Look, I get it. Everyone, even those who aren’t Taylor Swift fans, wants to believe in the story of a young girl from the Heartland who came up from nothing to conquer country music, then the pop charts, then the world. Her story itself feels familiar and fits right into narratives Americans like to tell about ourselves.
The problem is that, even according to the official version of events, that didn’t happen. Taylor Swift didn’t “come from nothing,” she’s the child of a stockbroker. And she’s from Pennsylvania, a state which ranks a solid “meh, iffy” on the “Is this U.S. state a part of the heartland?” scale. (Some consider Pennsylvania to be part of the Midwest, but that’s only the western half, at best, and furthermore, PA has voted Democratic far too many times to not be inherently suspicious.)
So if those things aren’t really true, what else about the “Taylor Swift” story might collapse upon closer scrutiny?
Caption this Meme 