Taylor Swift rose to prominence as a country singer around 2006, appealing to teenage girls with her diaristic writing style. This fifteen-year-old girl managed to build an empire as a global pop sensation with her talent and relatability. Her songs resonated with girls by saying what they couldn’t. The connection between Swift and her “Swifties” has led to one of the strongest parasocial bonds of any artist. As she embarks on the European leg of her widely successful Eras Tour, the numbers reveal the financial gain for Taylor Swift individually is estimated to be 1.4 billion dollars. The data begs the question, how far will Swifties go to support her?
In the wake of her tour, you’ll notice her popularity has grown exponentially. This is not particularly surprising, as a tour on any scale is essentially free marketing. Interestingly, you won’t hear a lot of people admit to merely “liking Taylor Swift” anymore. The death of the “casual fan” can likely be cited coming from the scramble to get tickets to her tour. Suddenly, everyone claims to be a diehard Swiftie who grew up listening to her music. If you went to the tour, you earned it by waiting in the Ticketmaster queue. This cultural phenomenon is inviting a lot more people to want to go to her tour, but people feel like they have to prove they deserve to be at the concert since so many people weren’t able to go.
Taylor Swift seems to always be the victim of public scrutiny. Whether it’s for her “calculating” business moves or romantic ventures, her fans always seem to need to justify liking her music to the uninitiated. When an artist gets “too big,” public opinion tends to react negatively in the opposite direction. Swift released her sixth studio album, Reputation, in the wake of her most widespread disavowment to comment on her own public perception. Her furthest venture from the country yet, the album and tour were predicted to be massive failures. Despite this, the tour became the highest-grossing tour in American history. Her success in anticipated downfall proved the devotion of her fans could not be shaken. Being forced to defend someone and stand by them during a difficult time forces one to commit harder to being a fan.
