Taylor Swift’s Swastika Scandal

Last weekend, Katy Perry rang in her 25th birthday with a party wherein celebrities showed up donning white and chucked paint on one another. Which, as far as parties where colorful staining occurs, is probably better than inviting a throng of your closest friends over, accidentally spilling wine all over their finery, and then spending the better part of the next day convincing them that it was a paint party. But Katy Perry's party also sets the stage for a Taylor Swift backlash. Tragic that! Especially considering just how just yesterday, we were remarking on how her unique take on smizing is an approach more beleaguered starlets could replicate in order to save their careers. But after her career sinks, there will always be a place for Swift in Dollywood, serving up chicken nuggets, root beer floats, and singing a Fine Young Cannibals covers.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves though! You see, Swift, who we love best as a victim and not as a woman who can probably hold her liquor and turn some heads with a mean shimmy, was seen cavorting—nay, dancing!—next to a man with a red swastika plastered across his white t-shirt. Quick recap, then: booze, busting moves, proximity to jerk with lack of discretion! Yes, it’s backlash season for Swift now.

Sure, Swift isn’t swastika-clad herself. But as a celebrity whose star is sparkling especially brightly following some incident that we’ve long forgotten that left her looking a lot like those wounded kittens on those Sarah McLachlan-ASPCA commercials, any measure of swastika-proximity is not advisable. Sure, her friend could’ve been douchily paying trendy tribute to any number of Eastern religions. Or maybe he saw the design on a Pokémon trading card and sought to re-create it. But it’s just as likely that this particular party-goer and maybe-friend of Taylor Swift’s is a neo-Nazi.

But this isn’t to say that she’s a strident racist. It’s to say that given pictures from that night, we can forge our own narratives and conclusions and lead to her demise, because celebrities rarely go on the record about such events. Swift probably should’ve paid more attention to wherever she was doing the electric slide and what jerks were within her vicinity. Because given her said swastika-proximity and the rapidly-diminishing common sense of a perpetually unnerved nation, Swift’s fall-out could be non-existent to life-shattering.

UPDATE: Taylor Swift speaks! Via a publicist.