Taylor Swift is, for the current moment, the biggest pop cultural phenomenon of the decade.  Her Eras tour has grossed billions, with tickets selling out almost immediately.  Indeed, the tour has a lottery-based system that grants the opportunity to purchase tickets—which still sell out instantly.  She’s singlehandedly gotten women interested in professional football, not because they care about the games, but because Taylor Swift is dating a player, Travis Kelce.

Swift is the embodiment of what every basic white girl wants to be:  famous, admired, talented, wealthy, attractive.  Her fans (Swifties) grew up with her, and now have the earning power to spend those aforementioned billions on concert tickets, tour merch, t-shirts, friendship bracelets, and everything else that goes with a major tour.

To say that Swift has a rabidly loyal fanbase is an understatement.  Girls get vicious when it comes to talk of Taylor Swift.  Believe me, I know—I teach teenage girls everyday, and the ones that love Swift love her.  Mention Swift’s string of failed relationships (and the songs that come from them), and they’ll leap to her defense.  Suggest she’s dating Kelce for the exposure, and they’ll claim (not incorrectly) that she gave the exposure to him.  Believe me, they get very defensive of “Taylor” (to be clear, I don’t go around challenging teenage girls about their interest in pop music, but I hear their conversations with other students all the time).

I have a begrudging respect for Swift’s songwriting prowess—she wrote one song in 5/4 time, which is impressive for pop music—but otherwise I suspect her power over her fans is terrifying.  It is an immense source of power.  Women are herd-like and aggressively social in their behavior, and are far more likely to follow a directive from Taylor Swift (or Oprah, or Beyoncé), than to think critically about what their queen/goddess/self-insert wish fulfilment diva thinks.

I’ve even conceived of a short story concept in which a Taylor Swift-style pop star suddenly encourages her fans to become traditional wives—and that is what breaks the starlet’s spell over her fans, who no longer worship someone who encourages sacrifice and giving up an empty, solipsistic existence.

The concern—as Ponty touches on here—is that Swift, a vocal Democrat, will start plumping for The Usurper Biden (or whoever the candidate will be).  Then, her legions of unthinking fans will vote for the party of excess, debauchery, and death.

It is perhaps a tad unfavorable to Swift’s fans to imagine them as occult worshippers of a tall, skinny babe with a microphone, but the slavish devotion with which they dedicate themselves to their icon is startling.  Of course, we’re just living with the consequences of the Nineteenth Amendment.

I’ll let Ponty take it from here.  Here is his discussion of the BBC’s obsession with Taylor Swift:

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