July 22--This is a story about two pop stars feuding on Twitter, but it's also not.
Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift exchanged increasingly heated tweets Tuesday afternoon as the virtual world picked sides. What started as a complaint about a Video Music Awards snub quickly escalated into a social media discussion about race and feminism.
Minaj's "Anaconda" video was not nominated for MTV's video of the year award, despite garnering 19.6 million clicks in its first 24 hours, a record at the time. This prompted the singer to send out a series of tweets:
"If I was a different 'kind' of artist, Anaconda would be nominated for best choreo and vid of the year as well," she wrote.
Nine minutes later, "When the 'other' girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture they get that nomination."
Followed by two more tweets: "If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year." And, "I'm not always confident. Just tired. Black women influence pop culture so much but are rarely rewarded for it."
Then Swift -- whose "Bad Blood" video broke "Anaconda's" record for most views in a day and received a video of the year nomination -- weighed in.
"@NICKIMINAJ I've done nothing but love support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot."
I adore Taylor Swift. Love her music. Love her open-armed embrace of feminism. Love her giant, random acts of kindness, from that Facetime call with a Texas girl battling brain cancer to her honoring Mount Greenwood's Emily Beazley at Soldier Field last weekend.
Love. Her.
But she misplayed this one.
As one person following the back-and-forth tweeted, "Important: A black woman speaks up on racial problems within the music industry. A white woman makes it completely about herself."
Tweeted another, ".@taylorswift13 stop using 'support all girls' as an excuse to not be critical of racist media that benefits and glorifies you."
It's impossible to say whether Minaj had Swift on her mind when she sent her original tweet. "Bad Blood" stars Swift's slim body, and it was nominated for video of the year. But Minaj sent out this tweet in response to Swift's rebuttal:
"Huh? U must not be reading my tweets. Didn't say a word about u. I love u just as much. But u should speak on this. @taylorswift13"
Swift's tweet is the pop music equivalent of answering #BlackLivesMatter (meant to raise awareness in the wake of Trayvon Martin's murder) with #AllLivesMatter. Or, harking back a few months, answering #YesAllWomen (meant to raise awareness about gender violence in the wake of the Eliot Rodger killings) with #NotAllMen.
Campaigns to raise awareness -- online or otherwise -- don't have to be received as an affront to the cultural majority. Inequality is an affront. Violence is an affront. Consciousness-raising is not an affront.
As one writer pointed out on Reddit -- reposted here: "The phrase 'black lives matter' also has an implicit 'too' at the end: it's saying that black lives should also matter. But responding to this by saying 'all lives matter' is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It's a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means 'only black lives matter,' when that is obviously not the case."
Similarly, Minaj's tweets raised valid points about the music industry's relationship with race and body image. That's a conversation worth having.
And Swift's voice would be a welcome addition to that conversation, but she tried to shut it down before it got going, which came across as defensive instead of inclusive.
hstevens@tribpub.com
