Taylor Swift needs no introduction. An icon for young women, songwriters, and hopeless romantics, Swift has built an impressive career out of daydreams, heartbreaks, and a clever command of the English language. Her twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, dropped on Oct. 3 and shattered records with over five million Spotify pre-saves, the highest in the platform’s history.
Yet despite the impressive numbers, Swift’s avid fans and casual listeners are denouncing some of her more embarrassing lyrics, with one Redditor comparing the language used on The Life of a Showgirl to a 2014 Tumblr post. More troubling, however, are the accusations of racial insensitivity in her latest work.
There’s no doubt that Swift’s latest album, good or bad, has garnered a great deal of attention as Swifties debate whether this latest work is a “flop” or not. Along with the debate surrounding the latest album’s merit, a new discussion branches across social media, examining specific lyrics throughout the tracklist and noting the racial undertones within this body of work. The most notorious example is “Opalite,” in which Swift references Kayla Nicole, a Black woman and the former girlfriend of Swift’s NFL fiancé, Travis Kelce.
Swift is no stranger to controversy; however, her most recent quarrels with public opinion have centered around a proximity to conservative influencers and Trump voters. Her suspected disrespect towards Nicole could’ve been an honest mistake in the writing process, or it could be the mark of a shift in Swift’s ideology.
Allegedly Racist Lyrics
The third track on the album, “Opalite,” is regarded as one of the strongest songs on the album and has been named Kelce’s favorite track. “Happy Taylor is back,” wrote a fellow Her Campus member, who thoroughly enjoyed the ’70s pop sound of the song. While the musicality of the song has been praised, the lyrics describing the relationship between Nicole and Kelce and Swift’s imagery of a black night have not been received well by the public.
“Opalite” kicks off with Swift comparing past exes to garbage, breathily singing “I had a bad habit / Of missing lovers past / My brother used to call it / ‘Eating out of the trash.'” Swift denounces her past relationships, but maintains grace throughout the track, never giving her listeners specific hints about the ex-lover she might be ruminating on, utilizing the vivid image of “lightning strikes” to demonstrate the drama and damage she’s experienced until meeting Kelce. Remember that powerful description; it’ll strike again later.
The controversy becomes apparent in the second verse, where Swift speaks directly to Kelce, caroling “You couldn’t understand it / Why you felt alone / You were in it for real / She was in her phone / And you were just a pose.”
Keen Swifties clocked the dig at Nicole immediately, and proof soon followed. A now-deleted video of Kelce and Nicole resurfaced on X, showcasing Nicole sitting with a glass of wine and recording with the front camera, while Kelce asks her to finish her drink, asking, “Oh, my God. Get off your phone. Get off your phone. … You’re not even drinking your wine anymore, can we go?” Nicole laughs off Kelce’s comments, making no moves to finish her beverage. As the chorus begins again, Swift imagines her fiancé dodging lightning, “Sleepless in the onyx night,” perhaps drawing the connection between Nicole and black night, following it with Swift’s love being an opalite sky. It conjures an image of black and white, dark and light.
If exes are trash, what does that make Nicole? Swift claims her lyrics are about making your own happiness, but the debate rages on. The lyrics received a mixed reaction; some immediately felt icky, and others denounced the criticism as being “too woke.” Some critics don’t see the lines as racist but irresponsible. The fervor of Swifties is well-known across the internet. In giving Nicole a detailed reference within the song, intentionally or not, Swift has directed her fans’ ire toward an innocent woman. One fan said, “Taylor is far too internet savvy to not know what would happen to Kayla if she released that line… she knew she was hitting someone who has no chance to equalize the playing field.”
Nicole, described by E! News as a “sport reporter-slash-influencer-slash-model-slash-podcaster,” has an impressive 924K followers on Instagram. Kelce and Nicole were on and off for about five years before officially ending their relationship in 2022. It was the summer of 2023 when Kelce and Swift began dating — roughly a year after Kelce’s previous relationship had ended. Nicole remains unbothered by the couple. The closest thing to a response to “Opalite” was a clip from America’s Next Top Model, in which model Eva Marcille says, “I don’t compare myself to other girls. I’m Eva. I’m no comparison to anyone else.” There’s been no information on whether Swifties have begun harassing Nicole, and we can only hope it stays that way.
Bad design or Dog whistle?
While Nicole remains unbothered by the lyrics, Swift found herself in even more trouble when she released merchandise centered on “Opalite.” The merch, a silver necklace with eight lightning bolts facing the same direction and an eight-pointed star as the pendant, is speculated to be a Neo-Nazi dog whistle, furthering the suspected racism in the song the necklace is named after.
In a viral TikTok, user @Sampire1513 analyzed the design, noting that the lightning bolts mirrored “SS bolts,” the insignia of the Nazi Schutzstaffel during the Holocaust. While the original video has now been taken down, a reupload by Instagram user @her_archives rehashes the main points made. The SS was responsible for the majority of the six million murders committed during the Holocaust. Additionally, the number of lightning bolts being eight also raised alarms as “88” is a white supremacist code meaning “Heil Hitler,” with “H” being the eighth letter of the alphabet. The last issue arises with the eight-pointed star, now being compared to the Iron Cross, a German military medal from World War II, and another symbol of Nazi hate.
As of this past Thursday, Swift has removed the necklace from the merch store, but no comment has been made by the celeb or her PR team. The dialogue surrounding the necklace mirrors that of the lyrics that kicked this whole thing into motion: some think it’s intentional, others think it’s overdramatic. It’s a clumsy accident at best and a bad indication of where Swift’s career is heading at worst.