To the surprise of no one, corporate media darling Taylor Swift was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” on Wednesday. In the lead-up to the announcement, Taylor Swift and her Eras Tour have dominated media headlines. Her hype has gotten so out of control that Harvard is now offering a class on Taylor Swift.
The question we all should be asking ourselves is why? Sure, her concerts have gone gangbusters this year, she has an undeniably devoted fan base, and her music is wildly well-known. As a 24-year-old woman, I know a thing or two about the Taylor Swift effect. Like every other female around my age, I listened to “Shake It Off” and “Our Song” in high school. Taylor Swift’s music, particularly the older stuff, evokes a palpable nostalgia shared by millennial and Gen Z women everywhere. But just because her music is popular, and for some sentimental, does not mean it’s good.
Swift’s melodies are objectively uncomplicated and repetitive. YouTuber and pianist David Bennett found that she’s used the same chord progression in more than 20 of her songs. “It’s not that uncommon for a songwriter to write more than one song using a particular chord progression,” Bennett explained in one video. “They might write three, four, maybe even five songs using the exact same order of chords. However, Taylor Swift takes this to a whole new level.”
Even hard-core Swift fans can admit there’s some truth to this. Watch the below and tell me it doesn’t sound like every Taylor Swift song ever:
Her lyrics are notoriously redundant, too. The majority of them are about a specific break up from one of her dozen — literally dozen — past boyfriends. There’s something undeniably exploitative about profiting off songs that showcase one person’s side of a private relationship. Each of her ex-boyfriends subtweeted in her music, deservedly or not, gets treated to public humiliation and the vengeance of ruthless teenage Swiftie trolls.
Sometimes Swift writes entire songs about people she barely even dated. Swift was in a relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal for three months before she released her 2012 song “All Too Well” based on their short-lived romance. Nearly a decade later, Swift rereleased a 10-minute-long version of “All Too Well” — again, based on her three-month relationship.
If around a dozen of Swift’s relationships have burst into flames and inspired countless vindictive break-up songs, at what point do we listeners start realizing that perhaps Taylor Swift is the problem?
Of course, even tentatively suggesting that Swift may not be that great of an artist or that great of a role model will land you in a world of hurt. Swifties, the media, and Taylor Swift herself will accuse you of misogyny because any criticisms of Swift must be entirely due to her sex.
My Federalist colleague Mark Hemingway argues that Swift’s popularity is largely an indictment of our culture and “a sign of societal decline.” There’s a lot of truth to that, but we also can’t discount the media’s role in promoting and arguably creating the Taylor Swift phenomenon for its own ends.
Taylor Swift represents the perfect, controllable woman. Joe Biden supporter? Check. “Feminist”? Check. Mask-wearer? Check. Like her young adult female fans, Swift is easily influenced by the left. She blamed Donald Trump for the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots (not the Democrats who put their Covid tyranny on hold just long enough to egg on terrorism and arson in American cities). She also accused Trump of trying to “destroy our right to vote” because the former president opposed the U.S. Post Office facilitating non-secure mass mail-in voting.
In a tearful clip from her Netflix documentary, Swift claimed then-Tennessee U.S. Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn stands against “Tennessee Christian values.” Presumably Swift thinks Blackburn’s then-opponent, pro-abortion Phil Bredesen, does uphold “Tennessee Christian values.” Does Swift know anything about Christianity? Does she know anything at all?
Even leftists have pointed out that Swift doesn’t know what it means to be a so-called feminist, nor does she understand what misogyny is, since she labels anyone critical of her or her music as sexist.
Simply put, Taylor Swift is not a “radical.” She isn’t a Bernie Bro, nor is she a true-believer hippie liberal who departed from the masses in opposition to the experimental Covid shot. Taylor Swift is the definition of a naive basic b-tch. Come the 2024 election, Democrats will use her to shill for Joe Biden (again), a candidate not preferred by the young leftists she has influence over.
It’s not just her politics that the media and Democrats love about Swift, it’s her lifestyle. It’s true that Swift is currently dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. But the match that feels almost made by Pfizer and fawned over by the corporate media will inevitably disintegrate, as all of Swift’s relationships do. Then she’ll be back to spitefully crooning about why her ex sucks and she “doesn’t need a man.”
When the show’s over, she’ll go home to her mansion and her cats, and despite all her blessings, she’ll still be unhappy. Indeed, the single-lady lifestyle that Swift represents and fuels among young women has created one of the most consistently dependable voting blocs Democrats have ever had — and that’s the real reason she’s the “Person of the Year.”
Everything about Taylor Swift, from her music to her politics, is mediocre and predictable. She isn’t a thought leader or an artistic genius; she’s a depressed “girl boss” cat lady whose narcissism has made her a toxic romantic partner. To Democrats and their corporate media allies, however, she’s an invaluable asset in their political arsenal.
