I didn’t want to add to all the headlines, posts, theories, and whatnot surrounding Taylor Swift at the moment, but I’m going to do it anyway.
If you’re sick of hearing about Taylor, go ahead and click out of this post, delete this email, I get it. She’s everywhere and even I’m getting sick of all the Taylor stuff.
But, if you will stick with me despite the oversaturated elephant in the room, I have a point to make and it’s not really about Taylor herself but what we can learn from one of her songs.
If you listened to pop radio at all in 2019, then you’ve probably heard the song ME! by Taylor. To put it simply, it was not received well by the general public or her fans.
People said they’d understand it more if it was on the soundtrack of a kid’s movie (ouch). Or even its inclusion on the album if it wasn’t the lead single (I agree, it was a bad lead single).
The world was not ready for ME! and I’m not sure if it ever would have been ready for it (pun intended).
But I will admit I still like the song. I was a hater when it first came out. But after some time, it grew on me. I will now play ME! when I’m in a bad mood and need to feel better. There’s just something about its campiness I vibe with.
This song is very much a love it or hate it situation. I haven’t seen many people say “eh, it’s okay I guess.” It’s either “Justice for ME! It doesn’t deserve the slander!” Or, “Who let her include this on the album much less make it the lead single?! It’s SO BAD!”
And that’s what I want to get to the heart of in this post: Why watering down your brand and messaging for the “general public” is not a strategy for success and will only leave your true dream audience feeling like something is missing.
What is the song ME! actually?
This song is 100% camp. It’s not meant to be taken 100% seriously.
Criticizers of the song often refer to it as “shallow” and “weak lyrically.” And yeah if you compare it to arguably Taylor’s greatest song of all time, All Too Well, it is shallow and kind of simplistic.
But that’s not a bad thing.
Taylor is both the campy, doesn’t take herself 100% seriously, writes fun songs artist. And she’s also the “I will rip your heart out with words” artist.
People are allowed to be multifaceted.
It’s also okay to only vibe with one side of that artist and not the other. If people don’t like ME! no one is forcing them to listen. But for those of us who do like the song, we’d appreciate it if it didn’t get watered down.
But it did get watered down.
Because people did not take it in the fun campiness it should have been received in and hated this song so much, they bullied Taylor until she removed a part of the song from the official version to satisfy their complaints.
Yes, she literally did that. She edited the song and uploaded the new version to streaming as well as put it on her physical albums to satisfy the voices online.
What was removed you might be asking if you’re not as into Taylor Swift as I am?
Right before the bridge (and you can still listen to this version through the music video found here), there’s a short little talking/yelling part that both Brendon Urie (who is featured on the track) and Taylor do.
Brendon says: “Hey kids!”
Taylor adds on: “Spelling is fun!”
People despised this part of the song. I’m not even sure if despised is a strong enough word. And people blamed Taylor for it in weird ways.
They were sooooo annoyed that she would force the great Brendon Urie to participate in this level of fun and camp (which, unconfirmed, but there’s rumors that that specific line was Brendon’s idea. Or that he wrote the bridge but Taylor came up with that line. Unsure but either way they both wrote on the song and liked the idea).
But guess what? People still didn’t like the song even after that part was removed.
Who would’ve guessed appeasing the masses wouldn’t actually lead to them liking the song?
Here’s the real travesty though: For those who liked the song, loved it even, and appreciated its fun, not-taking-itself-so-seriously vibes, removing that line damaged the song.
I’m a hey-kids-spelling-is-fun lover. I like the line. I think it’s a crime they removed it. That part of the song feels empty without it.
And because I liked the song and the part that was cut out, listening to the “official” version doesn’t make me as happy as it should because all I can think about is where did that line go? Why was it taken away? Why do people suck so much that they bully someone to change their art just to appease them but then still don’t like the thing after they get what they wanted???
I think I’ve gotten a little off topic…
How the heck does this relate to branding?
Okay I found the point again.
This relates to branding SO MUCH. The lessons we can learn from this are:
Not everyone will like what you do and what you put out. And that’s okay.
You shouldn’t try to chase the audience that won’t like the authentic you or the true essence of your business. It will only water you down and chase away your true audience.
Some people will dislike you, your business, your brand, literally anything you do. You can’t please everyone. And that’s good!
These are hard ideas to reckon with. We want to set ourselves up for success in our businesses. And one of the ways that seems like a no-brainer to do that is to appeal to as many people as possible. Make everyone your target audience! Exclude no one.
But it just doesn’t work.
Let me tell you my own personal experience with this.
When I was rebranding my business last year, I ran into a lot of these same walls.
I thought if I fully embraced who I was, if I made all the bad puns and stupid jokes I wanted to, if I went all in and didn’t hide my whimsical side, that I would never get another client again because no one would take me seriously.
This was a little less prevalent on the design side but incredibly important on the copy side.
I hired Robyn of Echo + Scribe to write my website’s new copy. I loved her personality-packed copy, her embracement of her own weird sides, her unafraid-ness to make puns and jokes. She felt like the perfect fit because she was already speaking my language.
I trusted her wholeheartedly.
And when she sent me the copy for my pages, I remember thinking: “It’s like she’s inside my brain, wow!”
And then I started thinking, “I can’t say all this. This is too much. I’m too much. There’s no way this is professional enough I need to ask her to scale it back.”
But I never did ask her to scale it back. Instead, I took the advice that I usually give my clients and took a step back.
We all have this panic reaction to fully embracing ourselves it seems. We’re insecure and anxious no one will see our true vision so we want to hide. We want to water ourselves down. Make ourselves conform to what’s sellable in our society.
But that’s fear talking and we need to tell it to back off.
Instead of panic asking Robyn to make my copy more generalized, more likely to appeal to the general population, I sat with it. I put it away and let it sit for a day or two and then I reread it.
And I loved it.
Once the initial shock of “wow that’s what I sound like” wore off, I could appreciate how much she captured all of me. My personality, my sense of humor, my story. And she did it in a way that didn’t bend to society’s whims of what we “should” sound like.
And that’s what we can really learn from Taylor Swift’s ME! debacle.
You can’t spell awesome without me.
Yes that is a cheesy line from the bridge of ME! but I love it. And if you don’t, maybe you just hate fun (I’m kidding, you can feel however you want about it).
Business, finances, opinions, society, so many factors can cause us to want to shrink, to want to shy away from who we really are. To put on our business hats and gray out our colorful personalities. But that’s not a recipe for success. At least in my opinion.
I think we should all embrace our weird. Our quirks. Our things that don’t make us fit in. And we should use them to our advantage to make people stop in their tracks when they see us.
When they land on our websites they should know us. When they scroll our social media they should feel our personalities through the screen of their smart rectangle.
And that all starts with branding.
If you are a solopreneur, especially with a service-based business, embracing yourself in your branding is gold. No one else has the you-ness that makes you, well, you.
If you bake it into the pie crust of your brand, continuing to fill your spaces with pie filling that is very you-flavored will be easier. It will come naturally. And it will make people not only remember you, but make them want to work with you.
Some people love the line “Hey kids! Spelling is fun!” And those who love it, loooooove it.
But if you edit it out to appease those who will say, “The whole song should be edited out,” you’re not doing yourself or your dream clients any favors.
Embrace your you-ness. Embrace your weirdness. Tell them with your brand and business: “I promise that you’ll never find another like me.”
Cause that’s magic.
Thanks so much for venturing into the Blue Raspberry Patch with me! I love exploring all these sustainability and design topics in longer form and sharing little berries of info with you all. I’d be delighted if you’d join me here!
I didn't think this was going to go into the branding angle but glad it did! The Taylor example paired with your own personal lesson knocks this out of the park :)