One of Taylor Swift's most notable qualities as a public persona is remaining very likable and neutral—which is why it was very curious, indeed, that she found herself in Lily Allen's shoes after releasing the video for "Shake It Off," the first single from her latest LP, 1989. The fairly unremarkable, Gap advertisement-esque clip featured a scene in which Swift dances alongside ass-shaking dancers of varying skin tones; people were not amused. "haven't watched the taylor swift video and I don't need to watch it to tell you that it's inherently offensive and ultimately harmful," Earl Sweatshirt responded in a series of tweets. "perpetuating black stereotypes to the same demographic of white girls who hide their prejudice by proclaiming their love of the culture...for instance, those of you who are afraid of black people but love that in 2014 it's ok for you to be trill or twerk or say nigga."

Director Mark Romanek, who lensed the clip along with classic videos for Nine Inch Nails and Michael Jackson, responded to the allegations in an interview with Vulture: "[Earl Sweatshirt] stated clearly that he hadn't seen the video and didn't even intend to watch it. So, respectfully, that sort of invalidates his observations from the get-go...it's a satirical piece. It's playing with a whole range of music-video tropes and clichés and stereotypes."