Experiment One

Who is Taylor Swift? As far as the world is concerned, she’s a global singer-songwriter superstar. She’s an artist who has published a total of 14 albums, starting from 2006, with her self-declared debut album, Taylor Swift. Since then, Swift’s popularity has grown immensely, and she has received love worldwide. While there is no debate that Swift has worked her way to the top and earned some well-deserved awards as well, one question remains: does Swift deserve to stay at the top? 

Swift is known for many things in and out of the music industry. The artist's power is evident in her many influences over massive groups of people. For example, in September of 2023, Swift posted a short message on her Instagram. There she encouraged her fans to register to vote for the upcoming presidential elections. The website she linked and directed her fans to reported having 35,000 registrations afterward. The organization reported that the number of registrations was a 23% jump from the previous year and the most registrations since 2020. 

For this jump to occur, all it took was one singular post from the artist. Swift could have posted this for a variety of reasons, but she knew that by posting, people would listen. Thus this means that Swift is at least somewhat aware of the power and influence she holds. 

Another example of this was in 2018, when Swift spoke up on her political position for the first time in her career. She posted "I'm writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I'll be voting in the state of Tennessee… In the past I've been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country."

Swift explains that she felt it necessary to explain who she was voting for, to hopefully influence people to vote as well. She says [in her post about who she is voting for], "Her [Marsha Blackburn] voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values."

Once again, this post proves that Swift is at least somewhat aware of the power she holds. Let’s pull this knowledge into the future, where many things have changed but one: Taylor Swift is still the most popular singer/songwriter in the world. Whether you like her or dislike her, or have no opinion whatsoever, you know who she is. 

In 2012, Swift stated, “I don’t really think about things as guys versus girls. I never have. I was raised by parents who brought me up to think if you work as hard as guys, you can go far in life.” This statement and a combination of how Swift chose to present herself through her music and videos created the “rumor” of the pop star being a feminist. However, two years later, in 2014, Swift publicly declared herself to be a feminist. Around this time, many other young women were declaring themselves to be feminists, such as Beyoncé in her 2013 Vogue interview or Emma Watson in her 2014 United Nations address. This brings up the speculation of whether Swift is actually a feminist, or only declared so because the idea was rising in popularity. Of course, this isn't something that we can know unless Swift were to say so herself.