Blogger’s dispute with Taylor Swift goes viral

When Bay Area blogger Meghan Herning wrote a post critical of pop diva Taylor Swift, she never expected to be threatened with a lawsuit.

Instead of silencing a critic, the reaction by Swift’s legal team to Herning’s blog post — questioning the singer’s appeal to white supremacists — has made the dispute go viral the same week that Swift’s new album, “Reputation,” is set to debut.

“It’s laughable because it’s so crazy,” said Herning, a recent law school graduate and entrepreneur.

Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California took up Herning’s case and gave the singer’s lawyers one week to respond.

“I find out next week if I passed the bar (exam) — the same week Taylor might sue me,” Herning said Wednesday.

At the center of the dispute is Herning’s blog post, “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation,” published Sept. 5 on PopFront, a tiny online magazine based in the Bay Area that Herning started in 2014 with college friends.

“We didn’t create the website with intent to be large,” Herning said. “It was just for us (bloggers) and friends. We had a very small presence when this all started.

“In the last 24 hours, we’ve gotten more than 100,000 clicks (on the story),” she added. “I went from 76 Twitter followers to 150,000.”

Written after white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, Va., Herning’s blog post questioned Swift’s appeal to neo-Nazis. She cited how the far-right Breitbart News Network embraced Swift’s lyrics and wondered why Swift had not more publicly disavowed that audience.

The lyrics in Swift’s hit song “Look What You Made Me Do” are vague and open to interpretation: “I don’t like your kingdom keys. They once belonged to me . ... But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time. Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time.”

Reviews of the song’s video noted its many insider references to Swift’s career and relationships. There is no mention of race or politics in the lyrics. But in Herning’s view, they contain a hidden meaning.

“Taylor’s lyrics in ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ seem to play to the same subtle, quiet white support of a racial hierarchy,” Herning wrote. “Many on the alt-right see the song as part of a ‘re-awakening,’ in line with (Donald) Trump’s rise . ... (Swift) is giving support to the white nationalist movements through lyrics that speak to their anger, entitlement and selfishness.”

Fewer than 200 people probably saw the original post, estimated Herning. It was only her second post this year.