Taylormania

It is becoming hard to last a day without hearing about Taylor Swift.

The country-pop star is everywhere: touring the world, rerecording albums, winning GrammysThe most prestigious award in the US music industry. The trophy is shaped like a gilded gramophone. Last year, Billie Eilish won most of the main awards.. She has even conquered sport, regularly appearing at American football games to support her boyfriend Travis Kelce.

But her latest conquest is far from the glamour of stadiums. Last weekend, the University of MelbourneThe capital of the state of Victoria, and Australia's second largest city after Sydney. opened its Swiftposium, a three-day academic conference devoted to discussing her cultural influence.

130 academics presented papers across 60 subjects. They discussed Swift in the context of the music industry, gender, law, literature, sports, economics,¹ pop culture, CPRShort for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. An emergency procedure that is used to save someone's life if their breathing or heart stops. training - and much more.

Organiser Dr Emma Whatman says: "Celebrity culture holds a mirror up to society. It shapes the conversations we have about gender, race and the environment."

Swift's influence is enormous. Time magazine named her Person of 2023.³ Her tour is record-breaking.⁴ At one concert her fans cheered so much they generated seismicOf enormous size or effect. activity similar to a magnitude 2.3 earthquake.

Swift is doubly important because her songs tell young women that their thoughts have value. Girls' and women's concerns have often been dismissed as unserious. "For people conditioned to believe that their interiorInside. lives don't matter," writes journalist Sian Cain, "it's powerful to be told that they actually really, really do."

Yet we might be taking Taylor Swift too seriously. "Fame," wrote the poet Emily Dickinson, "is a fickle food upon a shifting plate." Dickinson would know. She was little known in life. But after her death she became known as one of America's greatest poets. Other then-popular poets were forgotten. The same fate might await Swift.

Are we taking Taylor Swift too seriously?

Yes: Swift is a powerful figure. But our focus on her ignores dozens of musicians, artists and activists whose work is having a similar effect on the world. Study Swift - but study others as well.

No: Swift is a global success. She might have more impact on peoples' listening, lives and thoughts than any musician in history. We should not underestimate the global impact of her life and work.

Or... We might be taking Swift and her music too seriously. But the world that has developed around her - the gossip, the tours, the fandom, the column inches - is central to our culture.