Special Edition: Nobody Cares About Joe Jonas, Including Taylor Swift

Hi friends!

I know we said you wouldn’t get a new GPG issue until next Tuesday, but I, Victoria, felt fiesty about this topic, so I decided to do a special edition! As promised, we’ve moved the whole newsletter over to Buttondown. You can still access our archives here, and you can send your friends here to sign up.

Last week, I saw this tweet and it made me want to scream.

Context for the non stans: Taylor Swift is re-releasing her seminal 2008 album, Fearless, today, Friday, April 9. The re-release includes six songs that she had written at the time but not included on the album. Two of them, “Mr. Perfectly Fine” and “You All Over Me,” were released in the lead up to the album’s drop (“Mr. Perfectly Fine” rules. The other is fine).

When 18-year-old Taylor Swift wrote, recorded and released the album, it was well-known that many of the devastating breakup songs (listen to “Forever & Always” piano version and try not to cry) were inspired by her breakup with Disney star and Jonas Brother member, Joe Jonas. People cared about this a lot, and it helped cement Taylor’s reputation as a silly girl who just dated boys so she could write crazy songs about them. She perfectly spoofed this perception in the song “Blank Space” on her 2014 album 1989, but some people, including apparently fans, still cling to it.

It is now 2020. Taylor and Joe broke up 13 years ago. He is married and has a baby, and, as this tweet notes, she sent her and wife Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones‘ Sansa Stark) a present when their little one was born last year. Yet some people — mostly fans! — are dedicated to make “Taylor slams Joe AGAIN” part of the narrative of this re-release.

And it’s exhausting!!

This whole perspective of looking at a woman’s music and considering it a mean diary instead of a work of art is deeply sexist. No one holds it against Leonard Cohen that “Chelsea Hotel No. 2” is written about Janis Joplin. No one holds it against Bruce Springsteen that Tunnel of Love was inspired by his ex-wife. Nick Lachey and Justin Timberlake were objects of pop culture sympathy when they released, respectively, “What’s Left Of Me” and “Cry Me A River” about how Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears had allegedly betrayed them.

And just because a song is inspired by a relationship or a man doesn’t mean anything about its artistic value. Last year, I read Mariah Carey’s incredible memoir, and she talked about her very brief relationship with Derek Jeter. Mariah explained that though their time together was short and ultimately not that consequential, because she is an incredible songwriter, she can mine that experience for literally dozens of different songs. Taylor has famously done the same.

Which bring me back to these songs about Joe Jonas. Joe Jonas does not matter. Taylor’s relationship with him is only consequential in the art that it inspired. It’s not interesting to use art as a way to “decode” what happened in someone’s private life, and what happened between two teenagers thirteen years ago could not matter less! What actually happened between them is pretty much irrelevant to our lives and also to our enjoyment of the album.

When Justin Timberlake put out his half-assed “apology” to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson earlier this year, a friend pointed out that what was wild about the whole situation is that Britney and Janet are still way more successful than Justin. The same is true of Taylor and Joe. I liked the new Jonas Brothers album, but there’s nothing exactly iconic about their discography. Taylor’s (and Demi Lovato’s, and AJ Michalka’s) songs about Joe breaking her heart are way better than anything Joe has ever made. Who cares about Joe!

As a footnote, on Wednesday Sophie Turner posted a screenshot of “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” and wrote, “it’s not NOT a bop.” Taylor reposted with her own praise of Sophie. I also reposted because the interaction made me smile. The story of Taylor and Joe is over. But Fearless is forever.