With the recent positivity and excitement toward reputation TV I figured it was worth giving a shout out to how the OG era was and the fans who were there at the time.

This was not a fun badass pop diva era. For fans it was relief after a massive years long creative drought and relief that she was okay after the worst year of her career/life. No one knew she had Joe by her side until May 2017, 3 months before the album dropped. So from July 2016 to then, we had no clue if she was doing ok or if anyone actually had her back (aside from the standards like her family/Abigail etc), much less that she’d found a long term partner.

The industry had basically washed their hands of her and artists often commented negatively on how her music was “out” now and she had lost all her popularity.

The last thing that happened before the album rollout was literally the sexual assault trial. She won the case August 14 and wiped her socials on August 18, 2017.

Look What You Made Me Do was crucified until the video premiered. The general attitude was that she’d lost her talent and she was doing robotic mindless pop now. People made fun of her “trying to be badass”. They said the dance scene was copying Beyoncé’s formation video. When she released a cover of September, Twitter said it was cultural appropriation. When she announced the stadium tour, the media was certain it would flop. Even when they had to eat their words they did it with an air of “well I was still right about the album being terrible”. We know now critics were told by their editors to give it low ratings.

And when she tweeted she’d had a pleasant end to the year at the end of 2017, she was blasted for that too. Because if everyone else is suffering you can’t be happy of course.

It was still a gloomy time to be a fan despite her return to music. No one took this album seriously and most wrote it off after hearing ready for it. I’m glad the attitude has turned around but I haven’t forgotten the past either.