In this day and age, we live for conflict. We feel like we belong by aligning ourselves with certain sides. The digital age is a huge contributor to this. Information spreads rapidly and is taken out of context, particularly among celebrities.

Breakout artist Lorde has the number one song in the country this week, according to Billboard Hot 100. Her music is celebrated as mature, but with youthful energy and perspective. She seems to be the polar opposite of her fellow music queens, like Taylor Swift.

In recent interviews, Lorde juxtaposed herself to Taylor Swift. She described how Swift is a bad role model for young girls because she presents herself as “flawless and unattainable.”

Lorde’s comments resulted in a huge backlash from bloggers and social media. They painted her as a hateful outsider to pop music. Even Joe Jonas had something to say, tweeting, “Hey @lordemusic you say call me Queen B but you shouldn’t be attacking all the true Queen B-tches’s #respect.”

Lorde issued an apology via her Tumblr page. She backpedaled, apologizing to Swift and focusing her critique on the music industry’s problematic emphasis on physical perfection.

The media and their marketing teams create dichotomies of good, bad, wholesome and alternative women. We then feel like we need to choose between women like Swift and Lorde as those to aspire to.

Swift represents the wholesome ideal while Lorde represents the exotic alternative.

Now, instead of “Are you a Jackie or a Marilyn,” young fans are asking, “Are you a Lorde or are you a Taylor?”

Why do we have this mentality? Artists send important personal messages in their music. But rather than focusing on their art, media and audiences are more focused on the feuds that take place among celebrities.

Lorde made a particularly interesting comment during an interview with MTV on Oct. 8. She said, “I think there’s a funny culture in music… that if you have an opinion about something in music that isn’t 100-percent good, you’re a ‘hater,’ even if you have perfectly reasonable grounds for that critique.”

Lorde is right. The music we love forms ideologies for young fans to align themselves with. Musical choices can influence how you speak, what you wear and inevitably determine the music you choose to ignore. But this is all lost in celebrity feuds.
As Lorde said, if you’re not 100 percent behind an artist or what he or she produces, you’re automatically a “hater.”

The Internet is a buffer in feuding. It makes fights virtual with few tangible and negative results. The Internet also serves as a platform for huge volumes of information about these feuds. All of these are ingredients for polarization in fans and media perception.

When this polarization happens, the digital nature of all this information allows for it to be taken out of context, rapidly spread around and packaged as a “feud” and a sorry excuse for news.

It’s more problematic that media construct young women as unsupportive of each other, fans and artists alike. A “celebrity feud” may make an interesting feature on E! News, but they are socially constructed, hyperbolized and destructive to women’s progress in the music industry.

Both Taylor Swift and Lorde have important things to say in their music and otherwise. When they are constructed as simple, feuding foes, it takes away the credibility that young people have to raise their voice, speak and ultimately matter.

Cassie-lee Grimaldi is a senior television, radio and film major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected] and reached on Twitter @cassiegrimaldi.

Published on October 14, 2013 at 1:19 am