Taylor Swift Has Voodoo Powers?

No, she doesn’t. But people describe the singer’s career trajectory as voodoo-like, as her career had a string of karmic episodes. Her fans have a somewhat problematic term for it as well, calling these karmic episodes as “tayvoodoo,” as Paper Magazine details: 

The obvious application of tayvoodoo is Kanye West's ongoing fall from grace, after years of feuding with Swift's camp following that infamous 2009 VMAs incident. But Swifties also use the term to describe how the careers and personal lives of Swift's more minor rivals have declined ever since they sided against her.

"I'm not really sure how it originated," the admin of Swift stan account @breathincruel tells me over DM. "But it's based off the fact that every celebrity who does her wrong gets wronged somewhere down the road, whether it has to do with the drama they gave her or not." Meanwhile, Taylor "just stays in her lane and lets karma do its job." On Urban Dictionary, the symptoms of tayvoodoo are listed as "crippling of mental/physical health, diminishing professional success, bags stopped, comments flooded, your name trending on twitter (along with #YourNameIsOverParty), irrelevance."

West aside, some of tayvoodoo's most high-profile supposed victims include the singer-songwriter's former beau Calvin Harris and chart rival Kacey Musgraves. Harris, @breathincruel points out, "hasn't been nearly as popular" since he disputed her songwriting credit on their hit track "This Is What You Came For" in 2016. Musgraves, who recently announced her impending divorce from Ruston Kelly (a tragedy, given their relationship inspired one of the most gorgeously romantic albums of all time), was perceived to slight Swift by allegedly "liking" an Instagram post by Scooter Braun at the apex of his and Swift's battle over her former label Big Machine. (Musgraves has never publicly commented on the feud.)

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