HOW TO FULLY APPRECIATE SPEAK NOW (TAYLOR'S VERSION)

I have a deep history with Speak Now. It originally came out my senior year of high school. It was inescapable. To understand the importance of Speak Now (Taylor's Version), I went into some dark places in the mind of a true Swiftie and combined it with the context of what was going on in the world in 2010 to understand its full significance now. Here are three easy steps on how to fully appreciate Speak Now (Taylor's Version). 

1. Think Like A Millennial. The first step to fully understanding and enjoying this album fully is you have to think like a millennial woman. Think how they think. Fell how they feel. How do you do that exactly? I'm not totally sure, but I have observed millennials my entire life—Jane Goodall among the gorillas, except millennials are marginally less dangerous. But the important thing is you have to think about how millennial girls would react to this in 2010. Not how a teenager today would think or how millennial women would think now, but how a 2010 millennial teenage girl would think. These songs, especially the collaborations with Fall Out Boy and Hayley Williams, would have cured the world or destroyed it. 

2. Understand What Was Going On In 2010. Put yourself into the greater context of 2010. Most millennials are in high school or college. Households are under the stress of recession still. Some have already cracked. The parents take it out on their kids in passive aggressive ways, causing deep-seated insecurities in all millennials today, and they won’t shut up about it (myself included). Your saving grace is the new Taylor Swift album. You love Taylor Swift because in addition to the catchy melodies, she just sings exactly what you’re feeling. Because she is you. She's your age. She's going through the same things you're going through. Older millennials don’t get it because they were already done with college and in a completely different phase of life. It only deeply, deeply affects girls born from 87-98 (not that it can't deeply affect people born outside of these years—don't come for me).

3. Understand Millennial Men. Millennial men, especially in 2010, were assholes. They were insensitive, most likely homophobic,* and frankly, just dicks. Some have learned since then. Others haven't. But I think the biggest fact to point out here is that John Mayer was likely a favorite artist of so many boyfriends of millennial women at the time. ​And he broke Taylor's heart just like their boyfriends had or would eventually break theirs. That connection just deepens the bond between Swifties and Taylor herself. She is them. 

Taylor Swift is a genius. She created such a deep trauma bond with her fans on this album. The nostalgia created from it is incredibly strong due to this bond. So now that Taylor's Version is out, it resurfaces so many of those memories from 2010. This is the last time they were truly happy because someone truly understood them and what they were going through. She was the outlet they had to forget about everything else going on in their life. And on Speak Now (Taylor's Version),  Taylor keeps the heart of the song for the nostalgia and adds a maturity to cater it to their current circumstances. She knows her audience. 

*I mean, almost everyone was. Not excusing it, just pointing out the facts.