Taylor Swift’s Fans Are Furious Over ‘Disgusting’ Merch Item
Some of Taylor Swift’s fans recently had an unpleasant surprise when they received a merch item in the mail. Some of Swift’s fans have expressed growing frustration with her for what they see as attempts to get as much money out of them as possible. Recently a fan said they ordered a cotton towel and received one in a different fabric.
Taylor Swift fans were surprised by a merch item they received
Swift sold a $45 orange flat weave towel as merch for her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl. On her website, the now-sold-out item is advertised as 100% cotton. Despite this, some fans are saying that they received a 100% acrylic product. Many of her fans have found this frustrating and dishonest.
“Celebrity and overpriced, bad quality merch? Say it isn’t so!” wrote one Reddit user. “Extremely frustrating that these artists could hire incredible talent and use high-quality material but they just don’t.”
“That’s not misleading, that’s straight false advertising and you can be fined in a lot [of] countries for it,” wrote another person.
Not only did people find this misleading, but they were shocked that anyone would sell an acrylic towel. The material repels water, which feels counterintuitive for a towel.
“Acrylic for a towel?!?!” wrote one person. “Straight up disgusting.”
Many people acknowledged that Swift is almost definitely not the person responsible for this. Still, they believe she and her team should have higher standards.
“At minimum it should be what the advertised it to be,” wrote one person. “While I doubt Taylor actually made the decision to lie on the website, the buck does end with her, so she should address it.”
Several other fans complained that the quality of other merch items disappointed them.
Taylor Swift fans have also expressed weariness with album variants
Swift’s fans have also expressed frustration at the number of album variants she has released for The Life of a Showgirl. Fans have had the option to buy close to 40 versions of the album. After three holiday editions were announced, even some of her biggest fans expressed frustration.
“How many is this total now?!?” asked one Reddit user. “Enough!!!!!!”
Several fans had already pushed back against the dozens of variants. Given the new holiday release, though, it doesn’t seem that Swift’s team has listened to the backlash.
Her relationship with fans inspired the word of the year
As many commenters pointed out, even though people find some of Swift’s merch items lackluster, fans will still buy them. Her fanbase is one of the most dedicated. This year, they partially inspired Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year: parasocial. The word describes the “connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence.”
The dictionary picks its Word of the Year based on search patterns. After Swift announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, many people joked about having a parasocial relationship with the singer.
