Was Taylor Swift’s video fatphobic? It’s complicated, but it was irresponsible.

It’s been hard to miss the conversation around Taylor Swift’s recent music video Anti-hero. The song and the video deal with Taylor’s experiences with intrusive thoughts, her personal struggle with eating disorders and body dysmophia, and presents herself as her biggest demon. She introduced the video with the statement: Watch my nightmare scenarios and intrusive thoughts play out in real time.

One of those nightmare scenarios involved Taylor - a conventionally attractive, very slim woman - standing on a scale that told her she was fat, whilst another Taylor looked on, shaking her head.

Unsurprisingly, this has sparked huge conversation online, largely centred around the topic of fatphobia. One side of the argument say that the video reinforces dangerous thought processes around body image, and the other half say Taylor should be allowed to talk about her experiences as they were for her, without criticism. Taylor Swift has since edited the video to remove the controversial section, citing the fatphobic comments as the reason.

But something missing from the conversation is the idea of responsibility. The truth is, both sides of the argument are correct. This is about Taylor’s personal experience, and none of us can negate that, or tell her that she has no right to feel that way because it’s a problematic way to feel. And those feelings are rooted in fatphobia - the idea of being perceived as too big is, or was, one of Taylor’s biggest nightmares. Fatphobia in her inner circle, her industry, and wider society contributed to her feeling that way. The problem is, when you have an instagram following of 229 million people, the message you put out becomes a part of wider society. So the way you choose to present your personal experiences is significant, it matters. This video lacked any responsible foresight.

Two things are true. First of all, Taylor’s audience is young. 58.99% of them are aged between 13-24, they idolise her whilst also being young and impressionable - what she says, many of them internalise. Second of all, eating disorders are most likely to manifest in adolescence, and in the last 5 years the number of hospital admissions for eating disorders increased by 84%. So we’ve got significant cross over in the venn diagram of “the people most at risk of eating disorders” and “Taylor Swift fans.” So when she posts a video in which it is clearly seen that Taylor Swift thinks being fat is the worst, that message is internalised. She becomes part of the problem that led to her struggles. Not because she felt it, but because that was the way she chose to present it.

Imagine if you will, if Taylor Swift spoke about her struggles. If she sat with Oprah and expressed how the industry, the constant scrutiny, the paparazzi, the tabloids made her feel. She spoke about struggling with body dysmorphia, she said something about how no matter her size, she stood on the scales and saw them telling her she was too big. In all likelihood - whilst there’s always going to be people that criticise - the overwhelming response would have been one of support. If she’d put it in an instagram post, an open letter of some kind, the response would have been one of support. Because that would have been a responsible way to approach the subject.

I get that as an artist, you want the freedom to simply express. But the reality is, when you have a platform you have to think responsibly. I have to do it on The Black Project, with a platform of just under 30,000 people. I have to make sure I’m not doing harm with what I post, that I’m not adding to trauma. When you choose to do something that will be publicly consumed, whether you like it or not, you are responsible to the public. Taylor Swift, with the size of her audience, carries that responsibility more than most. This video was irresponsible. The damage that presentation of that message could do, cannot be understated. In uploading it, Taylor became the thing that caused her so much pain. I’m glad she’s changed it, but I hope she and her team realise the change wasn’t necessary just to save face or to stop hurt feelings. It was necessary because it was the responsible thing to do.