My love for Taylor Allison Swift is one like no other. Her music, pure bliss. Dedicated to learning her entire discography as a child you would not dare face me… unless we compete over folklore and evermore songs– those albums I have failed to fall madly in love with. Notwithstanding the knowledge I obtain, being a Taloy Swift fan is hard. Notably, hardcore “Swifties” (Swift’s fans’ name) hold anyone and everyone to an unattainable standard. Nodding back to the ticket fiasco from 2022 for the Eras Tour, these overly intense Swifties would suggest on media platforms that if someone interested in purchasing a ticket was not as big of a fan, that they do not deserve tickets. This creates a divide and unease in a community supposedly brought together by an equal or similar love for an artist. Swift’s fans also feel the boundary-crossing need to determine their significance and participation throughout Swift’s personal life such as her love life, losses, or familial situation. Such circumstances create an unsettling obsession from my personal perspective. On the up side, the overarching amount the community positively brings together a large amount of fans who enjoy the hit singer’s music, further the bound and coming together to solve easter egg clues, and collectively cry as she announces the rerecording of your favorite 2010’s country album, Speak Now. To be a Swift fan is to appreciate the country pop singer’s work, listen to it with an open ready ear to let the storytelling lyricism encapsulate the listener and inject the emotion into your veins. Her music is like free therapy, I truly believe that is all a human being needs; I chose to be a Taylor Swift fan for exactly that.
