The Unavoidable Influence of Taylor Swift in 2024

For many of us born in the 2000s, it’s difficult to remember a time when we didn’t know Taylor Swift. I remember when I was in preschool, my sister would put Fearless on our old Philips CD player, and we would keep forwarding and rewinding just to listen to You Belong With Me on repeat. Her feud with Katy Perry was also one of the first pieces of celebrity gossip that young me ever came across. As I grew older and grew a taste for the larger, “more respectable” newspapers, she still dominated the lists: billionaires, album sales, person-of-the-year, you name it. It’s hard not to get obsessed with her when she dominates even the much-neglected environmental section of the local news. 

2024 might just be the year when the intensity of emotions about her might just tip over. The number of obsessive stans filing through her interviews in search of certain easter eggs is growing more than ever. More people have been praising her on the news about her fuelling the economies of countries while on tour. Her fashion sense has improved. Even guys who like the NFL follow her music now. 

There are also criticisms: her albums don’t hit the way they used to, her complete lack of underdog relatability after winning 100 grammies and a billion dollars, the private jet usage, and the obsessive parasocial relationships she seems to encourage. Beyond that, there are also those who cannot seem to stop consuming news about the pop star while swearing on their life that they “literally cannot stand her.” 

At one point, it becomes difficult to ignore the level of discourse surrounding her activities. 

When asked about how it affects her listening experience, Cameron Mulla ’26 says, “I can’t say that I am not a fan because she tops many of my playlists.” To Mulla, nostalgia plays a role in her consumption of Swift’s music. She cites Swift as an inspirational businesswoman and a role model for young girls. 

However, she cited her reservations about Swift’s impact on the environment. “It makes me a little sad because she flies to places you could just drive to,” she continues. “ I can’t get behind her carbon emissions as an environmentally conscious person.” 

At the end of the conversation, Mulla stressed that as valid as such criticisms were, the amount of hate she received was often unjustified, particularly during her feud with Kanye West, whose comments regarding Swift goaded people towards unfounded misogyny against the pop star. F1 drivers are also known for leaving a damaging impact on their environment, and yet Swift often gets singled out for mere clicks and engagement. 

Swift’s oversaturation of the market has also been a talking point. If she hasn’t released anything new in the past few months, Swift still tops the charts through the re-releases of her albums. On this, Alissa Lapenti ’27, says, “I do not know if she needs to sell multiple versions of the same album with different covers, especially when she is a billionaire.” 

Lapenti also raises the ethical dimensions of Swift’s business practices. Profitable as the re-releases are, most of her fans do not have the same purchasing power as she does, and spending money on the same catalog of songs over and over again encourages wasteful spending practices. 

Taylor Swift’s presence in our lives is inescapable. Some love her. Some actively choose not to listen to her. Some cheerily point to the aspects of her brand that they believe do not reflect her real life (surprise! Celebrity images are heavily curated). And yet, as all of us tear out our hair to come to a conclusion about her, she stands on top of us all, laughing and strumming her guitar.