She’s single-handedly fixed the American economy. She’s going to save us from global warming. She’s ushering in world peace in an age of war. She’s a messiah. Or maybe she’s just god. Also, she’s Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
Taylor Swift’s unyielding, relentless fame is a pop culture phenomenon that’s going to be studied for decades to come. It’s already happening; Swiftposium 2024, an academic dissection of Taylor Swift’s many personas kicks off early next year. There is something so inarticulable about Swift, her demented fan base, and what it says about us as a culture — it’s research that needs to be done.
Master of reinvention
Swift has the gift of elasticity. She’s bent into shape, moulded to every need. She’s reinvented herself with every album. She shed her demure country-music skin and hurtled into pop stardom. Her private life was scrutinised, her bad dancing was made fun of. All of it was content. All of it turned platinum.
Her lyrics are easy platitudes on heartbreak. She distils personal experiences into the universally applicable. She’s not intimidatingly beautiful, she has cats, she’s been humiliated on global platforms. She’s an everywoman. All that separates her from us mortals is the gargantuan success. And that’s what makes her so irresistible. It’s the cult of relatability, of accessibility, which shapes so many of our parasocial relationships. She feels like a friend, entrusting you with her travails of life and love. And consequently, you do the same.
The New Yorker published a heartbreaking essay by Joe Garcia, whose life in prison was punctuated by her music. An incarcerated middle-aged man may not be her typical demographic, but it’s an enjoyable example of her so-called universality.
In the mid-2010s, when her fan base was still obsessive, but perhaps not as rabid, Swift started being seen with her ‘girl squad’. Everyone was jarringly famous, good-looking, et al. The Bad Blood music video came out, starring various members of the group, all of whom appeared to be at the peak of their careers. She made pop culture history, simultaneously projecting herself as a feminist icon — simply by virtue of having female friends. Feminism was now overwhelmingly white, entailed taking little to no stands, and was so marketable. The movement, in certain forms, had always been derided for belonging to prickly, difficult women (the burn-the-bra variety). And while Swift didn’t usher in ‘easy’ feminism, she embodied it.
Also Read: I’m a Taylor Swift fan and I don’t need male approval to enjoy her music
Distinctly uncool
Fast forward a decade later, Taylor Swift is still minting this persona, with a few modifications here and there. The primary difference is that now she’s doing it on a manic scale. She’s one of those artists — just when you think she couldn’t get any bigger, she does. The Eras Tour has entire countries in a chokehold, and is due to be the first to gross over a billion dollars. “She’s the last monoculture left in our stratified world,” writes Sam Lansky in Time Magazine. She’s everywhere. Even in India, the Eras tour film was greeted with packed halls. The lavish singing and dancing weren’t all that different from the Shah Rukh Khan fans during Pathaan and Jawan.
Even so, and perhaps also a contributor to her ridiculous success — is the fact that there is something distinctly uncool about Taylor Swift. There doesn’t appear to be a single countercultural bone in her body. She always comes across as earnest. If she isn’t earnest, she’s awkward. She doesn’t have even a modicum of that detachedness, that aloofness, which is conflated with coolness.
“I’m collecting horcruxes,” she tells Time Magazine.“I’m collecting infinity stones. Gandalf’s voice is in my head every time I put out a new one. For me, it is a movie now.” Nothing about either of these sentences makes much sense, and her pop culture references are, again, gloriously uncool.
Yet, she’s a master of her craft. She’s eccentric but never offensive. She’s a feminist icon, but only for white people. She’s one of the world’s largest polluters but in an ethical way. Swift’s been building her brand for years. And we’re so into it.
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(Edited by Theres Sudeep)