All too often, it can be confusing who the true hero of a story is. Usually it’s the audience who is confused, like with fans of All in the Family who cheered for Archie Bunker, but sometimes the very makers of a story get confused.

I talked about one example with In Too Deep by Sum 41 where a group of men worked hard to become excellent at their craft, only to be defeated by lazy, homophobic assholes. At least that video had the excuse that it was meant to be humorous.

Today’s video, however, has no such excuse. It features a confident, sexy woman demonized for prioritizing herself over a boring jock while a stalker-y “nice guy” is held up as the hero for always “being there” for said jock when her only motivation is to get down with him (if you know what I mean). It’s like the video was written by a reddit thread filled with men’s rights activists (is there any other kind?).

The video opens with an angry jock on the phone.

A creepy nerd peers at him through the window, watching his argument.

She pretends to care about him.

Note to any children experiencing a “relationship” like this. None of this is okay. No one should be staring at you through your window watching your every move.

He claims to be “tired of drama”.

After showing the creep this note, he closes his curtains even though she was clearly writing something else on her notebook. She fails to take this as a hint that the drama he was talking about was her, so she shows this sign to some closed curtains.

Not passive-aggressive at all.

She decides to try some new personalities to see if they might better attract this boring jock neighbor boy.

First, we have an emo goth of some sort.

Then there’s a late 80’s or early 90’s super rad outfit.

Ultimately, she decides to stay in her creepy nerd persona.

On an unrelated note, you may know that I love suggesting lyric improvements. There’s a lyric in this chorus, “She wears short skirts. I wear t-shirts.” Since later on in the song, there is the line, “She wears high heels. I wear sneakers.” it seems like the first line should contain two related items instead of any two true statements. Can I suggest “She wears g-strings. I wear t-shirts."? Think about it.

The next day, she sits on a bench pretending to read.

I’m sure running into the jock would totally be a coincidence.

Well, what do you know? Here he comes.

He sits down like an actual nice guy.

The creepy neighbor has hair in her face, which he can’t bare to look at so he moves it out of the way.

She takes it as a sign that he loves her.

Finally, about halfway through the damn video, the hero of this story, played by the singer Taylor Swift, arrives in a sweet convertible looking cool and confident.

Her boyfriend, the boring jock, rushes to her. He kisses her neck while she looks at the creepy nerd knowingly.

The action moves to a football game where we see our hero is the captain of the cheerleading squad.

She seems successful, beautiful, and fully in control of her life.

The creepy nerd looks miserable in the bleachers as a member of the band.

The jock scores a football and the crowd goes nuts.

Pretty sure they’ll have to rebuild the school after this celebration.

Our hero is not impressed, however, as a new football jock has caught her eye.

Maybe she is a fan of Nada Surf and is exercising her one month limit on going steady.

The old, boring jock is upset just because she never told him they were over.

She is justifiably upset at the old jock.

When your time is up, it’s up. You don’t need to have a meeting about it.

The creepy nerd pretends to be sad about this even though she is inwardly elated.

Time passes and the old, boring jock is getting ready for a formal dance.

He fails to notice that his creepy neighbor is wearing a t-shirt and so is obviously not going.

She pretends it’s because she’s too smart and cool, but we all know she was pretending to study while hoping to watch the jock have sex with someone else.

The jock, realizing that he has dodged a bullet, pretends to be sad that she won’t be there.

The creepy nerd decides that her whole “creepy nerd” act just ain’t doin’ it, so she changes herself into a Disney princess.

The jock is stupified.

He goes to her.

He is intercepted by our hero who, presumably having forgotten at this point that they used to date, is interested in this dressed-up hunk.

She is wearing a dress that is obviously appropriate for a high school dance, as long as the wearer has enough confidence.

Our hero is inexplicably rejected by the jock.

She is dumbfounded.

The ex-nerd shows a piece of paper to the jock.

He shows another paper back.

And that’s how the video ends. It’s truly mystifying. If this video is taken at face value, it is encouraging our youth to peep at each other through windows until they realize that they’re meant to be with each other. This is just wrong.

If you are a teen (or anyone else) who is trying to attract a mate, let me give you a few simple rules:

1. There are no rules.
2. Be direct.
3. If you don’t hear a “yes” then you have a “no”.
4. Come to a complete stop at stop signs.

That’s it. If you follow these rules for a few years I guarantee that you’ll be happier, healthier, wealthier, and wiser than before.

-PTD