I really want to like Taylor Swift.

I like her music, and I’m sure she is a great person, but I can’t like her. In fact, I kind of hate the celebrity that is “Taylor Swift.”

Professional musicians are in a strange spot. They have a public image they must maintain, even groom. Their personal lives can be completely different from their public personas (assuming the tabloids don’t dig their claws into something an idiot paparazzi uncovered).

My issue is with the public image that is presented to us, the “Taylor Swift,” not Swift herself.

Taylor started out as a small town country girl who wrote songs about heartbreak. She spoke to each teenage girl from a small town who had ever had a crush go sour. But, as we all know, country music is far from mainstream, and there was an opportunity to turn Taylor Swift into a mega-star — all they had to do was make her more pop-y. She was a bubble gum sensation waiting to happen.

The transformation happened suddenly, with her hit song, “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together” pushing her to the front of mainstream music. Her image had changed too. She had gone from small town country girl, the girl we see in her video to “You Belong with Me” (which dominated both country and pop charts, but still had a strong country influence) to suave, city girl.

Taylor Swift is now awkward but elegant. Sophisticated but down to earth. She is embracing everything that scares us twenty-somethings and turning it into a money making image who also happens to write some pretty catchy songs.

I really want to like this. It is an image I think the world needs more of — one of embracing your inner, awkward ugly duckling and not trying to or waiting for it to turn into a swan. The ugly duckling is wonderful and worthy too.

But Taylor Swift’s history doesn’t follow this line. She turned into a swan. She went from her country roots and abandoned them so that she could reminisce about her ugly duckling. It runs contrary to the exact image that is now projected to us in her current music videos, most notably “Shake It Off.”

My dislike for Taylor Swift reveals so much more than just a hipster “she was better before she was cool” attitude. I have no qualms admitting to the fact that my issues with Taylor Swift say far more about me than they do about her. I come from small towns. I’m aiming for the big city life. When I say this, I’m not just talking about the places I’ve lived; I’m talking about the character that has been built around me from the social expectations of country life, the character I’m trying to break from right now in college.

Taylor Swift hits too close to home for me to truly embrace her. In a way, the luxury that Taylor Swift has — the ability to change her public image as the charts dictate — is something I envy.

As I said before, this is not about Swift herself. I don’t have a “public image.” I’m very much “what you see is what you get.” I’m certainly not a celebrity who has to worry about keeping face in front of the cameras.

It’s the idea of having image that can be hidden behind that’s appealing to me. The image can change as needed in order to keep everyone around happy. We can’t do that in our day to day lives (or at least, not healthily).

If I were to come into class tomorrow in a red satin gown and heels rather than my boots and lace dress, I’d be laughed out of the room.

College is about finding yourself, which is why I think Taylor Swift is so polarizing – you love her or you hate her.

Her image changes with the tides, a luxury that no one, not even Swift herself, has in real life. Those that love her embrace her current image. Those that hate her reject it. For those of us who are currently trying to figure out who we are, Taylor Swift can be a rather uncomfortable reminder of how we’re stuck with the hand we’re dealt (or have dealt ourselves, depending on how you see it).

In the end, Taylor Swift is easy for me to hate. Her transformation is not only enviable, but scary too. It is the change from twenty-something into full grown adult who has all the answers (a fairy tale I still have trouble not believing in). It’s what I want and what I fear, all wrapped up into a gangly blonde with red lipstick.

Kjerstine Trooien is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].