
I’ve never had a good answer when people asked me what music I liked. Usually, I would default to an evasive response, like “oh, everything” or even better, “anything but country.” Sometimes, I found myself trying to give answers that aligned with the other person’s taste or, worse, with what I thought they expected me to listen to. But in truth, none of these answers were completely accurate. My music taste has always been hard to define. I love kicking back to Kendrick Lamar albums, but can also jam to hits from the 70s and 80s at the same time. And perhaps most jarring of all, I love Taylor Swift.

Revealing this fact would almost always precipitate some level of surprise. When you think of Swifties, you probably don’t envision 16-year-old boys. Gut-reactions like these are fundamentally built upon perceptual categorizations of others into what they “should” be. Teenage boys should be interested in trap or rock, not Taylor Swift. Likewise, the traditional Swiftie should be a teenage girl who became infatuated with Taylor’s definition of music and femininity at a young age. Few of these characteristics are mine.

A problem arises when we stereotype and label others at first glance, even if it’s on an implicit level, because they fuel specious and misleading societal norms. These norms are what end up dictating our music tastes, boxing people into what tunes they ought to be drawn to and ultimately controlling our enjoyment. The stigma surrounding boys like myself listening to and liking Taylor Swift songs isn’t just one isolated instance but is endemic to the entire music industry. In the K-pop world, non-Asian people enjoying groups like BTS or EXO bears a similar shock-factor. 

The issue isn’t whether these stereotypes are true or not — most Taylor Swift fans are indeed teenage girls — but that the narrative such stereotypes push is almost always incomplete and thus dangerous. It is this incomplete and exclusionary narrative that becomes problematic for everyone, especially those purposefully steering clear of specific artists because of it.

More often than not, this self-imposed handicap of blindly adhering to such societal norms causes people to internalize stigmas and shy away from their favorite artists. For men who avoid Taylor Swift despite knowingly enjoying her music, the root of their non-participation is often a deep subscription to toxic masculinity. They brush off her music because it’s “too feminine” or “too emotional” and her lyrics don’t align with the traditional male predisposition of being “strong” or “courageous.” In reality, we should be asking ourselves how enjoying metaphorical and emotional songwriting takes away from our masculinity. How do figurative lyrics threaten our manliness? How do sentimental chords threaten our strength?

The simple answer is that it doesn’t. Gender norms like these coax us into a false chauvinistic perception of the world around us, prioritizing a societal expectation at the expense of our own self-image. Over time, predisposed philosophies like toxic masculinity make us more fragile. Men end up endorsing a “tough it out” mindset, making them unable to ask for help, realize trauma, or accept failures. This is inherently contradictory. You can chop wood for a fireplace “like a man” while dancing to “Shake it Off” or backpack across the Alps “like a man” while screaming the lyrics to “All Too Well.” Enjoying Taylor Swift isn’t mutually exclusive with being masculine. Toxic masculinity is innately flawed because it creates a false binary between masculine and feminine traits in a world where overlap between the two is ubiquitous. Listening to Taylor Swift doesn’t make you any less of a man, and ultimately, listening to any other artist that deviates from what you’re societally expected to listen to doesn’t reduce your worth either.

Backward cultural norms act as an engine for problematic mentalities like toxic masculinity and, crucially, defeat the purpose of music itself. We listen to music for ourselves and for our own enjoyment, not to fulfill and satisfy some de facto societal expectation or to validate others’ perceptions of us. The incomplete narratives of people painted by these cultural norms don't help anyone, and certainly not the listener.

Next time you hit play on your device, don’t let your decision be maneuvered by social expectations. Listen to what you like, even if it turns a few heads. My top recommendation would be any “1989” or “evermore” Taylor Swift song, but I’ll let you make that discovery on your own. 

What liking Taylor Swift taught me about deviating from societal norms



PHS students Mitalee Pasricha ’23, Emily Wu ’23, Katherine Monroe ’23, and Nicole Vassilev ’22 stand in solidarity with the Asian American community at the rally on March 27 Photo courtesy of Katherine Chang
On March 27, members of the Princeton community including PHS students, staff, and alumni held a rally calling for solidarity with Asian American communities in the wake of the Atlanta mass shootings that resulted in the deaths of eight individuals,  six of whom were Asian women. Over 3,000 individuals attended the event at Hinds Plaza while abiding by the mandatory mask and social distancing guidelines.

The rally followed a roughly two-hour schedule, beginning with a brief welcoming speech by Reverend Robert Moore of the Coalition for Peace Action followed by a vigil in honor of the eight victims in the Atlanta shooting, which included a name-reading and a minute of silence. Following the keynote speakers, pre-selected community members were allotted three minutes each to deliver their messages.

Each speaker supplied their own perspective and voice during their allotted time, speaking about personal and historical experiences of discrimination, their racial identity, and the importance of taking action and demanding change. The speakers at the vigil included citizen leaders from the community, professors from Princeton University, and even current students, teachers, and alumni in the Princeton Public Schools, including Yingying Zhao ’20,  Zoey Nuland ’25, PHS teacher Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson, and PHS Assistant Principal Cecilia Birge.

“It is our dream // That we can live in a world // Without fuss // Where everyone is us, and no one is ‘them,’” recited Nuland, a student at Princeton Unified Middle School, from a self-written poem.

The speeches elicited emotional reactions from the audience and the speakers alike.

“It's just so touching when you see tears rolling down their faces as Zoey Nuland and Yingying [Zhao] read their points, you know that you touched emotion that's so raw, something that has been silenced for too long,” said  Birge.

Xiaobing Li, another community organizer of the event and a PHS parent, echoed Birge’s sentiments, recognizing the universal nature of the lessons that could be taken from the speeches.

“I am Asian American myself, and I learned so much from the speakers. I think that is true for all community members, regardless of their ethnic groups,” Li said.

Birge contacted local organizations and associations in order to plan the event, but she initially had not anticipated how large it would become.

“Frankly, I did not expect to organize a 3,000 [person] rally. It was just going to be a small vigil at Tiger Park, and then once we began to get more and more people asking us about it, we ended up relocating after talking to the police department… it started from a small thought that was supposed to be comforting and healing and evolved into a vigil with the entire community and a rally supported by 18 community organizations,” Birge said.

After news of the rally spread through social media and word of mouth, PHS student turnout was high.

“It spread pretty widely amongst the student body from what I saw. I know some people were able to get some of their friends on board. And I did see some people who I knew at the rally as well… I do know that social media helped spread it amongst the student body significantly,” said Han Li ’23.

Beyond just attending the event, many PHS students and alumni volunteered in various positions. Michaela Guo ’20 and Emily Choi ’22 volunteered as emcees, and Julia Zhang ’21 served as a demonstration marshal.

Although the rally’s aim was to support the Asian American community, many of the attendees and even speakers belonged to different racial and ethnic groups. The concept of “solidarity” was brought up in many speeches as a necessity for meaningful action, which can be defined as a feeling of unity in feeling and action between groups with shared interests.

“We [tried] to get as diversified speakers as possible from different organizations and different ethnic groups to really show that everybody's in this fight, not just Asians, and not just minority groups, but it's really everybody… we have to be one voice to stop the hate,” Xiaobing Li said.

Many PHS students who attended the event also shared similar sentiments emphasizing the importance of uniting various groups together in efforts to tackle racially unjust structures and situations.

“Especially in recent times, I think we've seen a lot of activism from all different racial groups and I think it's really nice to see how all of these movements come together because we're all fighting for the same purpose — we're all fighting for equality… It's really easy to show consistency in your activism by not only supporting one movement but then also showing solidarity with all of the other movements,” said Ayo Lin Ince ’22, who has both Black and Asian heritage and attended the rally.

Organizers like Birge and Xiaobing Li have been involved in the Princeton community even before the recent rally. In early March 2020, they led an effort to gather personal protective equipment and funds for local businesses struck by COVID.

“I believe in homebrew, community participation in community affairs. [The fundraising] was what the community needed during COVID time. And during this time, I've witnessed that pain and suffering in my students in particular. So that's the need that I saw,” Birge said.

Ince believes the rally provided proper grieving and important education for PHS students who attended.

“I think everyone coming together is a learning experience in itself. Seeing how so many students from Princeton High School came to stand in solidarity with the movement was very beneficial and I think it's important to see that showing up and being active is impactful because it's important to use your voice and to remember that your actions have a real impact,” Ince said.

The tragedy in Atlanta kickstarted national outrage over anti-Asian sentiments, providing an opportunity for new voices to speak out against racism. Birge recognizes this shift in attitude, believing it to be a step forward.

“We were trained to be quiet….[to not] stick our heads out when there's an issue. You want to be doing what everybody else is doing, you don't want to be standing out. And I think that we tried that [and] it didn't work. It worked really badly against us. So now is the time to stand up and rise up and own that responsibility,” Birge said.

Princeton community  holds vigil honoring Atlanta shooting victims

A few months ago when the novel coronavirus first hit in Wuhan, China, most PHS students never thought that we would experience what was happening overseas. But as the outbreak moved closer and closer to Princeton, panic began to spread as the reality of its presence started to hit. Schools across the U.S. have shut their doors and sent students home. In the face of this crisis, Princeton High School’s faculty has worked hard to prepare for a shift to remote learning. Despite the efforts of teachers across the nation, this unprecedented and ever-evolving outbreak has exposed the fatal flaws in America’s prized education system as well as the federal government’s severely inadequate response, drastically undermining their efforts. In moments like these where the federal government does not provide the necessary oversight to effectively combat an outbreak, both local communities and individuals need to be vigilant in the face of a global crisis.
Put simply, America’s national education system has failed to keep up with the needs of its students, teachers, and staff in a time of crisis. In times like these when there is little to no universal plan or organization on a national level, local communities like Princeton need to act on their own by taking their own measures to curb the spread of the pandemic. 
The most common defense across the country has been to opt for online schooling instead of brick and mortar institutions. Princeton Public Schools have been no exception. While there were many successes, it is a reach to say that PHS’s transition to online learning had no shortcomings. Such downfalls were largely as a result of a lack of guidance. It seems as if the government is making demands without giving us any solution or aid. For the past two weeks of remote learning, most PHS students have seen PowerSchool Learning’s “kitten detangling units'' more than their actual assignments. On multiple occasions, slowdowns and even crashes in the district’s Powerschool Learning system have kept students and teachers alike out of their classes. Short notice about the switch also left teachers scrambling to readjust lesson plans and find ways to meet virtually with students. Worse, teachers lack a direct channel of communication with their students. An unreliable Powerschool Learning network paired with an email system rarely used by students has left teachers without an efficient means of communicating with their students. Because there has been little to no government-level response for this, local communities must do this work. The district needs to revamp its digital infrastructure to provide a sufficient platform for students, parents, and teachers. That means better communication within classes, a more reliable learning platform, and more accessible support. Instead of pursuing a school-wide email system that has proven to be ineffective, the district should take student’s personal emails to streamline communication. Even with some efforts, Princeton remained woefully unprepared in the face of a growing crisis. The severe shortage of readiness beforehand has all led to the district’s dire position now. This lack of adequate digital infrastructure to support schools in the district has left students stressed, teachers worried, and staff overworked. 
Making the switch from in-person to at-home learning not only complicates assigning work and teaching lessons, but also how to continue providing the care needed by low-income families within the district. While many food banks are remaining open, their biggest concerns relate to the health of warehouse workers. For the Food Bank of New Jersey, the question that remains up in the air is, “Not being able to be near each other, how do we protect the staff, how do we protect the people that we serve?” During a time where social distancing is critical for “flatten[ing] the curve” of coronavirus cases and the government fails to take responsibility, the well-being of many depends on community volunteers. 
Because America’s education system lacks the means to tackle such an issue in crises like this, local districts must take action on their own. “Nearly 500 students … rely on [Princeton Public Schools] for breakfast and lunch.” said Superintendent Steve Cochrane in a statement made on March 16. Closing the school would mean the loss of a food source for these students for an indefinite amount of time. Luckily, before the shut down of the school on March 12, PHS’s students and teachers came together to box over 500 meals to go home to families at PHS who receive subsidized meals. Additionally, 15 school buses with district-provided meals were set up for families as well. While the number of students who depend on free or reduced lunch in Princeton is relatively low and manageable, the National Center for Education Statistics finds that nationwide, 51.8 percent of all students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. This astounding number only exemplifies the government’s failure in addressing income inequality, poverty gaps, and alleviating household burdens. Such faults shine through in moments of crisis like now. Millions of students should not have to depend on their schools for meals. When their schools become inaccessible like now, students in lower socioeconomic brackets are left in the dust. America needs to step it up before it’s too late. 
But combatting this outbreak not only means that the federal government needs to do its part, but the whole community as well. We must remain vigilant in social distancing, avoiding large groups, and only going outside when necessary. When no cure is readily available, Princeton as a town needs to be responsible for protecting itself.
The COVID-19 outbreak has betrayed the American education system’s inadequacy in protecting schools when they need it most. In a time when the nation’s education system cannot keep up with the needs of students, faculty, and parents, the district and community must do their share in mitigating the crisis.

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