From Wet Leg to Taylor Swift – what’s the appeal of airing our dirty laundry?

Whether it’s in an article or a song, no two people are going to tell the same story about what went wrong, writes Olivia Petter

Musicians have been writing scathing tracks about their exes for millennia (AFP via Getty)

Of all the things to write truthfully about, relationships are arguably the most difficult. It’s not because the subject matter is particularly complex. Or because it requires an esoteric grasp of the English language. It isn’t and doesn’t.

No. Put simply, it’s because there are two sides to every story. But when one of those sides is a writer, the number of perspectives doubles. Sometimes it even triples.

This often happens after a big break-up. I’m talking colossal, earth-shattering paragraphs of vitriol on WhatsApp kind of break-ups. Sure, each person involved will have their own version of events. But the writer will inevitably have several. The version they offer up to friends and family that presents them in the best possible light. The one they keep to themselves that doesn’t. And then there’s the version they turn into art.