You might have noticed the part in Taylor Swift’s bubbly single “ME!” where she shouts, ecstatically, that “Spelling is FUN!” To prove her point, Brendon Urie, who’s featured on the track, enthusiastically points out that there ain’t no “I” in “team,” but that there is a “me.” Does that observation qualify as “fun”? Not precisely. A perfectly reasonable point? Sure. But alas, we couldn’t leave it at that—the line created such a whirlwind of rage and controversy that Swift actually had it killed.
Swift said previously that she included the line in order to make clear that the song didn’t take itself seriously. “So the lyrics, that’s a tone decision that we made in the studio. We literally were like, OK, let’s say ‘Hey, kids! Spelling is fun’ because we want everyone to know that this song is not really serious because it’s not, like, a serious love song,” she said.
But just two days before the release of her album, Swift’s team has removed the lyric from the Apple Music version of the song. From this, we can infer that Swift does not, in fact, think spelling is fun. And if spelling isn’t fun, then what is it? That’s right—it’s bullshit.
Is Taylor correct? Is spelling bullshit? On the one hand, it’s an antiquated skill, one made obsolete by spellcheck and autocorrect. On the other hand, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is a cherished cultural event that draws more viewers than the Super Bowl, probably. But also, those kids are spending way too much time studying long, complicated Latin words, when they should be wasting their priceless youth Snappchatting pictures of their Juuls. I guess it’s a draw.
Whether or not spelling is bullshit, the lyric is definitely gone. Enjoy it now in the video while you still can.