Then, there’s blankness. Simply put, it’s marketable. For years, Swift, forthcoming as she was in her music about her emotional life, was blank, politically speaking, accepting the terms people applied to her. This is good marketing — Swift’s record- and ticket-buying fans have to feel like they can see themselves in her. They have to be able to see what they want in her. This is a task that is often exclusive to women; they must be a sort of Mary Poppins bag for what the rest of the world needs to see. In her over a decade-long career, Swift has been a receptacle for both sides, becoming an emblem for the right and a scapegoat — a representation of white women’s complicity — for the left. These are terms Swift could have continued to accept, profitable as it is, but she chose a more interesting path. For all her talk of reputation, Swift appears to be finally crafting her own.