Taylor Swift THIS Taylor Swift THAT — When Are We Going to Talk About the Great Chicago Fire??
Happy Friday! We made it to the end of the week. Happy RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 Finale Day! And oh yeah, Happy Taylor Swift Album Release Day. Like many of us, I woke up this morning SHOCKED to find ANOTHER album waiting for me on Spotify. Upon my first listen to the first half of the album last night at 11 pm CST, I enjoyed myself. This album feels like a combination of ALL the Taylor eras. The lore runs deep. The breakup hurts. The aftermath is delicious. I can’t wait to keep consuming this album this weekend. Like most bodies of work this large, I will probably change my mind / develop different relationships with different songs. If you are on the same journey, I wish you luck and safe travels. Okay fine, I’ll tell you my favorite song so far. It’s Down Bad. Oh, you think that’s a basic take? TELL THAT TO MY LAWYER!
Okay, let me cut to the chase. I do love Taylor Swift, but I hesitate to even talk about this latest album release because we have been inundated with content from her. You don’t need me to talk about this stuff, you’re probably hearing about it elsewhere. And honestly, I’m getting PISSED off. You know why? We do NOT talk about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 ENOUGH. It is one of the most interesting tragedies of Chicago history, and the effects really do have an impact on our everyday life. Recently, I’ve looked ~inward~ and realized that I do not use enough of my time to learn about random historical events on YouTube. Thankfully, I can easily fix that by just searching “The Bolshevik Revolution” or “What happened to Yugoslavia” in the YouTube search bar. I’ve been on a “History of Chicago” kick. And I can’t talk about the history of Chicago without talking about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
The fire burned from October 8-10, killing around 300 people and destroying 3.3 square miles. Ever heard of the O’Leary farm? Yeah, I guess the cow really did tip over a lantern. I don’t know, you guys. The best video I’ve seen about the fire is linked here, so please watch for yourself. All I know is, it was BAD and like 100,000 people were left homeless. Like, everything was made out of wood. I know that’s dumb now, but they didn’t know that at the time, okay?? And the city BURNED. Her pussy was on FIRE. Thankfully, we got a lot of help from other cities across the US to rebuild. Don’t call it a comeback!
I guess I’m fixating on this because… well, for one, the 1800s are weird and interesting. Chicago history rules. And I love talking about morbid history (I’m looking at you, Leopold and Loeb!) And I’ve been struggling with spending too much time on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, even my Gmail. I need to go somewhere else. And for now, that’s YouTube. And YouTube is a mystical land of funny videos, but it can also be educational. And I’m sick of TALKING and TALKING about the same shit all the time. I love Taylor, AND we can talk about other things. Remember the Geneva Convention? Yeah, me either.
So I don’t know, maybe the next time I bring up Taylor Swift, I vow to also bring up the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It’s the LEAST I can do to spread awareness. If you would like to join me on this endeavor, I welcome you to the cause. What weird things do YOU want to talk about? I wanna hear!!
