I love Taylor Swift. Or rather, I love what she used to represent. I love the way her lyrics feel ripped straight from my journal entries and how she has an album to soundtrack every era of my life. I love her twangy country ballads and her synth-pop bangers and her indie-folk musings.

I don’t love the Swift who hangs out with MAGA supporters and only speaks out about social justice issues when it’s convenient — or source material for a Netflix documentary. I don’t love the fact that her private jet was responsible for over 8,000 tons of carbon emissions in 2022. And I don’t love — or like! — “The Life of a Showgirl.”

The album is not only an artistic low for Swift, but it’s also a moral misstep. What was marketed as a sophisticated commentary on fame and relationships turned out to be a vapid eschewing of first-world problems. The album is Swift at her most out-of-touch, and its seventh track is a prime example.

“Actually Romantic” is a watered-down attempt to reinvent the magic of pop-punk revenge anthems from years past, like “Misery Business” and “Gives You Hell.” Swift boldly equates the subject’s preoccupation with her to that of a crush.

Aside from featuring some of Swift’s laziest lyricism ever — she compares the subject to a “toy chihuahua barking from a tiny purse,” which is ironic because the song’s attempted edge resembles that of a yippy lap dog — “Actually Romantic” falls flat because there’s no legitimate grievance underscoring Swift’s anger.

The song is allegedly directed at Charli xcx, who formerly opened for Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour. We don’t know the entire story behind the musicians’ drama, and I’m not really interested in who wronged whom. No matter what, I’ll continue bumping “Brat” and listening to “folklore” on repeat.

Regardless of the artist at fault, the intended target of “Actually Romantic” hasn’t done anything to merit attacks from millions of Swifties aside from befriending Swift’s ex-situationship, Matty Healy, the real muse behind “Actually Romantic.”

Not only is Swift punching down by disparaging Charli xcx, she’s not even really punching at her; their fallout seems completely tied to Swift’s old flame. The only reason listeners are given for the diss track is Charli xcx high-fiving an ex — supposedly Healy — and congratulating him for ghosting Swift.

By writing and releasing “Actually Romantic,” Swift just comes off as bitter that she didn’t win Charli xcx’s friendship post-breakup and as obsessed with Healy as she was on “The Tortured Poets Department.”

An acquaintance befriending an ex doesn’t warrant a full-fledged revenge track — especially when the musician releasing the song exists in a superhuman level of stardom. And if someone called me “boring Barbie,” I don’t think I’d be so offended as to take pen to paper; I would probably take the tame moniker as a perverse compliment.

The track’s worst offense is its warped takedown of “Sympathy is a Knife” by Charli xcx, a vulnerable reflection on the dangers of self-comparison. In the first verse of “Actually Romantic,” Swift sings, “Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face.” Did we listen to the same “Sympathy is a Knife”? “This one girl taps my insecurities” and “I couldn’t even be her if I tried” aren’t exactly biting insults.

Charli xcx sings about someone who makes her feel less than, not someone she wishes ill upon. And she does so with more grace than Swift.

The drama surrounding “Actually Romantic” draws comparison to Charli xcx’s “Girl, so confusing featuring lorde,” in which both singers work their tumultuous relationship out on the remix. A mutual misunderstanding turned into one of the most viral songs of 2024.

“Girl, so confusing” acknowledges the industry’s tendency to pit successful women against each other — “It’s you and me on the coin / The industry loves to spend” — but by the end of the track, Lorde and Charli xcx put aside their differences for good. They’re infinitely more powerful together.

This situation didn’t have to spiral into Charli vs. Taylor — it could have been a learning experience for both artists, or at the very least a hit single. Instead, Swift chose to act like a mean girl, and I can’t tell if that’s because she’s always been one.

“Actually Romantic” is not only a bad song; it’s antithetical to Swift’s entire artistic identity. You can’t claim to be the girl on the bleachers and then tell everyone to bully the weird kid.

Whatever happened to the Swift who bottled up girlhood in liner notes and friendship bracelets? Maybe she died with the “old Taylor.”

Fiona Feingold is a junior writing about women in the entertainment industry in her column, “Femininomenon,” which runs every other Friday.