Taylor Swift can say 'thanK you aIMee' to Kim Kardashian, but I'm not thanking my bullies

I don't know aIMee, the awful hellcat in Taylor Swift's newly dropped song "thanK you aIMee."

Word around the campfire is that the mean girl in the song is Kim Kardashian in disguise, which is likely true. T-Swift is a shady lady, as she has the right to be.

Still, I don't think about Kardashian when I listened to the lyrics of "thanK you aIMee" on Swift's new album, "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology."

I thought about kids like my friend's nearly teen son — a smart, talented and creative knucklehead who one day will make enough money to buy his mom and dad a fancy beach house. I plan to visit that beach house — a lot.

Unimaginative children and frightened adults

My friend's kid is among the two-in-10 U.S. middle and high school students a Pew Reseach Center poll says are bullied each year — many simply for being who they are and doing the things they enjoy.

He's a magical thinker who can carry a tune and loves theater.

That's made him the target of unimaginative children whose opinions of how boys and girls should and shouldn't act have been shaped by frightened adults clinging to a false reality. Far too many who rule the roost in the Ohio Statehouse fit that bill.

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I was a smart, talented and creative Cleveland Public Schools student, so I know from personal experience that bullying is nothing new.

I couldn't carry a tune, but I was and am a curious magical thinker in love with storytelling. I didn't wear cool clothes — could not afford them — and was more interested in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" than sneaking out of the house and kissing a boy.

This made me the target of unimaginative children whose opinions of how boys and girls should and shouldn't act was shaped by frightened adults clinging to a false reality.

Much like the hero in Swift's song, I like the idea of being successful partly to teach my aIMees a valuable lesson.

Why?

I once thought being bullied — as awful as it was — helped build my tenacity and thickened my skin. Because that's what I was taught to think.

Do bullies like aIMee build character?

In this magical world built up by frightened adults, being harassed and threatened prepared me for a world that in many ways has been far crueler than the one that meant so much when I was a schoolgirl.

I don't believe that anymore. Bullies don't build a child's character. Love, not bullies, built mine.

Truth is that there's nothing good about bullying. We should stop dismissing its long-lasting effects. They are rarely as beautiful as we'd love to make them.

A 2018 study in the American Journal of Criminal Justice found that bullying can lead to antisocial behavior in adulthood. Another study done in 2020 found that being bullied increased the likelihood a person would commit a crime.

Based on her statements, Swift believes has a bully in Kardashian, "a bronze spray-tanned statue” among other things in thanK you aIMee.

Swift's social media accounts were flooded by snake images in 2016, after Kardashian posted a snake emoji to defend her then-husband Kayne West after a dispute about lyrics in West's song "Famous."

Kardashian also gets shaded in Swift's new song "Cassandra," which has multiple snake references.

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Swift doesn't mention Kardashian directly in thanK you aIMee, but the talent and smart Swift used capitalization creatively —"KIM."

“All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed ‘F--- you, Aimee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushin' / “But I can’t forget the way you made me heal."

Thanks for nothing, aIMee

Swift has the right to thank her aIMee, as she dries her tears with stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

We heal ourselves in a lot of ways. I am not sure money or success can. Trying to understand might.

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As the overused saying goes, hurt people hurt people. I can only imagine the pain the kids who bullied me back in school were in.

I forgave them a long time ago (some face to face) as I hope my friend's son will one day forgive those who tormented him for being so dang awesome.

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Forgiveness is one thing. Thanks is another.

I wish aIMee well, but I definitely do not thank him, them and her.

I don't have stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills to cry into. And aIMee wouldn't be the reason for them, if I did.

The aIMees of the world aren't owed anything.

Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Taylor Swift shouldn’t thank Kim Kardashian. Bullies deserve less