Why I’m a Swiftie: Taylor Swift’s Unbreakable Bond With Her Fans

Our First Encounter

I was 12 years old, sitting alone in the CVS parking lot as my dad ran into the store to grab something. He had left me the keys, so I scurried my way into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition just enough for the radio to pop on. I had three radio stations memorized at the time. Nothing good was on Wild 106, so I changed it to Sunny Country 102.5 and that’s when I first heard of a new country artist named Taylor Swift.

The warm California sun was beating through the windows and it felt nice on my skin, so I threw my feet up on the dash and embraced feeling like the main character in the movie of my life.

“Teardrops On My Guitar” began to play and I became a Swiftie almost instantly. The specificity of using Drew’s actual name in the song was surprising but made me love the lyrics so much more. They were honest. They were real. It felt like I was listening to a friend. It was a different type of songwriting that I’d never heard before, and that’s what made it stand out. “Teardrops On My Guitar” was a fresh take on the all-too-familiar story of unrequited love. It perfectly encapsulated the way music and songwriting can be used to help us process the emotions that are so often trivialized in the early years of girlhood. By highlighting those relatable experiences of crying over a boy who doesn’t like you back, Taylor did two things: she introduced herself to the world as a singer and a songwriter who could bring beautifully detailed imagery to mundane moments, but she also encapsulated that niche of young love in an innocent way that so many girls could relate to. Not only did my overdramatic self want to immediately go cry on my own guitar, but I needed to hear more of Taylor Swift’s music immediately.

Taylor Swift came on the scene when I was in the midst of my girlhood with unbelievably relatable songs about liking boys and having school girl crushes. She normalized and validated that youthful, often minimized, reality of little kids and teenagers feeling like they’re falling in love or dreaming about love in the future.

I would soon go on to make a music video with my friends to “Our Song,” from Taylor’s debut album and scour YouTube for lyric videos. “I’d Lie” was on repeat after school; it is such an honest song but the title makes it feel like an oxymoron. What genius.

As someone who grew up playing with the neighbor kids, “Mary’s Song” about growing up and marrying the the neighbor boy was the epitome of that sacred child-like innocence that is so hard to capture. This was also the time when drawing on our hands in school was the thing to do, whether it was doodles or secret notes with friends. “I heart ?” will forever be the song that represents doodling on your hand in school and thinking about your crush. The fact that Taylor even thought to put that into a song is truly profound.

Eventually, I even managed to download three songs from iTunes: “Picture To Burn,” “Our Song,” and “Teardrops On My Guitar.” Taylor Swift was the first artist I ever did this for and it was because her lyrics made me feel seen and understood. As an overdramatic girlie who often felt too emotional, having someone put those experiences into a song validated them and made all of us feel less alone. It also allowed me to give myself permission to be a writer and pour my thoughts and emotions out onto a page.

Beyond these love songs she also had teenage angst songs like “Permanent Marker” or “Better than Revenge” where she exuded a grit and charisma that was motivational. Whether it was having an ax to grind for the boys who broke her heart or standing up to the grown men in the industry who disagreed with her creative vision, Taylor had a contagious confidence about her. It was one of the dichotomies that helped to establish who Taylor Swift was: soft and whimsical yet strong and fierce. Balancing these two very real facets of her personality was a thread that would carry Taylor Swift throughout her career. However, I believe it also offered an amazing sight for young girls to see; women can be powerful and strong. They can know what they want and deserve while also loving glitter and baking and cats and fashion and makeup and coloring. Society often tries to put people into boxes, especially celebrities trying to create a brand for themselves, and in particular young female role models. For so many years, Taylor exemplified power and confidence while also being a good girl: a characterization that she would later come to shed. Interestingly enough, it was in that shedding of a perfected image that made her even more admirable and relatable.

Taylor’s music became a lifeline

From walking around with my pink iPod Nano at recess to spending late nights alone in my bedroom throughout high school to blasting 1989 in my car as I drove through my new college town, Taylor’s music quickly became the soundtrack to my life.

From one self-proclaimed “good girl” to another, watching Taylor grow up, learn lessons, and put those experiences beautifully into songs gave so many fans the room to grow themselves. She inevitably created a road map for others, not by telling them what to do but by allowing fans to see how she navigated the universal experiences of getting older, growing out of things, and growing into yourself.

While specificity was often avoided in the music industry, Taylor’s brutally honest lyrics were a breath of fresh air and to many people’s surprise, they made her songs even more relatable because she humanized her experiences. When I first heard “Tim McGraw,” I instantly started to wonder what it was that I loved that would cause others to think of me. This actually motivated me to find passions and hobbies that I was proud of: that I would want to be known for.

She also had literary references from the beginning with songs like “Love Story” referencing Romeo and Juliette. She was also open about how she viewed herself as an outsider which made her incredibly relatable to fans even as her popularity grew.

From the start there was this intertwining of real life and songwriting: the youthful naivety of a young girl searching for love, wanting it desperately, feeling like an outsider, but also having this beautiful sense of belief that it would come. Taylor is an optimist, a pragmatist, and a catastrophizer. But, she’s still a believer, even when she doesn’t know why.

Her Authentic Songwriting Hasn’t Changed

Her openness in her songwriting by using real names like in “Hey Stephen” and “Dear John,” helped fans to feel connected to her personal life in those early days, but in the beginning, this unfiltered honesty went beyond just song lyrics. She even revealed that “Forever and Always” on her Fearless album was about Joe Jonas while on the Ellen show in 2008. While this level of candor in interviews didn’t last, it was a massive deal at the time. We were in the era of Disney stars being coy about who they were dating and never confirming anything in interviews. It was always this guessing game that felt purposeful. Taylor’s transparency about her 27-second breakup over the phone undoubtedly made more fans like her and connect with her. She was being honest and detailed in a way that most other young stars were not. We love the tea.

It wasn’t until a few eras later when Taylor explained that too many details in interviews simply feeds the media fire. Perhaps it was more media training, perhaps it was protecting her peace, but a rule was enacted that she wouldn’t be confirming who her songs were about. Of course, that didn’t stop her from leaving easter eggs inside physical copies of her albums or in music videos for her most loyal fans to find. Despite the media circus, she continued to think about her fans and foster that secret language we share together through her music.

Taylor Has Always Been a Marketing Genius

Beyond her songwriting, she was keenly aware of her career at an early age. She began putting her music on MySpace because she noticed how quickly friends were sharing songs on their pages. One of her early YouTube vlogs even appears to be sponsored by MySpace and she explains how her page is hers and not some corporation. She wrote her own bio and knew that connecting with the fans on an interpersonal level was imperative from the beginning. It’s always been about the fans.

Vlogging and showing her real life behind the scenes felt like a video diary for fans to enjoy. Cleverly, she even took a song that was never a single entitled “I’m Only Me When I’m With You” and made her own DIY music video with clips from her early days of tour and uploaded it to YouTube. By capitalizing on the digital age of the time, she not only felt like a normal girl vlogging with friends, but she also allowed her music to reach a wider audience.

Taylor also spent a lot of time on Tumblr, connecting with fans. As her fame grew and her life became less and less normal, she explained that staying in contact with fans kept her grounded and reminded her of that normalcy that was the foundation of her early writing.

While it’s easy to look at Taylor Swift’s career now and find her as a person completely unrelatable due to her level of fame, fortune, power, and influence (she was literally Time’s 2023 person of the year) she has clung to songwriting in her darkest days and held onto her relationship with her fans as her guiding light. She is a mirrorball after all. Her music still focuses on the real raw emotions that transcend class, gender, age and unite us all.

Swift’s Literary Knowledge is Vast

As Taylor has grown and evolved, so has her writing, singing, and lyricism. It’s a common joke among Swifties that you’ll need a dictionary to fully understand her songs because she uses words like ingenue, clandestine, Machiavellian, or references like a Midas touch on a chevy door, along with unthinkable metaphors and iconic bridges.

Her pop culture references, inspiration from movies and books, and awareness of philosophy and mythology all culminate into a pool of knowledge that allows her to write music from a place that feels so much more advanced than others in the industry. That honorary doctorate from NYU is well-deserved.

She is always two steps ahead

Taylor has also said that once she tasted that first bit of success, her label was constantly trying to replace her. Many people have said to young dreamers, “You’re the next Taylor Swift.” However, nobody else can be Taylor Swift and so much of that is because she has stayed 10 steps ahead of them. They want to replace a young country singer? Okay, she’ll do pop. They want someone more edgy? She’ll become a literal snake. They want someone who isn’t always autobiographical? She’ll drop two surprise albums in the middle of a pandemic about forest adventures and make believe love triangles. There is NOTHING Taylor can’t do, but her genius lies in knowing what to do and doing it before anyone else can think twice.

Taylor has consistently changed her image to match each new album and era of music in order to be irreplaceable. She changed genres completely when she felt the pull to a new sound. She was a moving target that the music industry couldn’t contain. Not only did this keep her look and sound relevant and exciting, but it showed a keen sense of self awareness, a remarkable knowledge of the entertainment industry, and a belief in the fans that if what she created was good, we’d love it no matter what. If I’m being honest, the truth is that we would love anything she made just because it’s from her.

When you feel like you know someone deeply and love them unconditionally, they have the ability to be honest about the good and the bad in their lives. Over the years, fans have expressed to Taylor that we are not going anywhere. She doesn’t have to be perfect. She’s allowed to make mistakes. She can trust us with her most sacred secrets, intimate songs, and biggest regrets. Her transparency only makes us feel closer to her and similarly, so does her music.

Taylor On Tour

Of course, Taylor always finds a way to make her songs about the fans as well. This is why her concerts are so therapeutic. In her Reputation stadium tour, Taylor gave a speech before playing a song called “Clean,” which is about finally moving on from a relationship that felt like a drug. Taylor prefaced this song with her experience in a courtroom for a sexual assault case. She said, “I don’t know what turn my life would have taken if people didn’t believe me when I said that something had happened to me.” She extends deep empathy for those who weren’t believed or never came forward out of fear of not being believed. Then, she plays the song.

“Rain came pouring down. When I was drowning, that's when I could finally breathe. And by morning, gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean.”

Music can truly feel like therapy and it’s just another way that words, lyrics, and melodies can heal us. As Brené Brown says, “Daring leaders work to make sure people can be themselves and feel a sense of belonging.”

Taylor has always provided a safe space for people who feel different to belong. She somehow keeps a vault in her brain of fans, and people she’s interacted with. She has brought fans Christmas presents before and surprised them at weddings. She’s gone out of her way from the beginning to show how much she truly cares about her relationship with her fans.

This speaks to an interesting point and why I think Taylor has set herself apart from others in the industry. It’s common for fans to have that parasocial relationship with famous people, where they feel like they know them but they don’t actually. While this is partially true with Taylor, she has made it clear that she does personally care about us on a deeply human level. She continues to live for moments on tour where she can look into our eyes and watch us singing her songs back to her. She watches the videos we make about her, sometimes she even comments on them, but she also remembers things. Those little details matter and make the relationship feel more like a two way street than any other celebrity I know of.

Taylor Swift Fought Cancel Culture and Won!

A defining moment in Taylor Swift’s early career was the infamous Kanye interruption during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. For years after this, Taylor tried to play nice. She tried to be the bigger person. She tried to take the high road. She wrote a song for Kanye. She introduced him as a friend and presented him with the Video Vanguard Award at the 2015 VMA’s. She stood next to his wife Kim Kardashian in the audience. However, sometimes you learn the hard way that you really can’t be friends with everyone and some people don’t deserve your friendship or forgiveness.

The following year in March of 2016, Kanye released a song called “Famous” that not only said he and Taylor “might still have sex” but also called her a bitch and claimed he made her famous. While it’s understandable that Taylor would be upset by this, he also released a music video depicting her naked body in a bed with other celebrities like Donald Trump, Caitlyn Jenner, Bill Cosby, Kim Kardashian, and himself, of course.

Kanye claimed he had received Taylor’s approval for the song and in July of 2016 when Kim Kardashian decided to release an illegally recorded, edited version of this phone call, the world seemed to agree and the #TaylorSwiftisoverparty took over Twitter.

Around this time, Taylor was at the height of her fame, and close to over exposure. She was already talking about needing to step back before people got tired of seeing her everywhere. She knew people were waiting for her to make the slightest misstep and maybe Kim took advantage of this info. Taylor was in her girl squad era. It was the tail end of her 1989 era. If history was any indicator, there was a good chance a new album was going to be released in the Fall of 2016. (This is the foundation for “Karma” - the missing album theory). Taylor had bleached her hair and seemed to be subtly introducing a new 90’s grunge look. However, after the world turned against her, she went into hiding. She moved to London, got into a new relationship, and wrote Reputation.

Since Kim had gotten the world to think Taylor was a snake and a fake, Taylor integrated snakes on her world tour. While critics at the time believed Reputation was going to flop, it did just the opposite. Taylor credits the album’s success to her fans who surprised her with their unwavering love and support. However, let’s be honest; the album is a freaking masterpiece. While the album consisted of mostly love songs at its core, it also represented Taylor’s resilience in the face of extreme scrutiny. It would have been easy for her to remain out of the public eye but we are forever grateful that she didn’t.

Oh, and when the full version of the recorded phone call was leaked, Taylor was finally vindicated. Haters gonna hate but trash takes itself out every single time.

Reputation as an era has also come to represent so much more to fans. There was this confidence, self assuredness, and strength that Taylor embodied and it has allowed so many fans to step into their power as well, despite what others may be saying or thinking.

There’s a reason the fans are for life

Are you noticing a theme? It’s hard to talk about Taylor Swift without talking about the fans because the two feel so intertwined at this point. It’s like we need each other. Taylor once said during a concert that she feels less alone because we exist and she hopes that we feel less alone because she exists. When that’s the case, there is no separating us because we need each other; Taylor has created this unbreakable bond between her and her fans. It feels like family.

I think this was really transparent after the huge Kanye scandal that caused her to go into hiding for over a year. She came back and her fans were still there, waiting for her, missing her, and supporting her. We will never leave her side, no matter what. (Metaphorically, of course. Don’t be stalker-ish). When you know someone on such a deep level (in the way that she’s allowed fans to know her through her music), she has become a ride or die. Just like you wouldn’t disown your mom or sibling or best friend or loved one, even if they did something wrong or made a mistake, we will never leave or abandon Taylor Swift. No matter what happens or where life takes her, I hope she knows we will love her through it, just like she’s loved us through so many phases of our own lives. Of course, Taylor is a celebrity and we are her fans. But, we are also all humans and remembering that has established a relational dynamic that is truly unbreakable.

She gives us so much art. Her music is like free therapy. Her creativity, vulnerability, relatability, vocabulary, literary lessons, and life lessons are all given to fans because she’s so ingeniously retrospective. She’s like a mirror ball. She’s shining just for us, partly because of us. She recognizes what we give her too and never lets us forget it.

As Taylor grew up, learned, and evolved, many of us did too. Her revelations helped us with our own, whether it was wondering if we should say yes to a proposal or questioning if a long term relationship is over, or simply growing up, becoming an adult, and moving to a new city. Maybe, it was wishing you asked your grandparents more questions because you didn’t realize until they were gone how much wisdom and life insight they had. Maybe it was praying to orange pill bottles because your mom has cancer, or reminiscing on the best day you had with her. Maybe it was a crisis of your childhood faith or finally finding your voice and learning how to use it.

Perhaps it was being honest about a messy relationship timeline or using a new guy as a rebound. Maybe it was discovering that love had evolved from burning red to golden like daylight. Maybe it was fighting the societal slut shaming of women for falling in love. Or, maybe it was buying a dress simply because you want someone to take it off of you. Maybe, the revelation is that a great love was actually the great war.

Whether you’re empathizing with those on a tightrope who have fallen from grace or forgetting that they existed, recognizing that you don’t have to forgive the wrongs others have done to move on from them is freeing.

From struggling with an eating disorder to recognizing that you don’t have to starve your body or host all the parties in order to be loved, Taylor has taught us to make the friendship bracelets and embrace the memories as they come. Some may feel like weapons but they all turn into lessons that help you face whatever is next. You’re on your own kid, you always have been.

Taylor is loved because she is so many different things at once. She is relatable, vulnerable, trusting, caring, thoughtful, empathetic, detail oriented, unapologetic, wise, strong, and intuitive. She knows when to speak and when to let go. She trusts us with her most intimate relational dynamics and when someone trusts you with that, you feel comfortable trusting them with your deep emotions too.

Taylor Swift is M.A.R.V.E.L.O.U.S.

• Mastermind (Business women, strong, determined, has a creative vision, knowledgable about literature, pop culture, social media trends)

• Authentic (relatable/vulnerable)

• Resilient (always rising from the ashes)

• Versatile (changes genres, changes looks, reinvents herself)

• Enthusiastic (don’t kill the cringe, kill the part of you that cringes. The worst kind of person is someone who makes you feel bad for being excited about something)

• Loyal (she’s loyal to the fans, her friends, and has a deep sense of belief in the things she values — she’s loyal to herself)

• Obstinate (“I respond to extreme pain with defiance - Taylor Swift)

• Unbecoming (throughout her life and career fans have been able to witness this unraveling of who Taylor thought she needed to be (the good girl) or who the media portrayed her to be (boy crazy psycho) or even the need to shine less bright while in a certain relationship (she’s still bejeweled). We’ve seen a confident grown woman step into her power and embrace who she actually is. Self confidence is beautiful when it comes from knowing yourself, accepting yourself, and loving yourself. A lot of us have to go through this process of unbecoming all the things we thought we were or thought we had to be or were told we should be in order to find who we actually are. Taylor has been our guiding light for so many years.

• Self-Aware (In relationships, friendships, songwriting, public perception)