To some, Taylor Swift is nothing short of a modern-day goddess; an all-American girl with a heart of gold and a back catalogue of pop stompers.
To others, she’s an astute businesswoman; adept at manipulating the media, a pro at orchestrating picture-perfect moments which ultimately reinforce the wholesome image she worked so hard to create when she politely tiptoed onto the music scene in 2006.
To me, she’s akin to a tooth ache.
Not the type that leaves you writhing in agony and begging for pain relief, but the other one.
The one you describe as a ‘dull ache’ which you purposely – and here’s the clincher – make worse by continuously prodding with your own damn tongue.
‘Trying to see if it’s any better,” you sheepishly explain to anyone who catches you moments after you lamented being struck down by this oral catastrophe.
In much the same way you wait for a particular colleague to make the noise you hate simply so you can grit your teeth and roll your eyes, many of us reluctantly keep abreast of developments in Taylor’s life just so we can do the same.
But what is it about this Grammy Award-winner that rubs so many of us up the wrong way? And why do we find ourselves so put out by her lifestyle, love life and the tracks ultimately born of them?
Is it because she’s dated numerous men over the course of her 20s? Hardly. It’s only the very fortunate among us that go through life without kissing our own frogs, so that’s not it.
Is it because she makes music which you mumble helplessly along to on the morning commute? By that token, we should consider everyone in the charts a serious pain in the arse, and the thing is, we don’t.
Or is it because she’s part of a ‘squad’ made up of the most beautiful and – some might say – privileged young women of our generation? Yes, but that’s definitely not all.
Whether it’s her lovers, her lyrics or her ladies, everything in T-Swizzle’s life is too contrived for most of us to stomach.
From her cat-lady persona and adorkable Instagram to her rollercoaster romances and sisterhood of the travelling bants, many of us just don’t believe the 26-year-old popstar anymore.
Are we being had? Is she actually as sweet and sisterly as she wants us to think? Is she really just a small-town girl who graduated from cowgirl boots to crowded arenas?
No, of course not, and over the course of the last 18 months, many of us are starting to feel duped.
With her squad waxing lyrical about her prowess as a total BFF online, and her current boyfriend wearing an ‘I Heart TS’ vest in public, people no longer feel like they’re being given a snapshot into a celebrity’s life, but are, instead, pulling up a reluctant front-row seat to The Taylor Swift Show.
But here’s the thing – contrived or not, there’s no doubt it makes for compelling viewing. And whether you love or loathe her, you are – like millions other – watching.
No longer just a guilty pleasure on your iPod, Taylor – and the world she has created for herself – is, for so many of us, the latest guilty pleasure to have found its way into our magazines, newspapers and social media feeds.
And like many of life’s guilty pleasures, it can give you a toothache.
