Today I typed the words, “Blake Lively isn’t mad at Taylor Swift” which made me want to scream into the sun.
Here’s what happened: Blake Lively posted a photo of John Legend, surrounded by Lively herself and a whole slew of famouses for the new L’Oreal campaign. Cool! Then, she joked that it was similar to the “Bad Blood” video, which we all know is Taylor Swift’s recruitment video.
Sure! Fine. Cool! …Except not. (Dun, dun, dun.)
Turns out, the Swift Army was quick in assuming Lively was throwing shade (?!), which prompted the actress to post a photo of her niece, uncle, and aunt with Taylor (?!) along with the caption:
“Umm whoever thought I was throwin’ shade clearly doesn’t know I have a ‘Taylor Swift Please Be My Wife Voo Doo Doll #obsessed. Look how rad she is here making my niece Heather feel like a rock star. Love my Canadian family almost as much as I love Taylor Lively. I mean Swift. Ok, FIIINE we can hyphenate our last names. Xo Blake Swift-Lively 4eva.”
And like, okay. Sure. Girl did as much as she could with what little time she had. But can we please talk about why this was a thing? Why beef assumptions are even being made and/or why we’re feeling the need to jump on anybody because they’ve made a reference to a pop culture touchstone? Why do we care? I mean, seriously: unless Blake Lively was going on a serious rant about why she hates Taylor (and even then — people rant all the time), why is anybody mad? Who has the time to be mad?
I think that’s what confuses me the most: in terms of public shaming (which we’ve all done), what is the point? I mean, okay sure — when calling out lion-killers or Donald Trump, yes, there is a point — but a celebrity? Who’s not even commenting on another celebrity? What’s happening here? Should we all not be putting work in instead? Should we maybe think about keeping our eyes on our own paper?
I mean, Blake Lively had to call Taylor Swift her wife. In a dream world, she wouldn’t have had to comment at all. Because in a dream world, we would’ve gotten her “Bad Blood” joke and thought, “Oh! Good reference!” Or, “Ugh, I’m so sick of that video.” SOMETHING.
So no, there is no — wait for it — bad blood between Blake Lively and Taylor Swift. But guys, we can do better. We can spend our energy on anything other than fanning the fictional flames of celebrity beefs.
