Music

Taylor Swift Has Apologised To Nicki Minaj; The Great Twitter Feud/War/Spat Of 2015 Is Over

"I missed the point. I misunderstood, then misspoke. Sorry Nicki."

by Meg Watson  24 July 2015

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After three days of explosive headlines, intense thinkpieces, and general Twitter griping, it’s over. It’s done. Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj have made their peace and are presumably having celebratory pancakes with Aaron Paul right now.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, firstly: hello, and welcome to the internet. I’m happy you chose this piece to be your first, but slightly worried you may be in over your head.

It Begins…

Earlier this week, MTV announced the nominations for the Video Music Awards, and somehow the fact that Miley Cyrus was named as host wasn’t the biggest piece of news of the day. After missing out on a nomination for Video of the Year to Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Mark Ronson, Kendrick Lamar, and Ed Sheeran, Nicki Minaj decided to share her feelings on Twitter.

The idea behind her complaint was that both ‘Feeling Myself’ and ‘Anaconda’ were probably more deserving of some recognition than a clip where a quirky little Irish man waltzes around at one point playing a woman’s leg like a guitar.

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Minaj followed up her initial statement with some more speculative criticism about success in the music industry in general. Citing the enormous impact ‘Anaconda’ especially had on pop culture, Minaj questioned whether her snub had something to do with a bias towards a certain “kind” of artist. These are the same questions which were raised around its release: would her video have been more “socially acceptable”, or in this case critically acclaimed, if it was full of thin, white bodies?

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As support began to flood in, she then started speaking more broadly about the issue saying, “Black women influence pop culture so much but are rarely rewarded for it”, and people all over the world presumably began blasting ‘Anaconda’ in solidarity.

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Tay Tay Gets Involved, And There’s No Going Back

Not long after that, Taylor Swift chimed in, seemingly pretty offended by Minaj’s statement — which she took personally. Her music video/mini-Marvel flick ‘Bad Blood’ was nominated for the same award, and Swift felt like the tweets suggested she and the other “slim bodies” therein were undeserving of the recognition.

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That was not what Minaj meant at all, and she was quick to clear that up:

Katy Perry also got involved, making the — albeit grammatically terrible — argument that Swift was being pretty hypocritical. Her calls for ladies to band together and defend one another were actually being used to shoot down important statements from another woman. Even the slightest shade from someone like Tay can set her legions of fangirls aflurry, and something like this can hardly be that productive.

All Of The Takes

Then, as is tradition when any number of famous women converse on social media, the commentary began.

Not only was Twitter flooded with fans cheering for their respective favourite, but the press wasted no time in labelling the exchange a “feud”, “fight” and “battle royale” (for that last one, Jezebel even photoshops them in a boxing ring).

Minaj was the most vocal about her treatment in the media, questioning the sensationalist coverage she received, and praising those who were actually discussing the real issue of intersectionality. She was calling out what she perceives as an entrenched bias against women of colour, and Swift’s response defaulted to a distinctly privileged breed of white feminism — surely these issues were more interesting and deserving of respect than commentary on a non-existent schoolyard spat?

Moreover, as The Guardian pointed out, in most re-tellings of the narrative Minaj was “archetyped as the angry black woman“, attributing aggression to her that she’d never really shown.

Nicki and Tay IRL, apparently.

Then, because she was getting heat for it anyway, she dropped Swift’s name to make a point:

The Sweet, Sweet End

Overnight it seems as though Taylor Swift read one of the many, many thinkpieces floating around and has sincerely apologised for her mistake — a pretty big deal for someone whose public image is that of a loveable fawn strong enough to make huge conglomerates buckle their entire policy platforms.

The moral: everyone is friends and you’ll have to put the popcorn away. Also, more importantly: if you want to have a rational debate about complex issues like intersectionality and the power structures of pop culture and the music industry, Twitter is just 100 percent not the place to go.

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