Her Mediocrity Cannot Touch Me
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Ladies, gentlemen, tortured poets. Oh, Jesus. I even knew it was coming and I'm still like, oh, it's here. You are literally a tortured poet this week. How does it feel, BB? Irritating. Because words mean things. I am not a tortured poet. Neither is Taylor Swift. She's also not a poet. We're going to get there. First of all, we'll save it. I'm Sam Sanders.

I'm Saeed Jones, and you're listening to Vibe Check. Wow. Listeners, have we got a show for you this week. For starters, our dear sister Zach is in Bali with his man. Snaps for that. Yeah.

Indonesia is such a beautiful country. Bali is a gorgeous island. Wow. I'm excited to see the pictures. We'll hear a little bit from Zach on his travels in just a bit. But first, to set up this episode, two big discussion topics this week. First, going to talk about anti-war protests sweeping college campuses across the nation. And we're going to laser focus on the flashpoint in all of these protests today.

It's going down at Columbia University. I'm sure you've all seen by now.

Student protesters there were shut down last week by the NYPD with over 100 arrests. It was a major. It brings up a lot of questions about the power and purpose and place of protests and what a college campus is actually for. I'm so ready for this chat. Then after that, I'm going to talk to my favorite, maybe not tortured poet about the tortured poets department, Taylor Swift's latest album that has 31 songs.

I know. Get ready. You're not smiling. Pointed silence on this end of the mic. But before we get into that, let's just check in. Catch the vibes. Let's hear from Zach first. He is joining us briefly from Bali. Oh, I'm so excited. Hello, ladies. I'm sending you this voice note from the beaches of Bali. And yes, that is water you hear behind me. Eat it up.

But I hope you all are doing well. I miss you so much. I can't believe I'm not on the show this week, but I'm excited to, as always when I'm gone, be a fan of the work that you all are about to do. And I think I haven't been told what you're talking about, but I'm going to assume it is the Taylor Swift album or albums, plural. And that is good luck. And Swifties, note that I'm not present for this. So if you do come for the show, you know,

Just don't at me, maybe. But I can't wait to listen. And I hope you guys are doing so well. And I have to say, being on the other side of the world and watching the American news cycle is dizzying. And, you know, outside of the cultural stuff that's happening with the Swift album, which I think is a good...

refuge or maybe reprieve for all of us. Everything happening outside of that with the White House, the Middle East, with students just, you know, practicing their constitutional rights to protest now being under attack. It's just so depressing. And I think about that every time I leave our country and watch the news from the vantage of other countries. It just never looks great. And I hope it looks great one day, but it's not going to be today. So good luck. I miss you all. Enjoy the show.

Wow. Okay, so first of all, I was going to initially just be like, I'm so happy our sister Zach is out in Indonesia. Such a beautiful... But you know what? I don't know if I liked his tone. Right? Right.

I mean, I will say from the photos he's already posted, I know he's just getting his life. It just makes me think, though, I haven't had a real vacation, like an abroad vacation in a while. I feel like I need it. It's time. And now because I'm working on a book that also is very much about travel as well, that's one of the book's big narratives, I'm in that phase.

phase that's really tricky where even when I am thinking about travel, I'm also thinking about how I can essentially work, work into it. So I'm proud of that. Bali is really interesting. So Indonesia is, is a Muslim country. Of course it's made up of like, I think hundreds of islands, a lot of islands. Bali is the one can do Island. So there is a lot of like queer visibility on the Island of Bali. I was there in 2012 and saw some of the best drag shows. The,

best Whitney Houston drag performance I've ever seen in my life it was this Indonesian queen yes this Balinese queen she had a beautiful like navy blue sequined gown and she had the like you know that white rag Whitney always had she like became Whitney Houston it was incredible it was so good I hope he gets to see some drag shows yeah Zach have fun for all of us what's your vibe

Since I'm talking about drag, you know, last week we had the grand finale of this most recent season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Do you watch the show? I haven't watched since like Raja's season. I just like shit. Raja. Well, I tried at one point. It was like season three. I think I tried to catch up a few vacations ago. Sure. I think I watched. It's hard to catch up. It's hard to catch up. So yeah. And I don't want to watch the current.

seasons without knowing the backstory because I feel like when I watch with folks who know the show, they know the history and I want to come in knowing the history. I feel you. So I keep waiting for a moment where I can just really catch up, but that might not ever happen. I would say that used to be more of a factor, which actually kind of gets to my point. Now the seasons increasingly do actually feel more disconnected. So I think you would be okay because at this point,

There are like contestants on the show who grew up watching the show. Like they don't even, they're like Raja, who? It's crazy. Okay. It's been around for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess my vibe is, you know, I watched the grand finale. I love really the top three, Safira, Nymphia Wind, Plain Jane. I was definitely rooting for Nymphia or Safira. Very happy to see Nymphia Wind. She's just, just a true creative. Like I think she could be in charge of like a fashion.

Oh, wow. Kind of like to the point of Raja. I think like Raja's reputation is that she's really like a style visionary. And Nymphia has that, so it was fun to see her win. But I also feel like as drag race has become more mainstream, you know, now with Paramount, the budget is increasing.

Really? Like, at the finale, everybody gets money. Like, Miss Congeniality gets money. All the other contestants. Let me go ahead and get on Drag Race, baby. I could be Miss Congeniality. Wow. It's so different from the days of it being, like, this little secret show basically on Logo for those of us. I mean, when you watch, you know. And it's this weird thing. I've just been thinking, like,

When it started, I would say this queer show became more mainstream. It then became a gay show. And now it doesn't even feel like centered in my life. Like it used to feel like truly like we say like, oh, this is like the gay Super Bowl. Now I'm just like, ah, it's a thing that's – they've literally today, they've already announced like the next season. Like it just begins to feel –

Well, this is also the thing that kind of ties into our conversation about Taylor Swift. Yes. At what point does the abundance start to affect the enjoyment? Yeah. And maybe that's why I was thinking about it. I still watch it. I usually watch it during the regular seasons, like with my neighbors.

But lately, like I watched the finale at home and I realized I was like fast forwarding during sections, you know, so I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I just want to see the runway at this point. So that's my vibe. Just kind of like, what does this mean? So maybe Taylor will help us answer some of those questions. But what's your vibe?

My vibe, you know, I'm really excited that we have such a juxtaposition of topics this week. But I feel like the theme throughout observing these stories play out. The protests at Columbia and elsewhere. The reaction to Taylor's new 31-track album. It's like no one wants to have space for nuance. And so my vibe this week is like nuance is allowed. Sure. In the way that we talk about Palestine and protests. In the way that we talk about our favorite pop stars' albums. Yeah.

Let's have some nuance. It's like with both of these stories, I'm seeing everyone just scream from their sides of the lawn. And I'm like, ah, it's complicated. Can we have a space and have a place where we talk about the complication?

I don't think you do that on Twitter or X. And increasingly, it seems like you can't do it on a college campus. So I'm really just thinking about this week and trying to find ways in my life to facilitate conversations with friends and loved ones that have nuance about these really tricky things. So that's it. Where's the nuance? Here's my thing about Twitter or X.

Bitch, why are you there? There ain't no nuance there. It's just porn. Like, what are people even doing? No, it's still actually, no, to push back, it still is sometimes the best place to go to get real-time reaction to like a big event. So like this weekend with the Taylor stuff, to really see how the fandom was reacting in real time, that's the only place to see it. You're not going to see it anywhere else. I get it. It's become a cesspool, but sometimes...

with breaking cultural events there's no other place to get that much instant feedback if that makes sense so i stay but that is interesting because my like digital town square is tiktok at this point for those kind of like the kind of real time but because the algorithm is so strong on tiktok i always try to be skeptical about what i'm getting i'm like i think this

L squared. X, I still feel like I can find folks that I would not be looking at with this trending topic. And I'm like, oh, let me see that. Like I was trying to see what was up with the protests and such. And I ended up-

knee deep in seas of tweets from like national review writers and I don't like those guys but I want to see what they're saying and I can still kind of find it there well we salute you for your sacrifices listeners we do have some good news we're actually doing several live shows this summer but we've announced the first one it will be in Los Angeles we're really excited we're going to get to

kick off the Ford's 2024 season on July 14th. Ticket packages are available right now and single tickets go on sale on May 14th. Stay tuned because again, we have other live shows coming up. Very excited about that. I have not been to the Ford in person, but I've like seen pictures and footage and it is amazing.

very beautiful. So that will be fun. I'm really ready for it. So last year when we had a few live shows for Vibe Check, I had to miss those for some family stuff. So this will be my first big live show with the group. I'm super excited. Listeners, come see us.

July 14th. I'm so excited because those doing the live shows, like to your point, is usually the most during the year that Sam, Zach, and I get to spend in person together when we're not on vacation. So it's also just you're getting to see the three of us also enjoy like something that's unique for us too. Totally. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. Yeah. Stay tuned for more announcements.

some more VIP stuff, some secret behind-the-scenes action on Patreon as well. It's going to happen. I'm so excited for it. It's going to be a hoot. And before we get into this episode...

And all of the real and imagined calamity that we will discuss. We want to thank all of you for sending us fan mail. And a special shout out to those of you who have subscribed to our Patreon. It is so fun. Y'all are brilliant, smart, curious. I love to see and hear what y'all are thinking about. And again, listeners, if you want to join that group chat, you can find us at patreon.com slash vibecheck. But okay.

I have forestalled the inevitable long enough. Let's get into one, a conversation I'm really excited to have, and then one that Sam is really excited to have. I'm excited for both. I'm excited for both. I love that. Okay. Let's jump in, shall we? All right. Let's go.

All right, first, we are going to talk about the protests that we are seeing, especially at Columbia University right now. But as Sam pointed out, honey, this is happening on campuses across the country and the world. I saw college students in Italy over the weekend protesting on their own campus. Anti-war protests are spreading across college campuses, and we're going to talk about...

that and how it's happening. But also, I felt it was important to kind of start this conversation with updates about Gaza itself. That felt like morally important. 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October. Most of those people were children and women. From the AP, strikes from the IDF on Sunday killed 22 people, including 18 children.

As the United States was on track to approve billions of dollars of additional military aid to Israel. According to Andre de Domenico at the United Nations, quote, the vast majority of schools have been destroyed and there is not a single university standing in Gaza.

He says it will take years to bring back students to school. And we could talk about that detail in particular. Just that, yeah. But, you know, it's clear conditions are dire and young people here in the U.S. are fed up. I guess, Sam, to start, what do you make of, like, the reality that we're seeing in Gaza and how it's beginning to manifest here in the United States? Yeah, I mean, I think that Americans in particular...

We are very good at focusing on what makes protest the right kind of protest and not very good at talking about what these folks are protesting over. And that's what we're seeing happen on Columbia and all other kinds of campuses. And it's really important to talk about specifically the issues at play at an Ivy League elite wealthy campus like Columbia.

These students at Columbia, they're not just protesting the war. They're also protesting Columbia's involvement in the war machine. These major universities with big endowments, they quite often have investments tied to the defense industry, tied to weapons companies. And these students are saying, we don't just want the war to stop. We want Columbia's hands out of anything tied to it. We want divestment, right? So it's important to know that first.

I think it's important to know that these students have an actual cause that kind of makes sense on paper. You know, we're paying to go here and you're using our money to fund that? No way, no way, no way. And so we've lost sight of that in watching the spectacle of these protests become grandstanding opportunities for people on and off campus. So that's my first thing. Like, what are they protesting about? And the next thing I think about is like,

If these kids can't protest on a college campus, where else are they supposed to do it? The point of a college campus is to learn peaceful dissent. And by all accounts, even from the NYPD, they've said the kids, the students themselves, have been peaceful the entire time. So my biggest question is, if not here, where else? Right.

Yeah, and to respond to that. I mean, one, something I think about is that, and we can talk about the 1968 protests at Columbia. Like, there's a long, specific history at Columbia. They teach dissent at Columbia. Hello. It's in the core curriculum. And we can talk about Edward Said and all of that. But also, like, more broadly in terms of this culture, when I hear of divestment, I actually think of, there was a 1990 episode of A Different World.

which took place at a historically black college called Hillman College. It aired in 1990. I believe the episode was titled A World Alike. And during that time, it was South African. Apartheid was the debate. And so there's a whole episode about divestment where students

One of the characters gets like a scholarship and she's really excited. She needs the money. And then she finds out it's connected to a company that is funding the apartheid. And it's like, I've got to give it up. And so it's really interesting. You're right to see people, um,

try to act like that this isn't a part of what it means to be a college student. And like, if you've been to Columbia University, but even if you haven't, if you've just been on a college campus, you'll know what I'm talking about. These protests, this encampment is on the campus quad. It's in the middle of campus, which is to say, it is very easy for you to walk around it, to go to your classes, to do your university business if you don't want to.

To participate? If something's happening in the middle of the quad, it's very easy to avoid it. That's why the quad is there. Yeah. I taught at Columbia for maybe three or four years. I was an adjunct in a summer program at the Columbia Journalism School. And I would see that quad and walk around that campus. And I would be there when they were doing orientation or this or that or whatever. And you just dodge them. This is the thing that I also find a little annoying in press coverage of these protests is,

A lot of media outlets are drawing no distinction on the students themselves and outside agitators. They're drawing no distinction on stuff that pops up on campus versus off campus. Remember, Columbia is right in Manhattan. They call it Morningside Heights. I call it Harlem. Harlem. But they're in the city. And as soon as you're off campus, baby, you're in New York. Right. And those distinctions aren't being drawn. Yeah.

Yeah. And just to be clear more about the specificity of that point, when they close those gates on Columbia as they have this week, it is truly insulating. You can't get in. So you're right. These are two very different groups of protesters. And it's really important to point out how big of a deal it is to close the gates of a campus like Columbia. As long as I've been teaching there, the gates are pretty much always open.

So when they're closed, it's major. Yeah. So to that point, we wanted to kind of walk through a bit of the timeline of the last few days because as Sam pointed out, I mean, 100 students being arrested is the largest campus arrest in this university's history since 1968, since the last set of major anti-war protests. And I want to reiterate here, when the president of the school brought in the NYPD, even they said-

We're only responding to their call. We see no threatening action here. We see no violence.

And in the arrest, they were like, these kids are fine. Yeah. Literally. Yeah. So let's walk through that. So on Wednesday, April 17th at 4 a.m., Columbia students for Justice in Palestine, that's the kind of organized group behind the encampment, they posted on Twitter or X that they had occupied the center of campus. The campus green sand and I were just talking about demanding, quote, divestment and an end to Columbia's complicity in genocides.

This timing was not a coincidence. Everyone knew that that same day, Columbia's president, Dr. Nimit Shafiq, was going to testify before Congress to, and this is the language of the committee, address questions about the school's response to anti-Semitism. You, of course, will recall that the presidents of Harvard and UPenn made similar appearances before Congress back in December and, um...

Didn't go well for them. Didn't go well for them. A headline from The Guardian basically sums it up, quote, "...the Harvard and UPenn presidents walked into a trap in Congress."

It's clear that Columbia's university president somehow like avoid the trap even while standing in it, which, you know, is impossible because she thought, and this was from the AP, that she could focus her message on fighting anti-Semitism rather than protecting free speech. She was like, I'm going to outwit and outwile these congresspeople. Can we just pause to note here the same Republicans that have organized these hearings are

to claim to be fighting anti-Semitism. They supported Donald Trump for years, who was in recent history, the most loved by anti-Semites in the country. You remember his comments about the Unite the Right rally. You know all of his words and statements that dabbled along the lines of anti-Semitism.

if they really were about this, they would have been calling out Trump for real anti-Semitism. Let's take it even further. Representative Elise Stefanik is basically like the loudest congressional voice in these hearings. She's grilling people. And to be clear, like it all kind of comes down to like, do you think saying from the river to the sea is a call for genocide? That's another debate that the two of us are not going to go in. But mind you,

After the 2020 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, where the shooter published a manifesto that was clearly anti-Black and anti-Semitic,

Elise Stefanik echoed the great replacement theory, which again is – there's no getting around the anti-Semitism of the great replacement theory. So many facets of the GOP echo the great replacement theory. Exactly. And so to even take them seriously when they say they're having the Assyrians to fight anti-Semitism, it is a trap like you're saying. Yeah. I actually thought Colombia's president was pretty savvy back in December by just not going. Sure.

Just be like, sorry, I'm busy, but it's interesting to see that like, oh, maybe it's unavoidable. And then here's what's crazy. You know, to see these students start these tents and these protests the day that her testimony is set to begin, the day after she finishes her testimony, she has him arrested. The day after. Yes.

It felt like that was the reaction to these Republicans. And I wanted to highlight what you pointed out earlier. Again, around 108 people, mostly students, were arrested. And NYPD Police Chief John Schell told a student journalist at Columbia, quote, the students that were arrested were peaceful.

offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner. Now, both of us turned into basically the eyeball emoji when we read this. Because can you talk about the significance of the police saying this in contrast to the administration? Yeah. I think the biggest thing I see here as someone who was taught on a college campus, taught at Columbia before, the level of escalation.

this university did by bringing in NYPD. You kind of break the bonds and the trust a university campus has when you bring in the city police. It's really hard to overstate. For most of these students' lives on that campus, they actually live pretty harmoniously with faculty, staff, and campus police, right? And

And now you're saying to these kids, many who pay tens of thousands of dollars a year, we're going to arrest you, possibly give you a record, and maybe expel you, which means then you have no meal plan. You have no housing. You got to go. It feels like a slap in the face to these kids. I wonder why this president did it, and I think it was a reaction to those Republicans on the Hill and to that testimony because –

What you easily could have done to avoid this thing getting bigger and bigger and bigger, just lock down the campus. I totally understand the campus saying there's too many people here at this point. We don't know who's a student or not. We don't know who these folks are. Students, you can protest. Here's your area. Do it. But we need to lock down the campus.

You're saying a better, more productive scenario would have been like, okay, this is getting a little much. We're going to close the gates. If you want to be on campus, you need to be able to use your campus ID. And that would be your entry point to participate in this community debate. Yes. And I think to not do that first –

just causes a number of problems because we saw what happened once these kids were arrested. They came back. Yeah, yeah. And just to follow through on that point, as Sam has explained, in the days since, the campus has gone into a lockdown, but not the kind that Sam was hoping for. At this point, basically... They did it the wrong method of events, yeah. Yeah, it seems like if you're not already in that encampment, I'm not sure you can even make it onto campus. Like, faculty IDs don't even work. All classes are re-opened.

remote. On April 21st, which I believe was Sunday, a university rabbi urged Jewish students to go home due to, quote, extreme anti-Semitism and anarchy. Multiple journalists that I trust, including Lydia Polgreen, who, and we can put this in our show notes, wrote a great piece about what she observed. Because, hello, people live in New York. It's right there if you want to go observe what's happening in Columbia. She was like, that's not what I saw. She was like, she did not see what

what would amount to anything akin to extreme anti-Semitism, and certainly not anarchy. I saw pictures of people doing traditional dances. They were holding Muslim prayers, Jewish prayers for Passover weekend. It does not look like anarchy to me. Yeah. I keep thinking about this, and I always think about this when I'm on a college campus, around young people who are there to learn, how can I make their lived experience a teachable moment?

And that is the mandate of the professors on that campus, of the administrators. You're supposed to say to these kids, and keep in mind, they are kids. They're very young.

This is where you come to learn how to protest, to learn how to dissent. How can I facilitate a space that allows you to learn from this? And to learn how to productively disagree as well. Exactly. And I think that that is where the university failed its students. There was a way to let these students protest and keep learning how to protest before you shut it down.

And I feel like there are a lot of adults who should know better that are fanning flames. I think Republicans on the Hill are fanning flames. There's a Columbia Business School professor who was a self-described Zionist, Shai Davidei, who was fanning the flames. And it's a moment...

For the older folks in the room to stop and say, how can we look out for these young kids' best interest? And how can we think about their learning? And no one's doing that. Yeah. I want to add as well that, you know, I mean, part of it is the discipleship.

decisions being made by the leadership. And I will say something about them in a moment. But another reason I think students there won't let go is that in a very important aspect of Columbia's unique legacy is that Edward Said taught there. Edward Said's writings and his ideas about Orientalism changed the

So much of our understanding of world politics, philosophy, and resistance. And so in tribute to his legacy, Columbia University established the Center for Palestinian Studies. So in addition to what the administration is doing, I think the students are especially determined.

Because they're like, wait a minute, this isn't just some random university. In many ways, this is supposed to be the heart of learning to have the nuanced, diverse conversations that Sam is talking about, if that makes sense. And my sense is that contemporary university presidents at schools across the country are being hired for their skills in fundraising. Right.

more so than their skills in leading academic communities. Well, and this is the thing that has happened over the last several decades with the transformation of the college campus. Colleges like Columbia have become big businesses.

These endowments are run by finance guys, and they aren't just there to teach. They're there to be academic research institutions. They're there to have sports teams that raise them a bunch of money. These are businesses that I think have gotten out of the business of teaching kids and

And if the primary mission of places like Columbia would be to actually educate children above all else, they would let these kids keep protesting. They would have. And I think we've lost that focus. I also think a lot of parents that send their kids to a school like Columbia have lost the focus as well.

They don't want their kids in that. They want them at a fancy summer camp for four years, right? And so it's also a moment not just to think about what these students need, but like what is a university in the classic sense for? What is it for? It's not for endowments. It's not for championship sports teams. It's not for alumni networks. It is to learn how to learn.

And I think everyone involved in this thing, all the adults at least, have lost sight of that. Yeah. There's one more thing I want to say to listeners. You know, protests are happening. I mean, right now on campuses, it's not just Columbia, Yale University, MIT, Emerson College, Tufts University, NYU, Stanford, just to name a few.

Part of the conversation that I see about these protests is that, well, it's happening at fancy private schools. Who cares? And I agree. Listen, the New York Times in particular loves to obsess about the Ivy League. And I think there are some like really unfortunate reasons for that. But I would caution everyone.

Right.

at these particular college campuses. This will get to our state universities. This will get to our community colleges as well. And also, it's probably already happening there on a smaller scale, just not being covered. Exactly. I saw the same thing happen during the Black Lives Matter movement. There were protests in Kansas. They just weren't covered. You know? And so...

I guess what I would say, one, to university presidents like those at Columbia, look at what you did. You started this fire that's now spreading to all these other college campuses. You have made the students at your campus –

not respect you or want to work with you anymore. I would say faculty as well. Faculty as well. You've seen faculty come out in support of these students. You really messed it up. And I want to point out before we close, this had been roiling for months. In November, this is according to Slate, from sustained pressure from right-wing donor groups and conservative politicians, Columbia suspended the charters of student groups Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Because they held, quote, unsanctioned demonstrations calling for a ceasefire. So it's not like the kids just woke up last week and said we're bad. They have been taking issue with the way they've been silenced by the university for months. I just got to say I'm on these kids' side. I stand with them. I think they're doing what they need to do, and this is what you go to college to learn.

My hypothetical right now that I'm asking myself, it's like if you're the president of a Columbia or an NYU or a Stanford, how do you deal with it and manage the safety of these kids that are there as well as their space to learn and protest? I do wonder if you were Columbia president, Saeed, how would you do it? Yeah. And listeners as well. Let us know. Yeah. I would say I think what is integral is.

And it's very clear that probably in late October, early November at the latest, if you were a university leader, and I mean, this should have happened on every campus across the country, there probably should have been a series of town halls, round table discussions. I know people often are like, but I'm like, no, if early on,

You can create the conditions for people, and there were so many sides in this conversation, to feel heard. I think ideally you can diffuse the kind of tensions that months later lead to this kind of confrontation, hopefully. Yeah.

I think you have to, as a university administrator, be in front of those students and show that you're listening from day one. Be there with them. And also, what concessions can you give that make folks feel heard and valued without giving them everything that they want? Yeah. And that is

has to factor in a certain kind of sequencing of how you do things and what is your strategy long-term to navigate this for months. Yeah. By the way, this university president has basically sacrificed, as we talked about, the students, all of the trust. Representative Elise Stefanik, as of Sunday afternoon, is still calling for her to be kicked out. So...

You can either be there with your students and go down swinging alongside them or you can totally abandon them and still lose your job anyway. And I will say this. If you've got a campus like Columbia with key card access and gates that lock, lock the campus down for just a student body and a faculty before you come and arrest them. That's my biggest thing. Like the sequencing of events, right?

They just went about it in the wrong way. I mean, you know how I feel about calling the cops. I feel that that is a life or death decision. And so this absolutely did not warrant the cops being called. And I believe the NYPD would agree based on their own comments. Even NYPD was like, girl, what you doing? What are you doing? Why are we here? Well, we will leave it there for now. This is very much a developing story. But again, I do think this is important and it's worth us paying attention to.

Also, check out the Columbia Spectator. The journalism program there has an excellent newspaper, so you can hear from the students themselves in terms of how they're reporting on what's going on in their community, and I would definitely check that out.

And as a radio professional, I got to shout out the Columbia University radio station. They've been doing live coverage of events there. WKCR, you can check a live stream on their website. They usually play jazz, but they have been covering, and it's been good. Check it out. I'm into it. I know we're done. I know we're done, but I got to say it. These kids are babies. I mean, like, you're 18, you're 19, you're figuring out protests. There's so much energy in it. There's so much zest in it.

The adults around them should be doing all they can to help guide them through this process. Yes. And I've just seen a bunch of grandstanding. That's what I hate. What I will say is they're young people. They are students. And I absolutely agree with you. They're learning. That's why we call them academic communities. What's happening on campus, not just in the classroom, is also a part of their education. And so to see...

See people like that business professor. Oh, Shai Davidai. Just literally telling folks, record me, record me, record me. But beyond that, to see like grown-ass adults say, I feel unsafe because students are going through what I would say is an integral part of the human learning process. Yeah, to me it's not that they're babies. I'm like that this is education. Isn't this what we're here for? It just reveals a lot about like you got to the point that like

Are these universities or not? Are these places of learning or not? And I think for many people, they're not, unfortunately. Anywho, now we're really done. Chantel, take it out. Now we're done. We will be right back to talk about, you know.

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All right, we are back. Saeed is making the sign of the cross. I'm meditating. I'm at peace. Her mediocrity cannot touch me. Her mediocrity cannot touch me. I am protected. All right, we're going to talk about Taylor Swift. Get ready, all my tortured poets.

I don't need to do too much scene setting here because y'all know you haven't been living under a rock. Last week, Taylor Swift released a new album. There are multiple versions of this album, several vinyl editions, and the quote anthology edition has 31 songs. 31. I listened to all of them more than once. I have a review, but I want to start by talking about one review in particular that really stuck with me. This review was published with the byline P.

Pace staff Pace magazine had their review of Taylor's album with no name on it and the magazine says they didn't reveal the name of the author of the review because of fears of threats from Taylor's fans

potential threats because this review dares to say the album isn't good. Let's start there. Saeed, what does it say about the state of critical discourse when you see a thing like that happen? It's very concerning. I mean, just in the last few months, I mean, what I felt like was one of the last dependable vestiges of music criticism, Pitchfork, it's basically curtains there. Yeah, they've been gutted. And so what remains is...

Music criticism, and I would just say coverage, having to function almost solely as PR. It's all positive. It's all basically just taking the talking points from the artists, from the celebrities and their reps. That's really concerning. But also, if they feel they had to publish this review anonymously, it also says something about toxicity. It says something about the fan base, not...

That they feared, and I would say perhaps legitimately, for the safety of the writer. Like, that's really, wow. It's crazy. We all read reviews of pop culture or books or movies, whatever, that, you know, pisses us off. And we roll our eyes. We text our friends, like, this is crap. How dare they say, you know, like, that's a very human feeling when you love something and someone's paraphrasing.

panning it but for it to get to this point that's really concerning consider we have a billionaire pop star i think she'll be okay well this is the thing about reviews and bad reviews and what's fair to say about an artist like taylor and her work i have been thinking a lot since this album came out and this kind of discourse it's like how do we expect our biggest stars to be treated

Megastars like Taylor, like Beyonce too, there's a certain part of the fandom with which it seems that liking the music is not enough. You have to defend these people against any negative coverage that they see as an attack.

But what's crazy is that these fandoms that have the most desire to protect these celebrities, these are the celebrities who need the least protection. They're the most powerful. They're the biggest. Something about the parasocial nature of these relationships with these stars over the last 15 years, I think the social media era, has turned fans into soldiers. And what they're fighting for is…

is what they think is the life of these stars. But the stars are fine. Yeah, I mean, another fandom that I would say very much figures into the people being afraid to criticize them is called the BTS ARMY.

Like, I think you're absolutely – like, it's not just these two celebrities. I mean, a lot of K-pop fandoms are known for being, like – they organize. They get information, and it's almost like they organize bot attacks, essentially, if, you know, you deadpan their faves. It's really concerning because also –

It's not just that the biggest stars, and I would say Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Drake, for example, can certainly survive and withstand any criticism that's lodged at them. It's also like it would be better for the art and the music. Like when we are able to have really rich, nuanced conversations about the people at the top…

Everyone else in the industry learns from it, thinks about it, makes choices informed by it. But if the conversation is just PR or nothing, then there's less of an opportunity to grow for everyone. So it's not just that Taylor is kind of being denied an opportunity, I think, for really thoughtful, critical feedback. So are all the people who are also musicians who look to Taylor. Yeah.

I love that. With that, I want to take just a little bit of a detour and offer our own review of the Tortured Poets Department. And listen, I did take notes. I have a whole page of notes. I've been playing it all weekend, and my first inkling of a big statement about this album is...

Somewhere in these 31 songs are maybe 10 that make a decent Taylor album, but there is no need for 31 songs. The only way you get away with making 31 songs, not interludes, they're all songs, is if a lot of them sound very different. Right.

It can't be too long. It can't be too long. And I keep comparing this to Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, which I've already said on this show is not perfect, but it's varied enough to keep my attention.

It's varied. You're taking us from bodyguard to a song like Spaghetti to Sweet Honey Bucket. Yes. And so much of these Taylor songs, they're a similar tempo, a similar chord structure, a similar vibe. And there were many times this weekend playing the album, I lost track of one track from the other. They all bled into each other. Yeah. I don't like that. And then it takes me to my second part of my review, which

Why 31 songs? We cannot look at this Taylor album critically without looking at it commercially and what it's trying to do. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest selling artists of all time, and she loves breaking records. One record she's never broken has been the largest number of one-week sales in America. That title belongs to Adele, who sold 3 million copies of an album a few years back in a week.

It was wild. Taylor's maybe sold 1.5 before. And everything she's done with this album seems like a play to get those numbers up for first week sales and downloads. We already know that the more tracks on your album, the more each album play counts towards streams and towards sales. We also know that Taylor announced four editions of vinyl for this record. Four? Yeah, four. So all these folks pre-order those.

thinking that the only way to get the bonus tracks was through the vinyl. But then two hours after she puts out the first version of the album on Spotify, she adds the 15 bonus tracks on Spotify with this longer version of the album. So she's double dipping. She now knows that she'll have people that have paid for the vinyl that will also stream the bonus tracks like crazy online. It's all a gaming of the system. And so for me, it's like Taylor, Taylor,

Has your quest for commercial domination begun to affect your art? And that's what I want to discuss. Yeah. But you can't have that conversation because Swifties just get so mad about it. Right. I will say, you know, obviously my – I won't even call it a review. My response to what I've heard of this album is much more limited in part because I value my time and myself. So I knew –

I knew better. I was like, I'm not going to listen to a 31-track album that I know isn't for me. Why do that? Why?

But what I did was I listened to the five most listened to tracks. Okay. Which ones? Because, well, consistently what I've heard is that people have basically been like 10, 10, 10. They're like, 10 songs are great. 10 songs maybe could have been like revised and ever, and then 10 songs I would leave. And so I assumed that Fortnite, the title track, Florida, Down Bad, and what is it? So Long London were, you know, at least the most popular songs. Yeah.

And I guess, yeah, I would echo what you said. In terms of the music itself,

At her best, and the best of all five of the songs that I listened to is the first verse of Fortnite. And I mean that sonically, and I mean that lyrically. It's a catchy song. I enjoyed the music video, and we can actually talk about that. Beautiful gowns. Literally, beautiful gowns, to read this point. But at her best on this album, it just made me want to listen to other people, including Florence Welch, who's on the album. Mm-hmm.

Hearing them together is embarrassing. I don't know why she did that. If you were Taylor Swift, why would you pair yourself with Florence Welch, who does everything you do better in terms of singing and songwriting? And I want to talk about that in a second. But at her best, often I was just like, oh, this just makes me want to listen to some of my favorite Lana Del Rey songs.

And I think that's pretty damning. When I listen to other artists I love, when I'm listening to their best songs, I'm not thinking about anyone else. It feels singular, truly unique. And this all felt at its best like someone else or even worse, it felt like everything was an AI version of another Taylor song.

And this is the thing that I really, and it feels like you can't say it, but I'm going to say it. Taylor is an excellent wordsmith. We'll all admit that. And some of the lyrics she's written before have been spectacular, life-affirming lyrics. A lot of the lyrics on this album are freaking corny. Bloated. On one of the tracks, she sings...

Truth dare, spin bottles. You know how to ball. I know Aristotle. Brand new, full throttle. Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto. It's true, swear, scouts honor. There's no way you can make me take these lyrics seriously. On another song, she sings...

I loved your hostile takeovers, encounters closer and closer, all your indecent exposures. How dare you say that's it? I'll build you a fort on some planet where they can all understand it. How dare you think it's romantic? It's just, I don't understand how I'm supposed to take lyrics this bad seriously, knowing how good Taylor lyrics can be. Yeah. Can I be honest? I don't get it. This album fails me.

In every way. Because, one, to me, if I see poet, which I would never... Then it better be poetry. If I see poet in the title of an album, then I'm... The bar is high. It makes me pay attention. Yeah, because...

Poetry is about the emphasis on word choice and image. So I would pay even more attention to lyrics and the songwriting than usual. It's bad on this album. Second, something else I noticed listening to these five tracks, and my sense is that the five that I was listening to were like Jack Antonoff-produced tracks.

The music is bad. Like the synth. I was like, this is, it's too glittery and over produced. It sounded like basic keyboard, you know, like just like a demo version. This is the thing. Like his production is full of glitter and sparkles, but it covers up a

basic four chord structure that gets repetitive and boring very quickly. And he doesn't do bass lines. It's really weird. I think, and I really felt this in the video, particularly there's this moment with electroshock therapy. And I was like, you know, this feels like someone who didn't even watch the movie Girl Interrupted. She just watched clips on TikTok.

and is kind of drawing from that. And like she saw the cover of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and was like, let's go with it. It's really frustrating to see her do this kind of white womanhood trauma cosplay that is so hollow when we're living in a moment that even if

If you do just want to focus on white womanhood, we know what's actually attacking them. It's an attack on personhood and reproductive rights. There is actually a way in which women in this country are being uniquely assailed. And we can talk about how scary that is and how that really impacts people. But instead, she's like...

doing like Anne Sexton drag? Like what is going on? Well, something about Taylor that I can never quite understand is the performance of victimhood that she's done her entire career.

The victim of Kanye, victim of Kim, victim of every man she's ever dated. That's allowed. But I do think the only reason that Taylor Swift can keep doing this for as long as she's done it is because she's a certain type of white blonde woman. I think any other kind of artist, we'd say collectively, find a new shtick, right? And I compare this to Beyonce, who has experienced a lot of hardship in her professional career, in her life, with her dad, with her husband, with her sister, right?

And after all of those things, the work that comes out of it is resilient and defiant and groundbreaking in some new ways. It takes us somewhere else. It takes us somewhere new, and it takes her somewhere new. Lemonade took us somewhere new. All of the work that Beyoncé does seems to have some forward momentum. And so much of the way Taylor does these victim-y lyrics consistently –

Shows no forward movement or growth. And I'm getting annoyed by that. And I also want to point out here, I don't hate everything she does. I think Lover, I think Reputation, and I think 1989 are three great albums. Great albums. And so what I want is just kind of a return to form. And I want an artist who is as savvy as Taylor Swift –

to understand that every big iteration of you needs to take us somewhere new. That's what I want. What I want is for people to just to listen to Florence and the Machine. She's a better writer. She's a better singer. And she's often writing about the same kind of subject. But in particular, Florence Welsh is smart enough to embody

mythos, religious iconography in a way that kind of elevates and acts gravitas so it doesn't feel like a silly, listen to Stevie Nicks, listen to Maggie Rogers, listen to basically everyone that

Taylor, I feel like it's just really good at like co-opting. And listen, these people are collaborators. They're getting paid, you know, so they're not victims. But again, like Lana Del Rey, it was just, it just made me want to listen to these other people's music who I feel like have found the sweet part of like writing dramatic love songs, you know, melodramatic love songs even, but the writing and the vocals kind of rise to the occasion. And Taylor just, she literally doesn't have the range. Yeah.

And stop mixing your metaphors. One of the songs has her character dying five different ways. The one that the lyrics was like, girl, stop. There's one song called Who is Afraid of the Low Me? And the chorus reads, so I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record scratch as I scream, who is afraid of the low me?

Too much going on here. And also, let's be real, Taylor. Everyone's afraid of you and your fans. You're the most powerful woman in pop. That's what I don't get. Listeners, we got to wrap. Let us know what you think about this album. We got to go. Give us a letter grade for the album, Zaid, before we close. Oh, a letter grade for this student's book report on Sylvia Plath. It's a C-. That's what I can give this album. It's a C-.

I'm going to give a please go and redo. You didn't understand the assignment. I asked for no more than one hour. Turn in something else. All right. With that, recommendations coming after the break. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors.

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden. ♪

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Okay, we are back. And of course, before we end the show, and honestly, I have to get my vibe right after talking about Taylor Swift's mediocrity. Oh, you survived. You survived. It cost me something. It took something from me. So you admit you are tortured. Yeah.

Again, words mean things. Words mean things. Nobody in this scenario is tortured. We're just merely inconvenienced. But Sam, what's your recommendation for this week? I want to recommend a Netflix show that is truly unlike anything I've ever seen. Ever seen. And I say that

Biggly. This show on Netflix from the UK called Baby Reindeer. Oh, I have heard talk. I think I saw the trailer for it. It's where the woman, like what's going on here with this lady? It is a stalker series, but it's flipped on its head because the person being stalked is a man and the stalker is a woman.

I don't want to say too much more besides that, but the stuff this show gets into, it just goes so much deeper than any kind of stalker TV show or film I've seen before because it gets into the psyche of the person being stalked. And you realize throughout this show, he kind of wants it. It is a wild ride. It goes into places you have never

never seen a show like this go before and it makes you ask some really big questions about yourself and what you want. I binge this show in maybe two days. I highly recommend it.

a warning it is heavy it is violence it sounds pretty dark there's sexual violence in this show so if that's not your jam don't do it but if you can stomach it it is phenomenal baby reindeer all right it's also based on a true story the guy who's a lead of this thing experienced this kind of stalking in real life made a play about it and then made a tv show oh i do like when plays are turned into tv shows oh yeah it's good source material um

My recommendation for the week is a poem, of course. It comes from the book The Willies. And I've got to say, this is from a dear friend, a very close friend of mine, Adam Faulkner. So I'm just going to be very clear. But I love this poem. I love Adam. The title of this poem is Let's Get One Thing Halfway Straight. And I should say, it's a prose poem, so it's a poem written as a paragraph. Let's get one thing halfway straight.

I have spent my entire life trying on costumes because no one told me I couldn't. And the stakes were never that high, which I've come to think is mostly what makes a white writer a white writer. The last time anyone referred to me by that name was exactly never, but that's also the point. I am a queer poet, child of an addict, masquerading white boy.

My best friend died, and it was sad. And these are the stories I water into bloom. Camp counselor, test cheat, choir boy, cypher, rapper, scratch golfer, honor roll, pothead, point guard. And Whitman says, very well, you contain multitudes. But he was a white writer too.

The not-so-funny thing about spending a life proving you aren't something is that any story that isn't the story is survival. Or more like a brick for laying until the wall is high enough that you're safe inside and you wake up and say, whoops, whose house is this? Who did I hurt to get here? And is it too late to call for help?

Again, that poem is Let's Get One Thing Halfway Straight by Adam Faulkner. The book is titled The Willies. And I will just say you find out in the book that at one point his father said, like, queer people give him the willies. They give him the spooks. So, you know, very interesting. But, you know, I was just my spirit was called to it. But now it's obviously because of Taylor Swift.

This contemplate, because I do feel something that I think people with privilege-

and real power reckon with in a way that maybe they're not always so aware of is that they feel the absence of struggle. They feel the absence of what I would call authenticity. And so one of the things you do is I think, you know, you kind of try to find, well, what's my tragedy? Like, what's my struggle? And part of that does kind of sometimes manifest as a kind of cause playing, you know? And I think we see that not just with Taylor, but...

but in a lot of dynamics that I think Taylor

Oh, and listen, let me be like, Beyonce can do it too. Whenever she's like nine to five working too hard. Right? Yes. What? Yes. Her commenting on minimum wage and yeah, yeah. Come on now. Okay. Baby girl. First person song, I guess. Yeah. Anywho, listeners, what's keeping your vibe right? If it's Taylor's new album, let us know. I actually do want to hear what listeners think about the album. I do. Okay. In another life, I would be a full-time music critic.

I love the shit. I love the discourse, the dialogue around it. So I'm happy to chat with listeners about it. Tell me your favorite tracks. I do think Fortnite slaps. It does. Anywho, enough Taylor. Yeah, I'm with Zach on this. I'm like, that is between y'all and Sam. Of course, thank you for tuning into this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast listening platform. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and leave a review. And most importantly, tell a friend or two.

Don't you worry folks, we took out all her teeth. Who is afraid of little old me?

I was tame. I was gentle till the circus life made me mean. What's going on? I'm just, I have to get this out of my system before we get into credit. This is a long ass episode. Boy, if you don't read the credits. I'm just saying. We need better lyrics. We deserve better lyrics. All right. Huge thank you to our producers, Chantel Holder, Engineer Rich Garcia, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda.com.

Listeners, we want to hear from you. Don't forget. Email us, vibecheckatstitcher.com. Keep in touch on Instagram on our new page at vibecheck underscore pod and our Patreon where for five bucks a month, you get direct access to the group chat, patreon.com slash vibecheck. All right. Till next time. Stitcher.

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