11 Struggles Every Taylor Swift Fan Has Experienced In 2016

2016 hasn't been easy for Taylor Swift fans. While it was the year that Taylor won just about every Grammy possible, topped every rich list and was even presented with an award for 'being Taylor Swift', with these major successes have come moments when even the most devoted of Swifties found themselves questioning their faith.

There have been ups, there have been downs: enough of both, in fact, to fill a classic Taylor Swift song. These are just some of them...

1. We teared up when she picked up her second Best Album Grammy

In receiving the Best Album gong for 1989, Taylor became the first female artist to ever win two such awards (her first was for breakout album Fearless back in 2010). Directed at 'all the young women out there,' her tear-jerking acceptance speech also noted that 'there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments' - throwing more than a little shade at one Kanye West, who had just dropped his now-infamous track 'Famous,' featuring the line 'I still feel like me and Taylor might have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous.' Remember this - it'll prove crucial later on.

2. We questioned her decision-making when she brought a Vogue reporter to her best friend's wedding

Mainly because we'd be pretty annoyed (read: incandescent with rage or vicious in passive-aggression) if one of our oldest friends pulled this sort of stunt. It's the stuff that bad romcoms are made of. While we're sure that Taylor OK-ed things with Britany Maack (her high school best pal) before alternating a major cover interview with maid of honour duties, it does sit weirdly with Brit's request that guests didn't use cell phones during the festivities, to keep things low-key and, you know, private. It looked like everyone involved had a lovely day, though, so we let her off...

3. We felt old and confused when faced with her #edgy pre-Met Gala makeover

With the dawn of every Taylor era has come a (slightly) new look, ideally one that chimes meaningfully with her latest musical direction (it’s the hair-based equivalent of those codes she used to write in her sleeve notes…) What this particular variation seemed to say, though, was that she had taken inspiration from Gossip Girl’s Jenny Humphrey and was about to emancipate herself from her parents before having her own-label fashion designs burned in a bin bag by an unstable frenemy. That, or she was making up for being the least rebellious teenager on record by hitting the (bleach) bottle. Either way, we were confused, but applauded her ability to pull off sequinned Vetements.

4. We didn't know how to respond to her break-up with Calvin

First came the break-up announcement, with both parties magnanimously claiming that the whole thing was totally, utterly amicable. Bad blood was conspicuous by it's absence. So we felt sad, but safe in the knowledge that Calvin 'Adam Wiles' Harris might be getting visitation rights to Taylor's cats, Meredith and Olivia Benson. But, on the down low, we were also counting down the days until a break-up album emerged, because no one charts the dying days of a relationship better than Swift. Want proof? These are all the anthems Taylor has written about her ex-boyfriends.

5. And then... Hiddleswift

Hiddleswift. Hiddleswift. Where do we begin? With the inaugural - and immaculately stage-managed - images snapped on a Long Island beach, which ushered the relationship into being? With the veritable world tour of photo opportunities that followed, each weirder than the last (low-level PDA in the Vatican - check! Walking through Norfolk in his-and-hers Barbour coats - check!)? It's fair to say that despite the nifty portmanteau, and Tom's increasing awkward declarations of his love being 'authentic,' this wasn't to be a romance for the ages.

READ MORE: Look back at Hiddleswift's best moments here.

6. And then... that Fourth of July shindig

It was the Independence Day to end all Independence Days (including the 1996 film starring Will Smith). Through the medium of Instagram, Taylor's followers were ushered into a starred and striped world of red, white and blue, where James Bond hopefuls wore unexpected novelty vests declaring their love for 'T.S' and Ryan Reynolds looked on with a sense of existential gloom (he later claimed that his 'natural resting face is that of a man dying.' Sure, Ryan. Sure...) It was weirdly enticing, but 'weird' was definitely the operative word. We'd certainly give money to be a fly on the wall in this situation... Need reminding? We over-analysed every single precious Insta-moment earlier this year.

7. Incidentally, we also spent too much time deciding whether it's acceptable to fancy Taylor's brother

A mainstay of Taylor's Instagram holiday celebrations is her photogenic 24-year-old brother Austin, who first won us over back in February, when he rode the Twitter-storm surrounding Kanye's 'Famous' lyrics by posting an Instagram video captioned, 'Getting a head start on some spring cleaning.' In the clip, he unceremoniously chucks a pair of Yeezy sneakers into the trash (so symbolic). Side note: he is essentially the older version of that boy from school who everyone claimed was moonlighting as a 'Hollister model.'

8. We tried to exclude ourselves from the ‘excluding myself from the narrative’ narrative

Where were you on 18th July 2016? In case you needed reminding, this was the day that things took a pretty bad turn, after Kim Kardashian released 'tapes' of Taylor appearing to consent to Kanye's controversial 'Famous' lyrics. Taylor's response was to hit back with an Instagram statement, re-asserting that she couldn't have given her approval to a song which she had never heard, and ending with the immortal line, 'I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.'

For staunch defenders of the singer, it was a crisis point, though not necessarily because we disagreed with Taylor: she's a human, she's fallible - despite her public persona being perfectly (and sometimes cynically) crafted - and a male artist would never experience an online takedown as vitriolic as the one she was faced with. Instead, we found ourselves having to give impassioned defensive speeches on spec to long-time haters. Exhausting. What the whole situation did provide us with, though, was the ultimate excuse of 2016. Been asked to take the bins out? Exclude yourself from the narrative. Got a meeting you don't want to attend? Exclude yourself from that narrative. Want to ditch your significant other? Exclude yourself from their narrative.

9. We still secretly wanted her to wish us happy birthday on Instagram

Blake Lively, Lena Dunham, Martha Hunt, Lorde, Gigi Hadid - name a famous friend and there's a high likelihood that Taylor dedicated valuable Instagram space to wishing them a happy birthday, affirming them as 'beautiful,' 'inspiring,' 'exquisite'... Her birthday shout-outs are basically a thesaurus of sisterly ego-boosts, and we're not ashamed to admit that, despite the wisdom that comes with age, we kind of want one. Preferably one with a photo grid. See you in 2017...

10. Then, there was the small matter of her musical hiatus

This year, the only new music we've had from the usually prolific Taylor has been either song-writing credits for other artists (see: moonlighting as the infamous Nils Sjoberg for Calvin and Rihanna's 'This Is What You Came For' and her track for 1989 tour pals Little Big Town) or collaborations. Her record exec even confirmed the lack of new material in a throw-away tweet (so casually cruel in the name of being honest...) And while '... What You Came For' became an entirely different song when Taylor performed it as a stripped-back piano piece, it certainly doesn't fill in for the absence of a 1989 follow-up. We needed new music, and fast.

11. And as a final flourish? That Zayn duet...

Then, in one fell swoop, Taylor caused us to totally revaluate our take on her 2016 by pulling the ultimate power move: releasing a track with Zayn, who is a. one of the year's most talked-about artists, b. the boyfriend of a key squad member (who Taylor was previously rumoured to have 'disapproved' of) and also c. the best-looking man in the music business, if not the world. The song itself? Actually pretty good: so good, it ended up climbing to number one in a matter of hours, and is currently the favourite for Christmas Number 1. As Taylor herself reminded us in her 2010 track 'Better Than Revenge,' 'I always get the last word...'

READ MORE: 10 Underrated Taylor Swift Songs To Get You Through Her Musical Hiatus

READ MORE: Taylor's Swift Downfall: Why We Love To Take Down Female Celebrities