Taylor Swift encourages up-and-coming artists to stop reading their social media comments.
In an interview about songwriting for The New York Times, the Shake It Off hitmaker explained that while criticism can serve as a “creative writing prompt”, reading comments on social media makes an artist vulnerable to too much negative feedback.
“My favourite thing when I sit down with new artists or songwriters, I’m like, ‘Why are you reading your comments?’ Like, that’s too much of it,” she shared. “You’re inundating yourself with too much criticism that doesn’t really have a focus. But a little bit of it, you’ve got to just be like, this is part of (the job). Like, don’t make this make you stop writing or make you edit yourself or whatever.”
Swift, 36, also revealed that she advises her fellow musicians to respond to the criticism through the medium of song instead of addressing the trolls directly on social media or putting out a statement written in the Notes app.
“If it’s an interesting point to you to kind of respond to, then that’s a gift for you to be able to write something. Maybe you wouldn’t have written something that day,” she continued. “But don’t go to the Notes app and post it, like write (a song) about it. Make art about this. Don’t respond to trolls in your comments. That’s not what we want from you. We want your art.”
The music superstar noted that criticism has been “a huge fuel” and “jumping-off point” for several of her songs over the course of her career. Giving examples, Swift shared that her 2014 single Blank Space wouldn’t exist if she “hadn’t had people being like, ‘Here’s a slideshow of all her boyfriends.'”
Of her 2022 song Anti-Hero, she added, “That song doesn’t exist if I don’t get criticised for every aspect of my personality that people have a problem with or whatever.”
