Today I would like to start with a sweeping declaration: Taylor Swift is a genius. As sweeping declarations go this one should be uncontroversial. Should be. As a recording artist, her measurables are off the charts. In a career spanning nearly two decades and an array of genres she has sold over 200 million albums worldwide, had 18 Billboard number 1 singles, spent 401 weeks (that’s more than seven years!) on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, been streamed over 55 billion times on Spotify, and won enough Grammys, CMAs and other awards to fill the trunk of any getaway car.

In addition to her staying power and commercial success the intangible yet no less real dedication of her fans who talk about her concerts in reverential tones using the rhetoric of religious experiences demonstrates the way Swift, like all great artists, has both personal and universal appeal. Beyond her ability to bring pleasure and comfort, Swift is able to crystalize essential elements of the human experience—love, loss, grief, joy—in ways that are both expansive and particular.

If you will indulge me on the particular for a moment, Swift’s songwriting and poetics, which often touch on grief and loneliness, deeply resonate with me. Her song Marjorie off the album evermore is a powerful example of her songwriting genius. The song opens with the powerful double motif of “Never be so kind, you forget to be clever: Never be so clever, you forget to be kind” later repurposing the format in a lyrical turn that would make Leonard Cohen blush, “Never be so polite, you forget your power: Never wield such power, you forget to be polite.” Beyond poetics, Marjorie, inspired by Swift’s late grandmother, accomplishes something all great art must—it defines the contours of emotion that would otherwise be untraceable and unspeakable in its nebular intensity.

In my case that emotion is grief at the passing of my mother. Swift masterfully captures the grieving process—memory, regret, love, and spectral company—in a way that reflects my own mourning and helps me look at it head-on. The thread running through the song, variations on the line “What died didn’t stay dead: You’re alive, you’re alive in my head” is, I’m sure, generalizable to most of have experienced the loss of a loved one. However, the essential idea, the glowing grain of sentiment in that line—death is not the end of a living relationship—encapsulates the wrenching sense of loss, love, appreciation, and hope that has come to define the way I grieve for my mother.  Even the song’s specifics encapsulate my experience, from the seemingly banal—the lyrics touch on Swift’s childhood complaints about being pushed to try new things (“And I complained the whole way there: The car ride back and up the stairs”) in a way that perfectly captures my childhood complaint to my mother about going to summer camp—to the poignant embrace of the phenomenological over the rational as the song’s core motif shifts in its final repetition  (“I know better: But you’re still around”).

Another of Swift’s songs that resonates with me on an individual level is Mastermind off the album Midnights. The song details a planned and calculated approach to social relationships. The song, which addresses the oft-leveled criticism that Swift is cold and calculating in cultivating friendships head-on, is something of an anthem to me. You see, dear reader, the need to be, as Swift would put it, “cryptic and Machiavellian: ‘Cause I care” is central to the twice-exceptional experience. As a school-age student, I often had to plot social interactions in order to be seen for who I truly am—a person whose physical and intellectual abilities often fall at the far (and opposite) ends of the spectrum. What’s more, the central idea that relationships are achievements is not, in my view, a sign of manipulation but rather a clear assessment that knowing and trusting others is something that takes continuous and concerted effort. Another point in the Swift column.

The fact that, despite never having met me, heard of me, or considered my existence in any way beyond the most abstract, Swift is capable of so elegantly articulating grief in a way that mirrors my own is astounding. The fact that she is capable of creating art that reaches out and touches the contours of psyche and soul of millions is a testament to her memetic genius.

I think it is clear by now that I am a big fan. I am but on of millions of Swifties who recognize Swift’s genius, a claim that I must insist, dear reader, should be uncontroversial. Yet, Swift occupies something of a unique space within the modern recording industry and pop-culture landscape in that, despite her undeniable bona fides she is often treated as unserious, a marketing gimmick, or a pretty face. That is to say, certain segments of society and media are systematically discountable to her ability, routinely dismissing it in what I have come to recognize as something entangled with ableism.

As is plainly evident from media coverage (especially in right-leaning outlets), Swift has frequently been the target of gendered rhetoric and slut shaming. This rhetoric feeds into a discursive iteration that draws a hard categorical distinction between slut and genius, construing these categories as a contradiction in terms. (To be perfectly clear I cast no judgment on Swift or anyone’s romantic life and find the invective leveled against her and others for their dating choices to be despicable).

Take her Eras tour, for instance. Many of Swift’s critics point to the tour’s success as evidence of her ability as a marketer, or, in a more gendered way, as her appeal as a product to be marketed. They cast her as an airhead, a pretty face on a poster. In addition to being wildly gendered and a subtle form of the slut-genius dichotomy, this criticism wildly misses the point. Sure, Swift is a talented marketer but that doesn’t explain the tent-revival atmosphere of her concerts, the reverence and dedication of her fans, the tears at her lyrics, or the babies named in her honor. Coca-cola has a marketing department full of talented, well-paid marketing professionals with a budget just a hair under the GDP of Montenegro but you don’t see many babies named Orange Fanta. No, Taylor Swift’s genius lies in her ability to act as a memetic channel to the core of the human experience, and no amount of slut-shaming, no matter how subtle, can dimmish that.

To her credit, this is a phenomenon that Swift herself has recognized and resists, as can be seen here. Another point for Taylor.

The question arises, however, of why? Why put in so much effort to dismiss, diminish, and dis-recognize a pop star’s ability?

Put simply, because she’s not just a pop star. Her poised, balanced, and insightful 2022 commencement address at NYU demonstrates that her talent for rhetoric and her outsized presence are not confined to songwriting. Breaking out of that box makes Swift a threat to some on the cultural right creating a sense of collective fear.

This fear shines through in Candice Owens’, who can always be counted on to say the quiet part out loud, description of Swift as a “ticking time bomb.” Though, as with much of Owens’ commentary, the specifics are fuzzy—what kind of bomb, placed by whom, to what end—the general point is clear; Taylor Swift has ability that cannot be controlled or directed by external agents and that is a threat to the ability position of those who criticize her. Though she is not a crip she is a victim of a misshapen ableism much the way that some straight men with certain characteristics can be victims of homophobia. Those who fear her genius perpetuate slut-shaming narratives of an inconsequential airhead denying her ability precisely because she is extraordinarily able and anything but inconsequential.

Those who resort to slut-shaming do so in desperation—and here, dear reader, I have no problems with the categorical. Their tactics are designed to diminish, devalue, and discount the humanity of the targets of their invective. Slut-shamers are plainly wrong on fact and feeling, are insecure in their position in the ability hierarchy, believe themselves to be threatened by the ability of others,  and thus resort to ad hominem attacks in an attempt to dull the brilliant humanity in those they attack in an attempt to nullify their targets’ ability. In Swift’s case, slut-shaming  was always doomed to fail. It is impossible to deny the humanity manifest in her ability to empathize transcendently just as it is impossible to deny her genius manifest in her artistic and commercial success.

While millions of Swifties, myself included, are waiting with bated breath for the next breadcrumb about a new album, collaboration, or tour, Swift insists she is living in the present—not planning any further ahead than is strictly necessary. Perhaps, however, she is, true to her calculating image, moving behind the scenes; cooking up new projects and schemes. I hope she is. Where some see a ticking time bomb I see a cultural supernova heavy with cache and power accumulated over decades in the limelight. As an admirer of hers, I hope we get the chance to see her wield that power, to make her cultural mass felt.