Recently, pop starlet Taylor Swift posted a selfie to her Twitter account; the photograph features a fetching Swift lying in bed next to some odd breed of pinch-faced cat, with Swift herself entirely free of makeup, having “woke up like thissssssss.”
I woke up like thissssssss (With a cat on me) pic.twitter.com/f7P4Fsikwx
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) March 5, 2015
Now, you may have clicked on this article expecting an explanation of why Swift’s no-makeup selfie is “problematic.” Well, I’ve got news for you: you’ll get no such explanation. The headline was totally clickbait. You got punked.
Seriously, I’ll go ahead and spell it out for you: Taylor Swift’s makeup-free selfie is not problematic. Actually, it’s great! Like almost everything else Taylor Swift does, it’s fairly adorable and endearing. The fact is, Swift is a pretty and charming young woman. How could a cute photograph of her be “problematic?” It couldn’t be, and you should be embarrassed for having thought it could.
In the great boiling stew of social justice discourse, we have reached what could convincingly be termed “peak problematic.” There is quite literally nothing that the Left cannot construe as “problematic.” Modern feminism, in particular, is obsessed with “problematic language,” which can roughly be defined as any language that does not slavishly adhere to modern feminist sensibilities.
Because academic progressivism is intellectually exhausted and out of ideas, it had to invest in a kind of catch-all word that would serve as a useful vilification device. “Problematic” was that word. Now, instead of thinking about and discussing mildly complex issues, you can just call things “problematic” and act as if you’ve said something intelligent. But you haven’t. You’ve just parroted a stupid leftist talking point.
So, in conclusion: “problematic” is almost always a nonsense qualifier, one that’s used to avoid actual thought. We should confine it to the linguistic and political dust-heap of history. In the meantime, feel free to enjoy pop culture phenomena like Taylor Swift. It’s fun! Life is supposed to be fun; contra the Left, we do not have to trudge through our earthly existence in a constantly dour and self-critical frame of mind.
