Drake And Meek Mill's Feud Is Everything Wrong With Celebrity Beef Culture

“Calling all Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift fans: Shots have been fired, this is not a drill.”
That’s pretty much been the reaction of the Internet this week, after Cyrus gave an interview with Marie Claire, in which she called out Swift and the hypocrisy of the music industry’s sex/violence paradigm, as illustrated in her “Bad Blood” video. “I don't get the violence revenge thing,” declared Cyrus. “That's supposed to be a good example? And I'm a bad role model because I'm running around with my titties out? I'm not sure how titties are worse than guns.”

YouTube: Taylor Swift - Bad Blood ft. Kendrick Lamar

Cyrus has a point: The double-standard between sex and violence in American pop culture has been well-chronicled. But her invocation of Swift to make her point is still frustrating, because it feels like the beginning of just another celebrity feud. In music today, celebrity feud culture has somehow overtaken the industry, tearing down artists and distracting us from their work.This isn’t exactly a surprising turn of events. Best friend-collector that she is, Swift has been involved in a rather high amount of disagreements lately. Things bubbled over in last month’s Nicki Minajincident, wherein Minaj expressed her distaste with the lack of black women nominated at the MTVVMAs. Swift, apparently seeing this as a personal attack on her, responded indignantly. She eventually apologized, and it’s been radio silence between the two ever since. But not before Katy Perry, widely acknowledged as the target of “Bad Blood,” threw some not so subtle shade at Swift on Twitter.
The feud didn’t stop there, amidst rumors that Rihanna was preparing a T-Swift diss track of her own. Even Canadian pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen was briefly thrown into the fray, when fans freaked out over the release of her single “Warm Blood,” and began contrasting it with Swift’s aforementioned anthem.
As the Daily Dot’s own Alexandra Samuels notes, labeling the exchange as a “feud” isn’t necessarily fair, because it suggests that women like Minaj and Swift are not capable having a rational discussion about the state of entertainment. “The media's tendency to reduce serious arguments between women to petty quarrels is problematic, because it casts aside women like Minaj as ‘haters,’ rather than as creative minds who are also cultural influencers,” she writes.
There is an intelligent debate to be had regarding representation in the music industry, and Minaj and Swift gave us a chance to have it. But in painting it as nothing but a “cat fight,” the message got lost on the Internet.