Maybe We’re Just Allergic to Joy: In Defense of Taylor Swift and Having Fun

I don’t know if it’s the weather, the economy, or the fact that we’ve collectively traded hobbies for doomscrolling, but lately it feels like nobody remembers how to have fun anymore. Like, real fun, the kind that doesn’t require a discourse thread or a five-paragraph defense on Reddit.

Somewhere between our third iced coffee and our fourth existential crisis, joy became… suspicious.

It’s like we’ve all developed an allergy to happiness. We’ll write think pieces about sadness, heartbreak and trauma all day long, but the second someone’s just, I don’t know, happy, it’s seen as shallow. As if feeling good is some sort of intellectual weakness.

We’re living in a time where being happy, or God forbid, feminine and happy, is treated as unserious. If a song isn’t about generational trauma or the collapse of society, it’s apparently “surface-level.” But here’s the thing: not everything in life needs to be a metaphor.

I’m not saying everything should always be sunshine and glitter but the internet’s convinced us that every emotion needs an agenda.

Maybe, stay with me here, liking an upbeat Taylor Swift song is just… liking an upbeat Taylor Swift song. Maybe watching Mamma Mia 2 on a Tuesday night with rosé and your best friend doesn’t need to be ironic.

Maybe life can just… be fun.

That’s what I love about Life of a Showgirl. It’s not pretending to be profound, and that’s kind of the point. It’s champagne for breakfast. It’s emotional cardio. It’s the sonic equivalent of getting halfway through doing your makeup for a night out and realizing you actually just want to stay home and dance in your kitchen with your friends instead.

Having fun? Yeah, the internet hates that. It hates when women, especially successful ones, stop apologizing for enjoying themselves. Taylor could release a symphony written entirely in iambic pentameter and someone would still say, “She peaked with Folklore.”

I’m so over the anti-joy narrative.

We’ve mistaken being miserable for being smart. We’ve decided that joy has to be ironic, that fun has to be justified.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are out here just trying to live, laugh, and maybe love a little before another existential think piece hits the timeline.

Because you know what’s actually poetic? Liking something without defending it. Laughing too loud. Singing bad karaoke. Drinking wine from a mug. Being fully, obnoxiously present in the tiny, fleeting moments that make up a life.

So yeah, Life of a Showgirl might not change the world. But for three minutes at a time, it makes you forget you were supposed to be doomscrolling through the end of civilization, and that’s revolutionary enough for me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to “Fate of Ophelia,” put on some cherry lipgloss for absolutely no reason, and remember that joy is not a crime.