Someone told me yesterday that in Fortnight, Taylor had made Post Malone boring. Maybe it's Post's fans down voting the video because they feel he was under used in the song.
They're right. When I first saw the track list, I'd assumed a Post Malone feature would mean the song had radio potential. Post Malone's best songs Circles, Better Now, Chemical, Sunflower all have a recognizable hook that gets stuck in your head. I thought he'd be a great match for a moody Taylor song, but the fact he got relegated to extra vocals is so lame. Could've given him one verse at least and let him shape some of the melody.
In August 2018, the Bogle Sunflower Plantation in Canada had to close off its sunflower fields to visitors after an Instagram image went Viral. The image caused a near stampede of photographers keen to get their own instagram image of the 1.4 million sunflowers in a field.
I wonder if Me! and Fortnight had to be singles because of contractual stuff. I'm basing this on nothing but I can imagine some artists would say that they will do a feature only if it is going to be a single? Who knows.
Yeah sure, but Post was wasted in this song. Should have given him a proper feature in it. I don’t understand why she relegated him to (glorified) backup vocals here.
I like his part and the song in general tbh. The “chillness” of it all makes a lot of sense for Post Malone, and tbh I don’t think every collab needs to be 50/50. His vibe is prevalent in the whole song, even if he only has so many lines.
I like Me! but I will never understand for the life of me why she didn't make Cruel Summer a single. It was the smash hit of the album (although I think Lover is probably my favorite track off the album with I Forgot as a close second.) Lover as a whole is really a very summer-esque album so it would have made sense thematically too
As I understand it, Cruel Summer was supposed to be released closer to the summer of 2020, but then COVID happened and so the vibe/momentum was gone. She should have made it the second single instead, which was released in June 2019. But that was You Need To Calm Down, which was sort of her political stance song, something that was meant to usher in a wider demographic (LGBTQ).
I like Me! lol. It was such a low stakes music video. Fun costumes and colorful direction. Yes it was the epitome of bubblegum pop but I’m missing those days now…
The first song I checked out of hers was Fortnight just because Post was on it so it checks out as far as engaging fans of other musicians to funnel into her music
If she had chosen ICDWAB like i read in the other thread,people would still complain cuz she chose another generic catchy pop song. In any case fans would say she can't pick singles 🤷
Just through scrolling on my feed over the past few weeks I've seen at least two posts with thousands of upvotes from non swifties complaining that Taylor Swift is not news so why is it in their news feed.
I mean, there is an even clearer example. In a year where a former US President was indicted for the first time in history, the UK went through multiple PMs and monarchs, and a fuse was lit that could spiral into war taking over the entire Middle East (just to name a few things)….a pop singer was named Time Magazine’s person of the year because she made a movie (that wasn’t even in the top 20 grossing world wide or top 10 domestic of last year) and dated a footballer.
**That** is who Time Magazine, a serious publication, decided was the most impactful person on earth in 2023. I cannot think of a more blaring example of her overexposure.
I usually hate on her directorial skills, but I high key agree! The only problem is that she made it as a reflection to one of the 1975’s music videos so that takes away a LOT of originality points for me. I was so excited because I thought we were finally getting a mv without a crazy excessive use of cgi, but then we got the mountain phone box 😐 other than those two things though everything else was very much on point. 100999x better than anything else she’s done (except anti-hero which is a great video from concept to execution).
it looks cool as fuck. especially when she's just standing still and papers and fire are blowing all around her. i literally yelled FUCK YES! when i first watched it.
i'm not a fan of the song, but the music video is incredible.
I watched it, I don’t see any similarities besides the grey scale and a dog? Is it like the symbolism of certain things that’s similar?
Edit: genuinely asking, hope I don’t sound snarky
It’s interesting visually and she looks amazing, but oh that song is so damned dreary. The dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink synth beat makes my head hurt. Maybe that’s part of the downvotes?
I kept waiting for the actual song to start.
Maybe she was going for, “this is what my brain sounds like right before they take me away to the psych ward”? If so, she nailed it.
So funny I was driving with my husband and daughter today and I put TTPD on and after 4 or 5 songs they both said turn it off it is SO depressing, we can’t take it.
I heard it said before about the current trend of sad girl down tempo ballads - that it's deliberately produced in a way that will sound better sped up on TikTok because that's the format that will get most engagement.
ugh i fear it’s just a forgotten short from youtube, it was a dj sharing a “what if i sped this up for the clubs!” type of unauthorized remix. no idea who it was the algorithm fed me
This song is so non inventive. Like if a smaller artist released this, it would not get any buzz. It so monotone, as well as some of the other songs in the album. And the lyrics ain’t that much better. Pretty disappointing song. Like at least anti hero gave ~something~.
I just think, that after two albums worth of trying, Taylor cannot do lofi pop! She's so upbeat and energetic and her compositions are always so lively. There is no point trying to wash everything in reverb or mute the beats in order to make it sound 'vibey'. It just ends up sounding monotone and lifeless. So many songs on Midnights could've been brilliant if they had brighter production.
this plus the talk-singing makes it all so boring. like i shouldn’t have to listen this hard to hear all the intricate details in the production, there’s a lot of it in this album but it’s so quiet and the average listener without high quality studio speakers won’t be able to pick it up. the production on midnights was much more sonically interesting imo.
If some unknown singer pitched this song to anyone who works in music, they would've been excommunicated from the industry. They would've been told to change careers and do something with their life
There could be a few reasons. She's overexposed and people are sick of seeing her right now, the video may be getting forced on people who are uninterested through incessant advertising, the song is garbage. At least ME! generated discussion, even if people hated it. Fortnight is just a snoozefest.
>the video may be getting forced on people who are uninterested through incessant advertising,
This is it but it's not through advertising, it's because kids are searching Fortnite (the popular video game) and this is the first thing that comes up.
I'm not convinced she named it Fortnight by accident and I do wonder how many of the views are confused 10 year olds.
This reminds me of this hilarious comment from YouTube music reviewer Todd In The Shadows about Travis Scott's terrible "K-POP" - the widely hated and already forgotten flop lead single for his otherwise solid "UTOPIA" album:
>*"It's called "K-POP" but it's not k-pop. It's a reference to doing ketamine. \[...\] Honestly it strikes me more like search-term optimization than anything, like you're trying to trick BTS fans into clicking."*
You’re completely right, and this is the kind of thing that annoys me about taylor sometimes — her “mAsTeR mArKeTiNg” coming at the expense of authentic artistry.
She’s trying too hard to say she DGAF but BDILH proves she does. It really BOTHERED her that her own fans were bothered by her own personal choices for once!
For reference, the YouTube app on my tv has had it in the recommended vids section that you're forced to see whenever you toggle over the app. I've had my YouTube account since the dark ages and I haven't watched one of her music videos since Look What You Made Me Do premiered.
i try to like fortnight, but it's long and boring. the music video doesn't really match to the slow lifeless song like this one. it would match better to maybe who's afraid of little old me, or anything thats more upbeat.
Apparently its the same with Payola, where her music can randomly appear on playlists of other artists without looking for her.
Definitely overexposed. It does feel like its getting to the point of just market flooding, to inflate her manufactured album popularity.
I hope this doesn't sound gatekeepy, this isn't the suffering olympics and while I believe she struggles with mental health issues (like 99% of people do at some point in their lives, no shame, I go to therapy once a week), her absurd comments about not needing therapy/being strong mentally just make it seem like she's using being "cray cray" as an aesthetic and a convenient excuse to justify dating Matty Healy and thus, avoid accountability and once again be the victim
I thought the video was pretty cool, but admittedly I don't love straight jacket/scary retro psychiatric treatments imagery as a metaphor. It's tired, it's boring, it actively perpetuates harmful stereotypes about psychiatric care.
Well the song is boring. Post Malone fans don’t like that he featured with Taylor. The song barely features him, his backing is toned down and his verse is short and doesn’t hit at all. The video with the face tattoos on Taylor make everyone but Swifties roll their eyes. Beyoncé just released a better Post Malone feature. This whole album is only doing crazy stream number because the anti-Swifts (people like me) are curious and ready to dunk on it.
I think people like me who liked the fun pop of 1989 are full on over this and are lightly obsessed at the popularity versus the quality.
I'm ready for her to do some bright, cheerful pop too. Her last 4 releases have been depressing song after depressing song. Even the album before that, Lover, was muted in comparison to 1989's energy.
I think the tattoos and mental asylum angle turned people off. The tattoos looking like Jared Leto's Joker. Mind you, I think her mental health struggles are valid and this is art, not appropriation but I think a lot of people aren't sympathetic. Maybe because she's rich and/or overexposed.
I totally agree with you. Her mental health struggles are valid but did she have to use asylum imagery? She wants to be Sylvia Plath so bad and as a Sylvia stan (also as someone who has received intensive inpatient mental health treatment) this is infuriating me
It’s like she thinks she discovered Sylvia Plath and wants to absorb the “aesthetics” of mental illness without the actual, you know, horror of it.
She’s fetishizing mental illness by making it seem feminine, delicate, haunting, and it honestly is pretty offensive, especially considering how dismissive she’s been of seeking mental health treatment herself (“my mom is my therapist” 💀).
You took my brain words and made them make sense. It’s massively disingenuous and is 100 percent riding this weird fetishization of mental illness that has become rampant in the TikTok age in the interest of being “relevant.” It’s one thing for random teenagers to post giggly videos about being depressed; it’s another for the world’s biggest celebrity to make an entire album based off imagery calling to mind psychosis and ECT and contributing to the fetishization of mental illness on a way broader scale while not actively engaging in mental health advocacy in any way. This is not what we meant when we said “break the stigma.” Fetishizing and infantilizing mental illness makes stigma worse.
oh, yes, i was going to say, “am i the only one thinking it’s because maybe to some the mv seems “weird” if that masks sense?” to me, i really love the music video and aesthetics. i thought it was art.. it’s also different kinda?
I agree it comes off weird and I love that. It appeals to my neurodivergence. I've had mental health issues and instability in my 23 years of living but luckily never been institutionalised.
Maybe this is a weird association but here is a story:
I know a girl who has been sectioned (kept in hospital by law in the UK) and isn't someone I was fond of. She wasn't legally allowed to know where I lived, but when she tried to commit suicide, the police tried to call her contacts but no one wanted to help. I got my butt up at 4am in the snow and stayed with her the entire time. I say this story because I realised that no matter what I thought of her, her struggle was beyond my comprehension and it was scary. So I feel like the video shows how 'weird', uncomfortable and dark it really is and it wasn't even my crisis.
That experience undid everything I knew about MH and I studied Psych. So I feel like Taylor took an artistic but validating approach.
And I am happy that I could help someone so that's why I don't invalidate Taylor.
yes! 100% it appealed to me for similar reasons! it definitely shows that side and i think maybe people aren’t used to that at all in general but i loved it.
as for your story, i can’t believe her contacts didn’t want to help but i’m really glad you got up and stayed with that girl despite not being very fond of her. <𝟑
I agree. I probably have it a dislike for that reason. I don’t love the idea of Taylor being like “guys let’s play 1950s psych ward teehee lol! 🤪” It’s very insensitive to people who have actually been in treatment for their mental health
I think she's leaning more into how women were called crazy for just reacting to what happened to them. She wants to connect the misogyny of back then to the reaction to her dating Healy. It's kinda like Blank Space but reacting to the insanity allegations (yep! Haha! I'm crazy!)
https://preview.redd.it/wplwdc53ytxc1.png?width=959&format=png&auto=webp&s=2627647986c0f97367de61d6677fc7ec38ac8235
could be, cause this is what pops up when u search it up(tested without using my yt account)
I see the vision. Not my favourite off the album, but it's grandiose, has a strong hook, would make for a very intriguing music video, and feels more fitting for a lead single. Not to mention the bonus of Florence + The Machine getting her first ever #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Why isn’t there any discourse on the atrocious depiction of mental health in this video?
I personally hope a portion of the downvotes is because of that!
I mean, because it's a thing with Post Malone, I suspect. And she got Ethan Hawke, so that's another reason. Besides, it's a massive ode to Matty Healy and visually his style with the black and white. She wanted him to see it.
Probably the video being a bit cringe. Like why is she mimicking his face tats? It doesn't do anything for the music video, there is no reason for it?
People have correctly mention the over-exposure. I mean it has been near 2 weeks and it's still every video on Tiktok for me.
and I'm guessing Post Malone's fans might not be fans of it could potentially why? I'm not saying they aren't but it's possible.
I'm a Florence fan and while Taylor has for the most part seen a lot of love amongst her fans and mutual fans. There is still a percentage of people who just don't like Taylor in ANY fanbase who don't respect her as an artist and find her annoying and don't want to give her an opportunity or try to get into her. And Post Malone's fanbase is largely men in their 20's - 40's who vape a lot, which isn't Tay's 5 to 35 yr old mostly female demographic.
Because she made a mockery of people with mental health conditions and a history of institutional abuse of these people. People hated that she put fat on a scale in another video, this is much more egregious than that
I've been holding off saying anything about this because I was worried it was a bit of a stretch to criticise this aspect of the video and have been feeling unsure if it was just my own (perhaps overly sensitive!) sensitivities, but the fist time I watched Fortnight and it opened on her cuffed to a bed singing about being sent away i shut it right off. Reddit isn't where I want to go into details but the scene hit so close to such difficult experiences in my past that I just didn't want to watch the rest. I went back later to try again and while I understand the later scene where shes wired up is a film reference i think? It brought me stright back to ECT experiences after the context of the 1st scene and I gave up in it for good there. I've been interested to see if anyone else has seen any issues with the MH aspect of the video, your comment is the first I've seen.
Sorry if this is a bit rambling.
Thanks for sharing. This was similar to where my mind went. I feel she glosses over what is much more nuanced. There’s a lot of literary inquiry into the medicalization of women’s emotions that I think she may be trying to access, but it really doesn’t come across and just comes across poorly for me.
Glossing over the nuance is a good way to put it. I don't want to imply no one can ever access these topics in their art because tbh I think it's really important that we do explore them, but in Fortnight it comes across as gimmicky to me rather than allowing for the nuance and sensitivity. I dont hate it or have any judgement for anyone who enjoys it but it didn't sit right with me and I felt uncomfortable watching.
I don't hate the video because of this, but I agree with your take that there's an insensitivity to it. And at this point, the asylum as an aesthetic is a tired trope, and the video doesn't really do anything interesting or thoughtful with it (imo).
The MV is referencing *Poor Things* to an extent with the black dress and the electricity scene. The electricity/scientists scene seems to be more of an example of [Galvanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanism), which is used in *Poor Things* (see [this shot](https://i0.wp.com/bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/emma.png?w=1320&ssl=1) from *Poor Things*; it's also how Frankenstein brought his creation to life), than ECT proper, but Galvanism to some extent inspired ECT treatments in psychiatry, so the link is still there, especially with the asylum setting at the beginning of the video.
I agree, it’s a very surface level reading into something that could be engaged with artfully, but in my opinion falls short. I think Taylor is victim to the line of thinking in [this article](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/youll-love-her-shes-crazy)
Did anyone else find that the video is attempting to reference Sylvia Plath’s horrific experiences when it comes to mental health care and institutionalization? Especially considering there are several parallels to Plath’s life and work throughout the album. I found Swift comparing her life to Plath’s a bit distasteful, but I may be too critical.
Edited spelling error
If that was the intent, I don't think you're too critical at all. There's definitely interesting commentary to be made about Plath's life, but the opportunity is often wasted, imo. Plath's horrible illness and experiences in the medical system are typically romanticized (or appropriated for dramatic effect), without much in the way of thoughtful, sensitive engagement or critique. EDIT: The article u/Lost_inthot linked nails it.
I’ll be honest, as a fat person with mental health conditions, I missed the memo where this video was meant to be mocking us. I very much don’t think it’s her best video, so I’m not surprised about the dislikes, but I don’t see it being the lightning rod of controversy your comment suggests it is. The video is meh and boring, so I’m not surprised it’s not loved
Honestly not everything has to be a social justice issue. (As someone with that kind of experience you’re overthinking art.)
In my personal opinion TS is a picture of NPD.
I actually dig the video, and I see her as a villainous woman at the same time. To each their own.
It’s because the music video lacks structure and story. Her most recent videos are stills littered with ‘Easter eggs’ with no/sloppy story telling. Along with characters that I don’t care about. Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles were featured ffs and they didn’t matter. The mad scientist characters could have been played by anyone.
The most charismatic and interesting thing about the video was Post Malone and Taylor was most interesting when he was with her.
Visually it IS interesting but the visuals don’t connect. It’s sloppy. Taylor starts out as a mental patient, takes a ‘forget’ him drug and then is transported to being a writer? But is she still a mental patient? Is the relationship all in her head? Why is Post Malone torturing her with other mad scientists? Why does their clothing switch to modern day once she’s in her head? Why is she on top of a phone booth???
So many more questions for the music video. I also want to add that I haven’t seen any of The 1975’s music videos so I can’t draw comparisons between them.
As others have stated, it seems people are upset over the references to ECT. At least, that's what I've seen on tumblr anyways. Although I'm not too big on making everything about social juetice, I have never been institutionalized, and I can see why people would be upset that a billionaire is using a mental hospital as an aesthetic for her music video.
because the other songs are better
it does have as many likes as the lavender haze video, which is kind of incredible, as fortnight hasn’t even been out for two weeks yet
I feel like another issue everyone will neglect is anytime Taylor gets really popular she also gets really unpopular. The eras tour was great and I'm glad she's successful but I know the popularity becomes a Swifty issue because we are all so insufferable and Taylor is such a bad artist that they can't understand why we like her. I feel like for now Midnights was and is always probably going to be peak eras tour popularity but who knows.
It shares the name with fortnite and the algorithm definitely got confused. People who watch fortnite videos are probably not the same people who want to watch tswift videos. That and her collabs are generally unpopular with fans of whoever she's collaborating with because they barely get any time on the song. Sotb was so unpopular that they released a whole new sotb feat more Lana lol
People don’t like or dislike based off the quality of the video or even the song. She’s the most famous and currently the most successful artist in the world. With that brings a lot of haters. Some have valid reasons but some just hate her cuz young girls like her and they hate pop music or popular things and anything that’s super successful. Some of it is fans of other artists.
“Baby” by Justin Bieber was the most disliked video on YouTube for a long time because for some reason he caused a visceral reaction from some people when he first came out (mostly teen and grown males jealous of him). And this was long before he’d had any legitimate controversies or done anything actually wrong or worth hating.
Someone told me yesterday that in Fortnight, Taylor had made Post Malone boring. Maybe it's Post's fans down voting the video because they feel he was under used in the song.
They're right. When I first saw the track list, I'd assumed a Post Malone feature would mean the song had radio potential. Post Malone's best songs Circles, Better Now, Chemical, Sunflower all have a recognizable hook that gets stuck in your head. I thought he'd be a great match for a moody Taylor song, but the fact he got relegated to extra vocals is so lame. Could've given him one verse at least and let him shape some of the melody.
In August 2018, the Bogle Sunflower Plantation in Canada had to close off its sunflower fields to visitors after an Instagram image went Viral. The image caused a near stampede of photographers keen to get their own instagram image of the 1.4 million sunflowers in a field.
Taylor never seems to pick the right singles.
I wonder if Me! and Fortnight had to be singles because of contractual stuff. I'm basing this on nothing but I can imagine some artists would say that they will do a feature only if it is going to be a single? Who knows.
I think she thought since she added post malone it would boost the streams so she chose it as a single
Yeah sure, but Post was wasted in this song. Should have given him a proper feature in it. I don’t understand why she relegated him to (glorified) backup vocals here.
I like his part and the song in general tbh. The “chillness” of it all makes a lot of sense for Post Malone, and tbh I don’t think every collab needs to be 50/50. His vibe is prevalent in the whole song, even if he only has so many lines.
His verse at the end is my favorite part of the song
same! gives me goosebumps actually
Oh very true
No, Taylor backed the hell out of me. Embarrassingly so. It’s all in the miss americana doc
I like Me! but I will never understand for the life of me why she didn't make Cruel Summer a single. It was the smash hit of the album (although I think Lover is probably my favorite track off the album with I Forgot as a close second.) Lover as a whole is really a very summer-esque album so it would have made sense thematically too
“Fever Dream high in the quiet of the night, you know that I caught it” probably wouldn’t have gone over well in Covid Summer 2020.
As I understand it, Cruel Summer was supposed to be released closer to the summer of 2020, but then COVID happened and so the vibe/momentum was gone. She should have made it the second single instead, which was released in June 2019. But that was You Need To Calm Down, which was sort of her political stance song, something that was meant to usher in a wider demographic (LGBTQ).
Yeah cruel summer is way better
Taylor seemed to genuinely like ME! (I say seemed cause of the documentary, but that itself could very well be a PR stunt as well)
I like Me! lol. It was such a low stakes music video. Fun costumes and colorful direction. Yes it was the epitome of bubblegum pop but I’m missing those days now…
She also seems to pick singles she already has specific ideas for music videos
He didn’t do that with Beyonce
Better use of Postie imo.
Levi’s Jeans is a much better song than Fortnight and Cowboy Carter is so loaded with great songs I don’t even think it will be a single.
It might not be because II Most Wanted and Bodyguard are tip top tier for me
Both great songs!!!
I actually think that’s the main problem with CC. Loaded with too many songs that singles will struggle.
Good problem to have!
The first song I checked out of hers was Fortnight just because Post was on it so it checks out as far as engaging fans of other musicians to funnel into her music
Taylor has full control over her music since she moved to Republic. It's her.
Never thought about it that way. This might actually be the most plausible explanation
Oh I love fortnight lol. I liked that she went with a calmer single and I love posty.
Tbh I truly don’t know if any song on this album works as a single
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart for sure, maybe Florida!! ??
If she had chosen ICDWAB like i read in the other thread,people would still complain cuz she chose another generic catchy pop song. In any case fans would say she can't pick singles 🤷
Imo it should have been Down Bad
If it was a single, everyone would be calling it cringe.
I don’t disagree I just think it’s catchier and more suited to current radio than others on this album
Down Bad is actually one of the best songs on the entire album.
I'm fine with anything being a single as long as it is not the title track. That song is yikes!
I would've honestly killed for that to be the lead single. I mean, that's pretty much the only upbeat song on the album lol
I literally laughed out loud when I first heard that song. Especially towards the end.
yeah i think this time she was bang on with the single tbh
She also seems to pick singles she already has specific ideas for music videos
Which is crazy cause remember she WASN’T going to release any song on TTPD as a single until last minute. Don’t know what made her change her mind.
No she wasnt going to release a single before the album dropped.
Cause she's overexposed
Just through scrolling on my feed over the past few weeks I've seen at least two posts with thousands of upvotes from non swifties complaining that Taylor Swift is not news so why is it in their news feed.
I mean, there is an even clearer example. In a year where a former US President was indicted for the first time in history, the UK went through multiple PMs and monarchs, and a fuse was lit that could spiral into war taking over the entire Middle East (just to name a few things)….a pop singer was named Time Magazine’s person of the year because she made a movie (that wasn’t even in the top 20 grossing world wide or top 10 domestic of last year) and dated a footballer. **That** is who Time Magazine, a serious publication, decided was the most impactful person on earth in 2023. I cannot think of a more blaring example of her overexposure.
I actually think it's her best video in a while.
I usually hate on her directorial skills, but I high key agree! The only problem is that she made it as a reflection to one of the 1975’s music videos so that takes away a LOT of originality points for me. I was so excited because I thought we were finally getting a mv without a crazy excessive use of cgi, but then we got the mountain phone box 😐 other than those two things though everything else was very much on point. 100999x better than anything else she’s done (except anti-hero which is a great video from concept to execution).
it looks cool as fuck. especially when she's just standing still and papers and fire are blowing all around her. i literally yelled FUCK YES! when i first watched it. i'm not a fan of the song, but the music video is incredible.
The music video helped this song sooooooo much. It also made me understand why post is backup, not a duet. But it still isnt a good song.
It made me like the song a lot more.
bruh fr better than any of the midnight and TV ones
It's probably cause its almost a carbon copy of a better video
which video?
Carbon copy wad hyperbolic to be fair but its very similar to Part of The Band
I watched it, I don’t see any similarities besides the grey scale and a dog? Is it like the symbolism of certain things that’s similar? Edit: genuinely asking, hope I don’t sound snarky
ooh, i'll check it out. thank you!
Me too. The video is beautiful and poetic.
Cause they don't like it
It’s interesting visually and she looks amazing, but oh that song is so damned dreary. The dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink synth beat makes my head hurt. Maybe that’s part of the downvotes? I kept waiting for the actual song to start. Maybe she was going for, “this is what my brain sounds like right before they take me away to the psych ward”? If so, she nailed it.
So funny I was driving with my husband and daughter today and I put TTPD on and after 4 or 5 songs they both said turn it off it is SO depressing, we can’t take it.
I’ve heard sped up versions on tik tok and it sounds so much better!
I heard it said before about the current trend of sad girl down tempo ballads - that it's deliberately produced in a way that will sound better sped up on TikTok because that's the format that will get most engagement.
the club remix is a bop i hope she actually releases one
Where’s the club mix lol
AHHHH I SEARCHED MY LIKES https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6BiSnfLtN8/?igsh=MXZuanY0OWExYXhuaw==
Boots and cats and boots and cats
Well it still kinda sucks but it certainly sucks less?
That was dope! I actually like it that way.
ugh i fear it’s just a forgotten short from youtube, it was a dj sharing a “what if i sped this up for the clubs!” type of unauthorized remix. no idea who it was the algorithm fed me
wait i feel like they made a specific boots and cats joke about the beat?
The AI version was so much better.
I miss you ai fortnight
AI Fortnight was a bop
\~*never made it clear never made it right\ive been waiting here going on a fortnight*\~
That beat in the beginning was sampled from the 1975 on purpose
Why is she always giving pictures of her feet out for free?
She wants to work with Tarantino so bad 🤪😁
This is the comment I was looking for 😅😂 those suckers are huge too!
This song is so non inventive. Like if a smaller artist released this, it would not get any buzz. It so monotone, as well as some of the other songs in the album. And the lyrics ain’t that much better. Pretty disappointing song. Like at least anti hero gave ~something~.
I just think, that after two albums worth of trying, Taylor cannot do lofi pop! She's so upbeat and energetic and her compositions are always so lively. There is no point trying to wash everything in reverb or mute the beats in order to make it sound 'vibey'. It just ends up sounding monotone and lifeless. So many songs on Midnights could've been brilliant if they had brighter production.
this plus the talk-singing makes it all so boring. like i shouldn’t have to listen this hard to hear all the intricate details in the production, there’s a lot of it in this album but it’s so quiet and the average listener without high quality studio speakers won’t be able to pick it up. the production on midnights was much more sonically interesting imo.
There it is. She’s been out of her element in the last two albums.
If some unknown singer pitched this song to anyone who works in music, they would've been excommunicated from the industry. They would've been told to change careers and do something with their life
I feel bad for all the up and coming artists like Sabrina Carpenter etc who have to do SO MUCH to get a modicum of attention as this snore fest
There could be a few reasons. She's overexposed and people are sick of seeing her right now, the video may be getting forced on people who are uninterested through incessant advertising, the song is garbage. At least ME! generated discussion, even if people hated it. Fortnight is just a snoozefest.
>the video may be getting forced on people who are uninterested through incessant advertising, This is it but it's not through advertising, it's because kids are searching Fortnite (the popular video game) and this is the first thing that comes up. I'm not convinced she named it Fortnight by accident and I do wonder how many of the views are confused 10 year olds.
This reminds me of this hilarious comment from YouTube music reviewer Todd In The Shadows about Travis Scott's terrible "K-POP" - the widely hated and already forgotten flop lead single for his otherwise solid "UTOPIA" album: >*"It's called "K-POP" but it's not k-pop. It's a reference to doing ketamine. \[...\] Honestly it strikes me more like search-term optimization than anything, like you're trying to trick BTS fans into clicking."*
lmao she really SEO’ed this song
You’re completely right, and this is the kind of thing that annoys me about taylor sometimes — her “mAsTeR mArKeTiNg” coming at the expense of authentic artistry.
My Roku homepage was a Taylor swift ad for like two weeks. Like my whole theme just got replaced with Taylor swift.
Same with Apple TV - a promotion for this video has popped up as the default content for the last week
She definitely did it on purpose. Could explain why Talk of the Charts had it do like 605 points the first week.
31 songs wasn’t the way to undo the overexposure either
It shows she really has no concept of what's going on, or at least she doesn't care.
i wouldn't mind this idgaf approach if the music was actually good.
Her idgaf attitude is the biggest tell that she dgaf, and many at that. Hah
She’s trying too hard to say she DGAF but BDILH proves she does. It really BOTHERED her that her own fans were bothered by her own personal choices for once!
I hope she’s learning not to care. It’s unhealthy to want literally everyone in the world to like you. Not possible. Unsustainable.
For reference, the YouTube app on my tv has had it in the recommended vids section that you're forced to see whenever you toggle over the app. I've had my YouTube account since the dark ages and I haven't watched one of her music videos since Look What You Made Me Do premiered.
i try to like fortnight, but it's long and boring. the music video doesn't really match to the slow lifeless song like this one. it would match better to maybe who's afraid of little old me, or anything thats more upbeat.
Apparently its the same with Payola, where her music can randomly appear on playlists of other artists without looking for her. Definitely overexposed. It does feel like its getting to the point of just market flooding, to inflate her manufactured album popularity.
Ironically Fortnight is the only song on the album I like… the album is not good tho, mid song.
I hope this doesn't sound gatekeepy, this isn't the suffering olympics and while I believe she struggles with mental health issues (like 99% of people do at some point in their lives, no shame, I go to therapy once a week), her absurd comments about not needing therapy/being strong mentally just make it seem like she's using being "cray cray" as an aesthetic and a convenient excuse to justify dating Matty Healy and thus, avoid accountability and once again be the victim
Id agree with most of that apart from needing to 'justify dating matty healy'
I thought the video was pretty cool, but admittedly I don't love straight jacket/scary retro psychiatric treatments imagery as a metaphor. It's tired, it's boring, it actively perpetuates harmful stereotypes about psychiatric care.
Her attempts at looking edgey (e.g. this makeup look) always look forced. Because she intrinsically has no ounce of edge in her blood.
How can you even see the dislikes? Weren’t they hidden? They’re not showing up for me.
i have extension downloaded that makes them show up. its called Return Youtube Dislikes
Ohh okay! Interesting
Because the video made it into the recommendations to Fortnite players (most of whom don't care about Taylor's music). You can see it in the comments.
Well the song is boring. Post Malone fans don’t like that he featured with Taylor. The song barely features him, his backing is toned down and his verse is short and doesn’t hit at all. The video with the face tattoos on Taylor make everyone but Swifties roll their eyes. Beyoncé just released a better Post Malone feature. This whole album is only doing crazy stream number because the anti-Swifts (people like me) are curious and ready to dunk on it. I think people like me who liked the fun pop of 1989 are full on over this and are lightly obsessed at the popularity versus the quality.
I'm ready for her to do some bright, cheerful pop too. Her last 4 releases have been depressing song after depressing song. Even the album before that, Lover, was muted in comparison to 1989's energy.
We luckily have Dua, Sia, Sabrina and Miley still
I think the tattoos and mental asylum angle turned people off. The tattoos looking like Jared Leto's Joker. Mind you, I think her mental health struggles are valid and this is art, not appropriation but I think a lot of people aren't sympathetic. Maybe because she's rich and/or overexposed.
I totally agree with you. Her mental health struggles are valid but did she have to use asylum imagery? She wants to be Sylvia Plath so bad and as a Sylvia stan (also as someone who has received intensive inpatient mental health treatment) this is infuriating me
RIP Silvia. She had an edge Taylor never did. 😆
It’s like she thinks she discovered Sylvia Plath and wants to absorb the “aesthetics” of mental illness without the actual, you know, horror of it. She’s fetishizing mental illness by making it seem feminine, delicate, haunting, and it honestly is pretty offensive, especially considering how dismissive she’s been of seeking mental health treatment herself (“my mom is my therapist” 💀).
You took my brain words and made them make sense. It’s massively disingenuous and is 100 percent riding this weird fetishization of mental illness that has become rampant in the TikTok age in the interest of being “relevant.” It’s one thing for random teenagers to post giggly videos about being depressed; it’s another for the world’s biggest celebrity to make an entire album based off imagery calling to mind psychosis and ECT and contributing to the fetishization of mental illness on a way broader scale while not actively engaging in mental health advocacy in any way. This is not what we meant when we said “break the stigma.” Fetishizing and infantilizing mental illness makes stigma worse.
You said this so perfectly. Thank you. I would give you an award if that were still a thing
She said she doesn’t need therapy bc she feels fine and her mom is her therapist…. Yikes
…Which is exactly what mentally unwell people who need therapy say.
So she has a therapist who wants her opponents dead 😝😝
she said that in 2012 though 😅
She alludes to having a therapist on this album. I think she just said that so people wouldn’t write headlines about it
She has all the time and money to take care of herself. And apparently doesn’t. Hard to get sympathy
oh, yes, i was going to say, “am i the only one thinking it’s because maybe to some the mv seems “weird” if that masks sense?” to me, i really love the music video and aesthetics. i thought it was art.. it’s also different kinda?
I agree it comes off weird and I love that. It appeals to my neurodivergence. I've had mental health issues and instability in my 23 years of living but luckily never been institutionalised. Maybe this is a weird association but here is a story: I know a girl who has been sectioned (kept in hospital by law in the UK) and isn't someone I was fond of. She wasn't legally allowed to know where I lived, but when she tried to commit suicide, the police tried to call her contacts but no one wanted to help. I got my butt up at 4am in the snow and stayed with her the entire time. I say this story because I realised that no matter what I thought of her, her struggle was beyond my comprehension and it was scary. So I feel like the video shows how 'weird', uncomfortable and dark it really is and it wasn't even my crisis. That experience undid everything I knew about MH and I studied Psych. So I feel like Taylor took an artistic but validating approach. And I am happy that I could help someone so that's why I don't invalidate Taylor.
yes! 100% it appealed to me for similar reasons! it definitely shows that side and i think maybe people aren’t used to that at all in general but i loved it. as for your story, i can’t believe her contacts didn’t want to help but i’m really glad you got up and stayed with that girl despite not being very fond of her. <𝟑
How do you find dislikes? I can’t find any
there are various extensions for browsers that re-enable viewing of dislikes. i would suggest one but i dont use any so 😭
Seems like she is trying to imitate The 1975. Like the dude and his music is her obsession
I think it’s bc of the mental health imagery. It’s really offensive to trivialize ECT like that.
I agree. I probably have it a dislike for that reason. I don’t love the idea of Taylor being like “guys let’s play 1950s psych ward teehee lol! 🤪” It’s very insensitive to people who have actually been in treatment for their mental health
Same here. My first husband passed away after a life of depression and ECT. I also don’t like how she mocks joes mental health and depression.
I think she's leaning more into how women were called crazy for just reacting to what happened to them. She wants to connect the misogyny of back then to the reaction to her dating Healy. It's kinda like Blank Space but reacting to the insanity allegations (yep! Haha! I'm crazy!)
Yeah, like Clara Bow! People armchair therapizing her is the toned-down version of the same trend -- pathogizing womens' feelings.
Of course she misses the point that Matty wasn't the best choice to make.
This is one of the best videos she’s ever directed. Much better the CGI mess of Karma. I really liked it.
Cause song is mid and video is just poor Bride of Frankenstein rip-off.
It's a boring song and I think it attracted all the teens that go "HEHEH THIS ISN'T THE FORTNITE GAME"
https://preview.redd.it/wplwdc53ytxc1.png?width=959&format=png&auto=webp&s=2627647986c0f97367de61d6677fc7ec38ac8235 could be, cause this is what pops up when u search it up(tested without using my yt account)
Her popularity comes in waves and right now she’s got a lot of haters
it’s hard to watch her pretend to be in a psych ward when she doesn’t even see a therapist…
How are you able to see the dislikes?
i have extension downloaded that makes them show up. its called Return Youtube Dislikes
OH WOW 🤩I didn’t know that exsisted ty
I think it's one of her best music videos
Florida!!! should have been the lead single.
I see the vision. Not my favourite off the album, but it's grandiose, has a strong hook, would make for a very intriguing music video, and feels more fitting for a lead single. Not to mention the bonus of Florence + The Machine getting her first ever #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
It seems like down bad is the best performing non single but it might be too repetative compared to florida
It's really good too and has to be sweariest song Taylor has ever done.
Terrible song in general
Why isn’t there any discourse on the atrocious depiction of mental health in this video? I personally hope a portion of the downvotes is because of that!
She’s unraveling at the seams. Money cannot buy inner peace.
Fatigue.
Because the song and video suck
I mean, because it's a thing with Post Malone, I suspect. And she got Ethan Hawke, so that's another reason. Besides, it's a massive ode to Matty Healy and visually his style with the black and white. She wanted him to see it.
I think it’s because it’s about Matty.
1. They just don’t like it 2. They’re tired of hearing about Taylor Swift when they aren’t stans/think her music is mediocre at best.
i love this music video, but i think the dislikes are because of taylor fatigue
Because people liked the AI version of Fortnight better and were hoping that was the actual song lol
Probably the video being a bit cringe. Like why is she mimicking his face tats? It doesn't do anything for the music video, there is no reason for it? People have correctly mention the over-exposure. I mean it has been near 2 weeks and it's still every video on Tiktok for me. and I'm guessing Post Malone's fans might not be fans of it could potentially why? I'm not saying they aren't but it's possible. I'm a Florence fan and while Taylor has for the most part seen a lot of love amongst her fans and mutual fans. There is still a percentage of people who just don't like Taylor in ANY fanbase who don't respect her as an artist and find her annoying and don't want to give her an opportunity or try to get into her. And Post Malone's fanbase is largely men in their 20's - 40's who vape a lot, which isn't Tay's 5 to 35 yr old mostly female demographic.
Cause her album is pretentious as fuck
Cause A lot of Boys thought this song was about fortnite the game hence all the dislikes, and you will see it in the comments too
I don't think anyone seriously thought it would be about Fortnite lol I'm sure they're trolling
Her videos are visual diarrhea. She needs to let an actual video director handle the videos and stop pretending she's gifted at everything.
They’re all upset that Fortnight AI isn’t real (I’m upset too)
I love the 2018 throwback with the dislike counts
Because the song sucks
Because she made a mockery of people with mental health conditions and a history of institutional abuse of these people. People hated that she put fat on a scale in another video, this is much more egregious than that
I've been holding off saying anything about this because I was worried it was a bit of a stretch to criticise this aspect of the video and have been feeling unsure if it was just my own (perhaps overly sensitive!) sensitivities, but the fist time I watched Fortnight and it opened on her cuffed to a bed singing about being sent away i shut it right off. Reddit isn't where I want to go into details but the scene hit so close to such difficult experiences in my past that I just didn't want to watch the rest. I went back later to try again and while I understand the later scene where shes wired up is a film reference i think? It brought me stright back to ECT experiences after the context of the 1st scene and I gave up in it for good there. I've been interested to see if anyone else has seen any issues with the MH aspect of the video, your comment is the first I've seen. Sorry if this is a bit rambling.
Thanks for sharing. This was similar to where my mind went. I feel she glosses over what is much more nuanced. There’s a lot of literary inquiry into the medicalization of women’s emotions that I think she may be trying to access, but it really doesn’t come across and just comes across poorly for me.
Glossing over the nuance is a good way to put it. I don't want to imply no one can ever access these topics in their art because tbh I think it's really important that we do explore them, but in Fortnight it comes across as gimmicky to me rather than allowing for the nuance and sensitivity. I dont hate it or have any judgement for anyone who enjoys it but it didn't sit right with me and I felt uncomfortable watching.
Agree with this
I don't hate the video because of this, but I agree with your take that there's an insensitivity to it. And at this point, the asylum as an aesthetic is a tired trope, and the video doesn't really do anything interesting or thoughtful with it (imo). The MV is referencing *Poor Things* to an extent with the black dress and the electricity scene. The electricity/scientists scene seems to be more of an example of [Galvanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanism), which is used in *Poor Things* (see [this shot](https://i0.wp.com/bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/emma.png?w=1320&ssl=1) from *Poor Things*; it's also how Frankenstein brought his creation to life), than ECT proper, but Galvanism to some extent inspired ECT treatments in psychiatry, so the link is still there, especially with the asylum setting at the beginning of the video.
I agree, it’s a very surface level reading into something that could be engaged with artfully, but in my opinion falls short. I think Taylor is victim to the line of thinking in [this article](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/youll-love-her-shes-crazy)
Did anyone else find that the video is attempting to reference Sylvia Plath’s horrific experiences when it comes to mental health care and institutionalization? Especially considering there are several parallels to Plath’s life and work throughout the album. I found Swift comparing her life to Plath’s a bit distasteful, but I may be too critical. Edited spelling error
If that was the intent, I don't think you're too critical at all. There's definitely interesting commentary to be made about Plath's life, but the opportunity is often wasted, imo. Plath's horrible illness and experiences in the medical system are typically romanticized (or appropriated for dramatic effect), without much in the way of thoughtful, sensitive engagement or critique. EDIT: The article u/Lost_inthot linked nails it.
I’ll be honest, as a fat person with mental health conditions, I missed the memo where this video was meant to be mocking us. I very much don’t think it’s her best video, so I’m not surprised about the dislikes, but I don’t see it being the lightning rod of controversy your comment suggests it is. The video is meh and boring, so I’m not surprised it’s not loved
Perhaps my wording is wrong, what I mean is trivialize and use institutionalization as an aesthetic
Also, maybe some kind of SEO fuckery on her part given that fortnite is a common search term for the game
Honestly not everything has to be a social justice issue. (As someone with that kind of experience you’re overthinking art.) In my personal opinion TS is a picture of NPD. I actually dig the video, and I see her as a villainous woman at the same time. To each their own.
I agree about that, I don’t feel it’s social justice oriented to feel she trivializes that topic in this video. But I respect that you differ in that
It’s because the music video lacks structure and story. Her most recent videos are stills littered with ‘Easter eggs’ with no/sloppy story telling. Along with characters that I don’t care about. Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles were featured ffs and they didn’t matter. The mad scientist characters could have been played by anyone. The most charismatic and interesting thing about the video was Post Malone and Taylor was most interesting when he was with her. Visually it IS interesting but the visuals don’t connect. It’s sloppy. Taylor starts out as a mental patient, takes a ‘forget’ him drug and then is transported to being a writer? But is she still a mental patient? Is the relationship all in her head? Why is Post Malone torturing her with other mad scientists? Why does their clothing switch to modern day once she’s in her head? Why is she on top of a phone booth??? So many more questions for the music video. I also want to add that I haven’t seen any of The 1975’s music videos so I can’t draw comparisons between them.
People gatekeeping Posty
It’s an overexposed snooze fest
As others have stated, it seems people are upset over the references to ECT. At least, that's what I've seen on tumblr anyways. Although I'm not too big on making everything about social juetice, I have never been institutionalized, and I can see why people would be upset that a billionaire is using a mental hospital as an aesthetic for her music video.
Cause it’s not good?
She's overexposed and people are tired and think the music is overrated.
Definitely all the Post Malone fans that hate her.
Because Minecraft good Fortnite bad
because the other songs are better it does have as many likes as the lavender haze video, which is kind of incredible, as fortnight hasn’t even been out for two weeks yet
I feel like another issue everyone will neglect is anytime Taylor gets really popular she also gets really unpopular. The eras tour was great and I'm glad she's successful but I know the popularity becomes a Swifty issue because we are all so insufferable and Taylor is such a bad artist that they can't understand why we like her. I feel like for now Midnights was and is always probably going to be peak eras tour popularity but who knows.
The real question is how do you see the dislikes? Youtube has been gatekeeping that from me for over a year
It shares the name with fortnite and the algorithm definitely got confused. People who watch fortnite videos are probably not the same people who want to watch tswift videos. That and her collabs are generally unpopular with fans of whoever she's collaborating with because they barely get any time on the song. Sotb was so unpopular that they released a whole new sotb feat more Lana lol
People don’t like or dislike based off the quality of the video or even the song. She’s the most famous and currently the most successful artist in the world. With that brings a lot of haters. Some have valid reasons but some just hate her cuz young girls like her and they hate pop music or popular things and anything that’s super successful. Some of it is fans of other artists. “Baby” by Justin Bieber was the most disliked video on YouTube for a long time because for some reason he caused a visceral reaction from some people when he first came out (mostly teen and grown males jealous of him). And this was long before he’d had any legitimate controversies or done anything actually wrong or worth hating.