate each other and we’re willing to break bread, get coffee and laugh about life. And I think it’s one thing to have a school spirit level feud like that.
Dr. Gwynette: Right.
Jackson Hamilton: But when it becomes cult level, or nationalist level, at that point it becomes problematic. And at that point-
Dr. Gwynette: So you feel she could have directed her fans and say, “Hey guys, cool it, lets not make death threats towards my exes.”
Jackson Hamilton: Well I would hope that she would go above and beyond that. I think what she should do is not say, “Hey, it’s okay to hate people on my behalf, but don’t go so far as to send death threats at them.”
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: I don’t want her to be saying that. I want her to be saying, “Look, they were sucky boyfriends. It was a long time ago. I’m over it. We’re friends now, or we’re acquaintances and I’m willing to get coffee with them and break bread with them. I’ve completely forgiven them. And if you are a loyal fan of mine, you will express the same sentiments in your life, both towards my exes and towards the exes in your life. That you will use my example of forgiving my exes and making up with them and moving on psychologically. And try to do it yourself.” That’s what she should have done.
Dr. Gwynette: And it’s interesting because, that’s a really great approach. And I would imagine that when she rerecorded the albums, she must have re-experienced a lot of the feelings she had when she made the original recordings. Did you ever think-
Jackson Hamilton: I think she admitted to that in interviews. And also, she had been mildly feuding with Mayer and Gyllenhaal up to that point. Those had been on the back burner for her. They were on bad terms, but she hadn’t been actively pursuing the feuds until she decided to rerecord her albums, which dug all that stuff up…
Dr. Gwynette: Gotcha.
Jackson Hamilton: …which makes the death threats a bit more absurd.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: Because not only are they sending death threats to John Mayer, her and John Mayer broke up in the year 2010.
Dr. Gwynette: It’s a retroactive…
Jackson Hamilton: They didn’t just send death threats to one of her exes. They sent death threats to someone she broke up with 11 years ago. So it makes it even more absurd.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And I think later we can talk about… One of the later podcasts in the series. We can talk about para social relationships and how strong they can be.
Dr. Gwynette: Sure. One other question that I wanted to ask you, do you feel like… Could you explain to the audience first, we mentioned the rerecording a couple times.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: Why that was necessary for those who don’t know.
Jackson Hamilton: Okay. So Taylor Swift, like most up and coming artists, didn’t have the capital or resources at her disposal to go big on her own. So she was signed to a label and that label got the rights to her masters, to the original recordings of her songs. And she got into some dispute with them, I don’t know the exact details of it, but she ended up leaving Big Machine Records, which was the label she signed up to. And she wanted some type of deal where she would still have the rights to make money off of her songs. And she would still have ownership of them, or at least partial ownership of them. And they refused to let her have that.
And then it was sold to another guy. And then she tried to buy them with her enormous capital. And she’s like, “You want a hundred million for it?” I don’t know what the exact figure was, but something like that. And he said, “Sure, but we’re going to have an NDA and you’re not going to say anything bad about me”, and knowing Taylor Swift, not letting her write diss tracks against you in a literal diss track or a metaphorical one, ain’t something she’s going to sign up for.
Dr. Gwynette: So the rerecording, how does that work from a business standpoint? And what was the fan’s response to the rerecording?
Jackson Hamilton: So my background is in political science, history, and psychology. So I’m not that versed in copyright right. Law.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: So I wouldn’t be able to speak with authority on that.
Dr. Gwynette: But now she has her own masters of those albums.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: And it’s called Taylor’s Version, right?
Jackson Hamilton: Yes. And so I’m still confused as whether she has to pay royalties to the originals when she’s doing this. And she gets money from that too. Again, I have a little background in law, but that’s like constitutional law, civil rights law, stuff like that. In so far as I’ve worked with lawyers and in political science, none of it has involved copyright law. So I’m not going to attempt to pretend to know what I’m talking about.
Dr. Gwynette: But the fans seem to have loved the rerecording. Can you tell us about that?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, I think the reason they love the rerecording has a lot less to do with the recordings themselves. The recordings themselves, are for the most part, very similar to the original. I didn’t bother re-downloading Love Story from the Fearless re-release. I had the original, I don’t need another copy of it.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And it works just as fine. I think they love the re-recordings less because of the differences in quality. They’re not really different quality. They’re about the same. Some are slightly better. Some are slightly worse. But mostly because they have a strong para social relationship with Taylor Swift, and they are rooting for her act of revenge.
Dr. Gwynette: Interesting.
Jackson Hamilton: They like the albums because of the intention behind them and the sweet score she’s settling with the people that she’s against.
Dr. Gwynette: Especially the record companies.
Jackson Hamilton: Especially the record companies.
Dr. Gwynette: Not necessarily the ex-boyfriends.
Jackson Hamilton: No.
Dr. Gwynette: So just for a second, I wanted to step back and acknowledge some of her accomplishments. First of all, she’s an accomplished recording artist, singer, guitarist. She’s also a writer of all her songs, at least writer or co-writer, which is, I think in terms of her creative genius, she’s been able to crossover from country, to pop, to electronic, to now she’s doing more folky, acoustic numbers, and she’s just scored it on every level with all those different genres. And I think it’s time to maybe acknowledge how unprecedented this is for an artist, first of all.
And I’ve really never seen an artist go back and rerecord multiple albums, and all that energy and time. And you think about her level of functioning, and this is where maybe my psychiatrist head comes in, but you got somebody who takes great care of her voice, seems to be physically healthy, is very productive, is successful. She’s recording videos, she’s touring. The amount of productivity that she’s had is just amazing… and the consistency from a very young age to now. She’s 32 now. Even Michael Jackson, when you look at his career, starting at age six or seven, he’s really the only one I can think of in terms of his multi talented multi generational and multi genre ability that he had. Are we looking at the next Michael Jackson?
Jackson Hamilton: Well, I would be reluctant to make that comparison for a few reasons. Firstly, because of what happened to Michael…
Dr. Gwynette: Professionally.
Jackson Hamilton: Professionally… Again, I would probably choose another pop superstar given how Michael Jackson’s story ended.
Dr. Gwynette: The next Elvis, maybe?
Jackson Hamilton: I think Elvis is better.
Dr. Gwynette: Would you compare to the Beatles?
Jackson Hamilton: I would compare it to Elvis and the Beatles, I think the next Elvis. First Elvis starts off country, just like Taylor Swift did, went into pop or rock and roll rather. But I think one principle difference… I think Springsteen, I think would be the comparison I would make… She might be the next Springsteen, I think.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: In terms of her professional popularity. And I would actually say that Springsteen’s a better comparison also, because he’s one, the handful of superstar artists who is managed to survive relatively intact without having some horrible scandal or personal crisis drive them down, which is exactly what you’re talking about with Taylor Swift.
Dr. Gwynette: Substance use can get so many of them.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. I mean Elvis, poly drug addiction and died on his toilet. Kurt Cobain through heroin. Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: I think even Prince, unfortunately he was really a multi talented generational superstar. Unfortunately, his demise seems like it was opiates.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. So Springsteen, I think, is one of the best examples of an artist who makes it to be super A-list.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And doesn’t come crashing down after that. And he also has the background of Americana, which is obviously Taylor’s background.
Dr. Gwynette: He also writes his own stuff. He’s a very talented lyricist as Taylor is. That’s a good comparison.
Jackson Hamilton: And the settings of their songs are also relatively similar. Again, because of her background and country and his background in Americana, there’s this small town setting, which Taylor abandoned during her middle albums, like Reputation and Lover, but she’s kind of coming back to, so I would compare it to Springsteen, say that she’s the next Springsteen. And I don’t believe that she’s going to crash, because I do believe that whatever personal system she has going for it’s working.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And I think she’s going to keep her relative sanity.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. This is maybe a question. Hopefully, I didn’t want to surprise you, but could you talk about Britney Spears for a second, because that somebody who was an international superstar, America’s sweetheart, and then things went horribly off track. Do you want to make a few comments about her path and maybe how it’s different from Taylor’s?
Jackson Hamilton: I’ll say Taylor was not a corporate product from her origins. Britney Spears was discovered by Disney.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And she was a Mouseketeer if I remember correctly, and her father also had some controlling issues over her, and Taylor’s family seems to have been supportive. Firstly, secondly, Taylor’s family also had some experience with stardom before this happened.
Dr. Gwynette: Okay.
Jackson Hamilton: If you listen to the Evermore album, there is a song called Marjorie and it’s not about Marjorie Taylor Green to my dismay, that would’ve been very funny. But it’s about her grandmother.
Dr. Gwynette: Yes.
Jackson Hamilton: I believe her maternal grandmother who was not an A-list celebrity, but she was a B-list celebrity, especially in Latin America, and she’s singing tours and she was relatively famous, again, not an A-list celebrity, but B-list celebrity. I believe that taught them enough about the realities of fame and stardom that it inoculated them against the worst.
They knew what to expect. They knew how to handle it. And so I think those two factors, having a relatively and supportive family, and also having some experience with wealth and fame and notoriety from her maternal grandmother, Marjorie. So I think those are the two significant factors in why Britney collapsed and why Taylor didn’t. This also gets into Kurt Cobain. Who’s had a rags-to-riches story. And that’s one of the things that makes him crash. He was pretty poor when he got started off, he rocketed to success. And then he couldn’t deal with his life, and he ended up blowing his brains out with a shotgun in a closet.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. And that’s definitely something we’re speculating a bit about because we don’t know the full story, but there’s definitely some serious concerns there. And that’s an interesting theory, cause you’re right. There are certain artists that do end up imploding. And many of them are child actors, child stars, it seems like Taylor was able to start a career at a young age where she was formed enough, and it seems like the impetus to become involved in the music industry came from within, came from her.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah.
Dr. Gwynette: She wasn’t just dragged on that path by someone else. And, and I think in terms of staying power, she’s probably 20 years plus in now, and she’s at the top of her game. It’s been really cool to watch her. And I saw some videos of her interacting backstage, with some girls who I guess won to contest or something and got to meet Taylor backstage. And it’s just the most adorable thing to watch, these young people look up to her and how she treats them too, she remembers what it was like to be 10 or 11 years old and want to be, a musician.
Jackson Hamilton: Yeah. And another thing that I think works in Taylor’s favor is her capacity for metacognition that she’s able to…
Dr. Gwynette: What’s that?
Jackson Hamilton: Oh, right. Yes. So for people who don’t have a background in psych metacognition is the self-awareness of one’s own thought processes and mental landscape and things, the awareness of one’s own psychology. And I believe in the ability to do that gives you much better control over your impulses. It puts your prefrontal cortex in a lot more control of your amygdala for the most part and the other more instinctive parts of yourself. So I think from a psychological perspective from again, not diagnosing anything, but I think Taylor Swift’s prefrontal cortex is a lot more in control of the back of her head than other artists. And it is that in part because she has a better understanding of what’s going on back there.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.
Jackson Hamilton: And she knows what levers and what pulleys to manipulate in order to function in her situation.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been an awesome first episode of our series on Taylor Swift, we talked about her rise to fame, some of her highlights of her career. Some tie-ins with other artists and comparisons. And in episode two, we are going to get into the prime beef. That is the beef…
Jackson Hamilton: Yes.
Dr. Gwynette: … Between Taylor Swift and I love… Magnus. What does he call himself?
Magnus: The one they call Yeezy.
Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. Yeezy. So we’re going to talk about that beef between those two celebrities and where they’ve gone since then. We’ll touch a little bit on emotional issues and psychological issues in that discussion. But Jackson, I wanted to thank you for doing this.
Jackson Hamilton: Definitely. It’s been fun. And I think we’ve covered a lot of ground and this will be one of the more unique podcasts about Taylor Swift out there by fans, because there are lots of podcast made about Taylor Swift by Swifties. But few that get into the science, and the sociology, and the psychology of these issues, which is both really fun and really educational and hopefully in the end be really helpful to people given what we’re trying to do with it
Dr. Gwynette: Sounds great. Well, Jackson, thank you and Magnus. Thanks for producing today.
Magnus: Yep.
Dr. Gwynette: We will see you guys at the next episode. You’ve been listening to the Autism News NetWORK and we’ll see you next time.
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