This month Verve’s star teen reviewer Lucy Kennedy talks Taylor Swift – the ‘man’, the myth, the legend.
Taylor Swift can no longer be simply defined as a singer. No, she now has risen to the role of all-powerful pop icon, with her new Eras world tour, performing concerts likened to religious experiences by devoted fans, dubbed Swifties. Fans fork out an excessive amount of cash to attend, learn chants to scream during her songs, and make piles of beaded bracelets to pass out to each other in a show of unity. I would liken the frenetic Swifties to the Beatlemania of the 60s, with obsessively devoted fans who would do anything to see their idols.
You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m really not. Recently, in Seattle, Swift’s fans generated seismic activity that was equal to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. How many other artists can say that? When tickets for her tour went on sale, Ticketmaster’s website shut down due to the insane amount of traffic to the site. In the US, tickets range from $50 to $500 – if you’re lucky. Resale has been reported upwards of $11,000. Ticketmaster’s head of music, Davis Marcus, has stated that only 5% of fans who attempted to purchase tickets were actually able to obtain them – but that hasn’t stopped them. More than 10,000 heartbroken Swifties who braved the battle for tickets and came out empty-handed have gathered outside US stadiums instead, partying, picnicking, singing along, and bringing cities to a standstill.
Taylor Swift has now become the subject of a world-first international academic three-day symposium, named Swiftposium. This will take place in Australia and will examine the impact Swift has had on the world today, economically and culturally. It speaks volumes that what academics are choosing to examine is ‘the influence of Taylor Swift’ above all else (global warming, the pandemic, and so on). Swift now holds a place as one of the most influential pop stars in the world, but she is more than just that – she has risen to the status of a mythological being, uniting fans across the globe… although sadly she won’t make it here to New Zealand.
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