The sudden realization that Taylor Swift doesn't suck is topical enough to have warranted a recent SNL sketch. 

As recently as August, if you had asked me if I liked Taylor Swift I would have rolled my eyes at you and tried desperately not to enumerate the reasons why I hated her. Perhaps, however, it is important to understand the myriad of reasons why I did so despise her to understand why Taylor 2.0 has won me over. 

I hated the poppy-country of yesteryear and her insipid lyrics and her vanilla appearance. I hated her enormous hair and sparkly dresses. At the front end of her popularity I not only hated country music but also almost all pop music. Together, the combination was nothing short of nauseating. 

I liked to visit @FeministTSwift on Twitter, a parody account that took Taylor's more problematic or at least hopelessly male-centric lyrics and turned them into feminist commentaries (though the account is still active, it doesn't feel so much anymore like it is making fun of Taylor). 

I hated her for perpetuating the virgin-whore dichotomy; "You Belong With Me" and its equally awful music video ruined Taylor for me for a long time. The insinuation that the dorky blonde girl in glasses and sneakers was inherently better than the inexplicably evil dark haired girl who prefers high heels is more than a little off-putting. It is accentuated when she arrives at the dance in an etherial white dress while her rival is dressed in red. Of course, the boy should be with the "good" girl, the one wearing the universal color of purity. 

I hated her for dating virtually every famous man of appropriate age and presumably sleeping with them and then continuing to write songs that demonized other women for having sex. 

I hated her for being friends with Justin Bieber (who is still the worst, both on a personal and musical level). 

I hated her for as recently as 2012 after her Red release making absolutely yawn-worthy comments about not being a feminist while simultaneously evidently not having any idea what feminism is. 

"I don't really think about things as guys versus girls. I never have. I was raised by parents who brought me up to think if you work as hard as guys, you can go far in life."

I even hated her for silly lyrical things. Like in "Our Song," she says something about talking reeeeeal slow ('cause it's late and her momma don't know), which makes no sense because you can yell really slowly if you really want to and her mother most definitely would have heard that and low actually would make sense and still rhymes. 

I hated her despite her many philanthropic efforts, and at least a little bit because she was so loved by everyone she met. It simply had to be a ruse. No one is that well-liked. 

I hated her for putting on the Southern act while also being from Pennsylvania. I hated her shrill, fake-accented singing. 

I hated the fan base surrounding her, a group of incredibly defensive people with no reference level as to why she was so hated by so many people (and also a group I had to be constantly surrounded by, most notably during sorority recruitment when one sister absolutely had to find a way to live stream her album announcement). 

For all these reasons, I tried desperately to hold onto my hatred. But one by one, Taylor plucked my fingers off the Swift Cliff (which I totally just made up) until I plunged into the depths below. 

First, she released the delightfully self-aware "Shake It Off" and the accompanying video. While at first glance it was so ridiculous that I could continue to laugh, upon listening and watching again, I realized that Taylor was laughing at herself and her perceived flaws. I became endeared to her for her minimal dancing abilities and have since caught myself finding solace in the fact that she also cannot dance at all and I am not alone. 

Second, she quit the whole virginal southern country star bit and just started not giving a damn. Her voice is so much better without a twang and if you don't find yourself singing and dancing to Blank Space every time it is on the radio then you are just wrong. The wardrobe transition and haircut also didn't hurt. 

Third, Taylor made friends with Lena Dunham. Though not without her own faults, Dunham helped Taylor see that she was in fact a feminist. She became conscious of the ways in which women are disadvantaged and left a message to her haters (read: me) about her penchant for writing break-up songs. These are some of her comments from December 2014 Cosmopolitan: 

“My girlfriends and I talk a lot about feminism and the inequality between the way men and women are talked about,” she said. “The kind of things we say are: ‘Why is it mischievous, fun and sexy if a guy has a string of lovers that he’s cast aside; loved and left?’
“Yet, if a woman dates three or four people in an eight-year period, she is a serial dater and it gives some 12-year-old the idea to call her a “slut” on the internet? It’s not the same for boys. It just isn’t, and that’s a fact.” 

Why was it okay for John Mayer to write break up songs and not Taylor? I don't know, but I most definitely never hated him for it. His songs were brooding; her songs were irritating. She went on to say that she has no interest in relationships right now because she's pretty special just the way she is. In Taylor's becoming self-aware, so did I. 

That is the core of all of this. It took Swift taking a good hard look in the mirror and recognizing her own faults for me and presumably the rest of the haters to do the same. I know that a few haters are inevitable and also that she almost certainly doesn't care too much; she has more money than she could ever know how to spend. I am not ready to buy 1989 and I still contend that her early music is pretty awful, but I am absolutely positive that Taylor has several fewer haters to shake off next time around.