On Thursday morning I brought my phone into Aidy’s room, started playing the first track of, “Life of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift’s just-dropped album, and gently woke her up, saying, “Aidy! It’s out!” She turned over, her wild hair stretching in every direction (Aidy always looks, upon waking, like she got into bed at 3 am post-rave - a mess, but a glamorous one) and said, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” That is how we began the day.

I loved this album immediately because it was catchy and surprising to me - because I had fun digging into lyrics about love and high school and Charlie XCX (as I’ve been told by fans more in the know than myself) and about, ahem, other matters. That is the crux of my positive review, which I recognize is lacking in substance in comparison to the full-fledged dramatic monologues I was instantly served on Instagram telling me - oh! - exactly how I should be feeling about this album. I am aware (quite) that there are a lot of opinions out there - valid ones, worth discussing.

But there are criticisms which feel unfounded, superfluous and like a stretch to me. Criticisms which feel less based on the actual art of critique, and more based on the modern day sport of catapulting oneself via viral hot-take to the status of successful online influencer. I suppose the most serious of these is that Swift should be taking more of a public political stance beyond last year’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, and in addition, is too consumeristic. My feelings (like all our feelings, right?) are biased on this. I’m overwrought by the current political moment, and reveling in any and all non-political distractions. I want Chuck Schumer to take on a stronger political stance, not necessarily Taylor. I’ve heard, too, that her songs sound like songs by other artists, which seems, to me anyway, like a purposeful theme of this album, including that she took care to note musical influences. My favorite parts are my favorites because of that reminiscent pull (the 70s-esque sway that begins “Ruin the Friendship”; Sabrina sounding like Dolly Parton - with accompanying guitar twang! - when she chimes in on “Life of a Showgirl”). I’ve even heard that her songs sound too much like other Taylor Swift songs — which, I mean, isn’t that what liking one particular musical artist is all about? That their music sounds like…their music?

But the rest of the criticisms, I don’t know! I’m sure they are quite founded. Maybe my issue isn’t so much about this particular album, or the content of all this wound-up commentary competing for my attention. I think my issue might just be the extent of it. The urgency with which it is disseminated. That I am so intensely weary of all this advice on how to feel and what to do about it. My online feed, which then colors all our real-life conversations, is so tirelessly insistent: telling me why I’m wrong about the album, why my cortisol is out of whack, how to instantly (magically!) lose weight. I’m as prone to all of it as the next person. My tendency to indulge in an endless scrolling spiral is why I take breaks from social media, deleting it completely from my phone. That I return to it is on me. One day, maybe, I’ll be smart enough to delete it forever.

Popular culture warrants scrutiny, always has, especially when it’s this popular. Yet, our current cultural juncture, in my opinion, leaves so little room - so little breath - for putting the phone down, thinking original thoughts. For letting the conversation rest a beat, for letting one errant thought lie. For listening. And, man, this Taylor album wasn’t out a second before everybody was all over it in ways I don’t think you can rationally be all over something so fast. Maybe she’s trolling us all in, “Actually Romantic.”

I’m not a music critic (please!) and I know it’s hypocritical to add my own voice to the chorus, but I thought there might be a few others out there feeling this way. Not that I don’t want to engage in intelligent conversation or anything. Just, like, “Gimme a sec. I am dancing.”