[Music] let's start with a disclaimer I'm a big Taylor Swift fan it started with her self-titled album but then really sunk in in 2018 with fearless and yes that is a two disk Platinum Edition I wasn't alone in my fandom back then and I'm certainly not now for women I think she's a really good icon uh she's like a she's a feminine spiration I think she's really Talent it's like a great Lyricist um she's seems like a really nice person and all that stuff in the 15 years since her breakout album T
aylor Swift has not only gone on to dominate the music world but the cultural conversation it's me Taylor Swift the superstars influence has reached New Heights earning her the title of times person of the year you've got like bracelets made all the swifties make these bracelets like this so why has the world become obsessed with Taylor Swift that is such a huge question this is Dr Jennifer Becket from the University of Melbourne she's a co-organizer of something called a swift posium where a gr
oup of academics come together to discuss Taylor Swift part of the reason why she's so popular is one she's an amazing um Lyricist she speaks about her life there's always a song that speaks to sort of the moment that [Music] [Applause] a lot of her like more recent songs and stuff about breakups and stuff um like really speaks to me like quite vulnerable in her lyrics as well the vulnerability is really the key you know Taylor Swift has been compared to a lot of poets like Sylvia pla she's not
just talking about relationships she's vulnerably talking about relationships right she's taking you through the emotions that she's having at gives you something to connect to and I think that lyrically there's a Simplicity to what she does which makes it easier to to grab onto this sounds stupid cuz she's not really like on the same Financial level as us but she can be relatable I think she makes songs that a lot of people that can relate to it's just very upbeat and like very relatable it's s
o relatable Dr Becket says this is the power of music and art in general when we can relate to it it allows us to better understand ourselves and our culture storytelling is such a phenomenally important part of the human experience and she does it really really well and that goes way back into country [Music] music starting out in country that has one kind of base of of band right and then she mors into pop she gives us 1989 that brings a whole other different group of bands obviously they peop
le who followed it from country her genres are absolutely great like going from country to pop like they're things that can correlate really really well and they it just it just works and then she gives us albums like they really paired back albums like folklore and ever more and works with artists like Bon ver and people from the national and of course working with Jack anof since 1989 as well that brings a whole other audience of fans and those other fans during the pandemic tended to be sligh
tly older and so that's part of why she's able to have such a diverse fan base she's reinvented herself and that's part of the things that like keep you attached I do think she's doing more to be uh unique and different than most artists Reinventing herself is like the key to her like progression and domination I guess also her music matures as she does as well but on top of all of this there's something else at play with Taylor Swift's standard which makes her ear's tour the most successful tou
r of all time she very much engages with her fans and tries to create a mystery and Community around her audience more than any other artist the thing that makes her so big is the relationship she has managed to build with her fans by doing things like dropping into fans DM dropping the Easter eggs also having people around her house doing those secret sessions for the new albums I love all like the little things that people do like for her concerts like all the little chants and like the bracel
ets I love that the collective fandom is really interesting here as well it's that real sense of community that she brings uh which is to me one of the really interesting aspects about her as an artist and as a as a businesswoman okay so there's the music the lyrics the themes the genres the connection with the fans and the collective fandom there may be plenty of reasons to explain her popularity but what impact does does this all have why does it even matter when you come across someone who ha
s the level of power and influence that Taylor Swift has right now we need to ask questions like should one person have all of this power wholeheartedly like blindly supporting her is not something like I'd really do cuz obviously she's her own person and she has had her own like issues in the past some have criticized her for staying silent on a lot of important political issues and she also holds the title for the world's most carbon emitting celebrity given her platform I think that she does
have responsibility to speak up on certain things that she just hasn't and sometimes her kind of fan base gives her more credit than I think maybe she's due with the lack of um activism that she has with her platform and also like her contribution to like the CO2 levels with her private jet that's all coming out it's making a bit more difficult to support her like that she spoke very much in Miss Americano about like why she didn't want to talk about those things but then you know as you grow up
you start to realize like oh I should probably talk about these things because these things matter and when she did start to talk her biggest political impact was encouraging young people in the US to vote Taylor we does l Instagram post boom 250% higher registration and in 24 hours right they were like we've never seen this before but I think it is like up to 38% of Taylor Swift fans if she told them who to vote with would vote for that person that's an enormous amount of people to to have tha
t influence over and this influence isn't just political and isn't just happening in the US it's economical and right here in Australia the ears tour in Victoria is looking to bring in$ 1.2 billion do into the Victorian economy which is 13 of what events in Victoria usually bring in in a year Dr Becket and her colleagues say there's a lot to be learned from Taylor Swift's impact and popularity but their take-home message is that fandom and in this case the swifties should be taken seriously I th
ink it's really easy to look at particular figures and go oh well they're just a pop star with a lot of teenage girls who like them what's serious about that and teenage girls are very serious people they they also have an enormous amount of economic cloud and they're going to grow up to be voters and they're going to grow up to do a whole range of other things so I think that in belittling Taylor Swift you're belittling young people in many ways as well and that is never a good thing to do ha i
s going to hate Shake It Off Taylor [Music] Swift
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