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As the sun set on May 21st, 2023 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA, screams filled the air, girls clutched their best friends hands with butterflies in their stomach, all the colors of the rainbow and lots and lots of glitter were seen throughout the crowd, as the tension around the stadium drastically increased.

Taylor Swift was about to come on stage.  

12 Grammys, 40 American Music Awards, 11 #1 hits on the Billboard Top 100 chart, 1 Emmy, 111 Guinness World Records. Those are just some of the accomplishments that Taylor Swift has achieved during her lifetime. American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is easily, no doubt, one of the most prominent figures and pop icons of this generation. Why is this? How did this come to be? 

Senior Liv Najarian expresses her view on why Taylor Swift is such a big star today. “She’s always classy, she’s always kind, and she’s really good to her fans. Even though she doesn’t personally know them, she treats the ones she meets extremely well.”

A lot of songs that Swift writes are based on real-life experiences that she has faced or gone through. “I think her songwriting is a big part of what makes her so well liked,” shared English teacher Ms. Woodworth. “She’s very personal and vulnerable in her music, which I think people appreciate and can relate to.”

Other than her creative songwriting methods and catchy beats, a huge part of Swift’s career is based on her loyal fan-base who call themselves ‘Swifties’. Swifties are devoted TS fans who not only love her music, but also show support for her personal life and career.  

Najarian is one of the TS fans who stayed loyal and defended her through all of the media-driven drama that inevitably follows a pop superstar, even shedding a positive light on the ups and down of her personal relationships and occasional tension with other artists. “I think she’s a very positive influence on young people because she shows us that no matter what happens to you, you can always get back up.” 

On November 1st, 2022, Taylor Swift announced that she was going on a worldwide ‘Eras’ tour which would be a concert going through every album/era of her life. Swift has proved her diversity as an artist from her ability to go from country, to pop, to indie. The Eras Tour was the highest grossing tour of all time and was the first to gross $1 billion dollars. The show is 3 ½ hours long, 13 outfit changes, 10 albums, and no breaks. The overall atmosphere of the concert was special to lots. Ms. Woodworth remarked, “I went to a different concert there that summer, and it was not the same. So it was Taylor, it wasn’t Gillette.” 

As everyone knows, there’s always criticism towards celebrities that are so immersed in the public eye such as Swift. Reasons for her criticism are that she dates too many men and writes songs about them, she’s “immature”, plays the victim in her relationships, and her Eras tour tickets being too expensive. It is true that she’s had a fair share of boyfriends, most of whom are popular celebrities, and writes songs about them, but because she’s a woman in the music industry, it gets exaggerated.  “I think people don’t like her, partially, because she’s an extremely successful woman,” said Ms. Woodworth. Najarian added to this subject by adding, “I hate to bring sexism into this, but I do think it’s a touch of sexism from some men. If a woman is doing better than them, they feel threatened or upset over it.”

Will Taylor Swift go down in history as a pop icon? This question can only be answered with a true understanding of what a pop icon is. Pop icons are celebrities whose popularity stays the same or even increases as time goes by. Some examples of icons are Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Madonna, and Elvis Presley. Taylor has been succeeding in the music industry since she was 16 years old and her fame seems to keep rising. “Once you think she’s hit her peak,” explains Najarian, “she comes back stronger. So I think in time, if she keeps doing what she does, she will go down in history like that for sure.” 

Taylor Swift is only 34 years old, her career still flourishing. She’s set to continue the Eras Tour across seas in Japan on February 7th.