An update on IsTayOnTumblr

Hi hi!

@strangelookonhisface and I have had an amazing time running IsTayOnTumblr, but the time has come to shut it down.

If you've checked the site recently you've probably noticed that it's broken. Tumblr changed their API, and Heroku (the hosting platform) has changed as well, and it would require more work to fix than I have time for.

I had a lot of fun making the site, coming up with fun "Taylor's not online" phrases, and it even helped me get a software engineering job!

The code will still be available on Github, for those of you that are curious how it worked.

Thank you to everyone who's supported the site via Patreon over the years, it meant so much to me! <3

what a delight it was to help out with this tool and see it used so widely amongst the fandom! it meant a lot to me to be involved in such a cool project!

time, wondrous time (x)

she called him “blue” so many times on Lover and then said I dont want no other shade of blue but you I’ve gotta go

betty - taylor swift (2020) // cruel summer - taylor swift (2019)

I feel like this is a lot of people’s takeaway but I’m gonna say it too: this is the most Taylor album. It’s not that her other albums appear as masks or characters or genres and ideas that she would pick up and play with, I think each of her albums are absolutely true to Taylor through the phases where she wrote them, but folklore feels like Taylor in its entirety. Not a phase of her life, but the at times theatrical and very detailed storytelling we’ve caught glimpses of through songs like Mary’s Song, Love Story, Speak Now, INTHAF etc set on top of production that captures the way every single song feels.

I think putting it most simply: her albums have always been very interesting and cherished because chronologically they’ve been about being a teenager, becoming a woman, the different ways heartbreak manifests as you get older, her fall from grace, her falling in love, etc. This album exists outside of the feeling of genre and era because these songs could exist from any point in her career. There’s no real life story to connect them to to find their real life inspiration. I love it.

The way the story of the album is told in fragments, like it’s being told around a campfire and the speaker has to keep adding backstory and detail, and slowly then all at once you start to see how they all connect and by the end you know what’s coming and your heart is shattering but you’re also in complete and utter awe of the world you fell into, how you stumbled around and got to know everyone and watched everything spark and burn and now it’s...over, but it’s all yours now that you’ve heard it

I don't care if "folklore" is everyone's favourite album or not but one thing that we can agree on is that this is the best songwriting ever. not just in taylor's career but the best songwriting I have ever seen anywhere. its just *chef's kiss*

Wheezing

this album is so like bar-setting. taylor is known for being a country girl gone pop and everyone thinks of her pop hits and now she just dropped an album that is miles above in songwriting and i’m sure that a majority of people had no idea that she was capable of writing this style of music and i really think this the album that really turns a lot of heads. her range in songwriting clearly has a range that is rarely, and i mean rarely ever seen in music.

me listening to every song on folklore like:

To the person reading this, I hope tonight treats you gently, and that tomorrow looks brighter. 

you know how ootw, dwoht and the archer have production that reflects the anxiety in the songs…..fuckin excellent if you ask me

The real glo up is when you stop waiting to turn into some perfect hypothetical version of yourself and consciously enjoy being who you are in the present moment.