The subreddit has become the basic measurement of Internet obsession: All it takes is one person passionate about a topic to run one, a few others with enough interest to keep it alive, and any hobby, no matter how esoteric, can have its own little Internet home. And while it would be a gross overgeneralization to state that the vast majority of these online nooks are devoted to pornography, it would be pretty accurate, as far as gross overgeneralizations go. Of course, one person’s porn is another person’s art. Or, to get almost distressingly specific, one person (or several) people’s porn is a bunch of seemingly innocuous pictures of pop star Taylor Swift’s armpits.
Such axillary delights are the raison d’être of /r/taylorswiftarmpit, a forum of like-minded folks with a shared interest in the underside of the “Shake It Off” singer’s shoulder. The forum was created roughly a year ago by a user who has since deleted his or her profile, but who apparently spoke up for themselves in the comments of this Daily Dot article about the subreddit, noting that they appreciate the entirety of Swift’s output, and not only the skin connecting her arms to her torso. “I do like all the work she does and not just her armpits (although I still to this day maintain they are very nice),” the purported creator said, before going on to add that he or she was also the progenitor of the equally specific, if somewhat more conventional, /r/taylorswiftbum. And though he or she has moved on to presumably greener, weirder pastures, the kingdom of /r/taylorswiftarmpit remains strong and unbowed in their absence, with more than 80 very specific pictures, with captions like “Taylor has been hiding her pits pretty good lately, so here’s an old one,” and “Giggles and Armpits” to lure in fans of one of the body’s #1 sweat-producing regions on one of America’s #1 musical stars.
If nothing else, the subreddit is a testament to the way determined fetishization by others can lend a weird sexual air to even the most neutral super-bicep patches of skin, until you need to cleanse your pallet with the thoroughly normal products of some other, saner subreddit. For example, some nice, wholesome pictures of dragons having sex with cars. (Note: That link is probably not safe for work at workplaces where you’re not allowed to look at pictures of dragons having sex with cars.)