Understanding the Enchantment of Taylor Swift

Source: Goali Saedi Bocci

After a terrorist threat canceled the Austrian leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour several weeks ago, the pop megastar is back on the road as she continues her European tour. Having failed to secure tickets in the U.S., I was extremely privileged to make it to her show in Zurich. While I was prepared for a trip down memory lane—much of my graduate school experience was set to the soundtrack of Speak Now—I was totally unprepared for the range of emotions my therapy clients and fellow Swifties had warned me about. As she took the stage and the three-hour set unfolded, it was like an existential journey of self-reflection.

It is no surprise then that universities including Berkeley, Stanford, Duke, and Penn are all offering courses related to Taylor Swift. (A comprehensive list resides here.) Whether as an exploration of Swiftonomics or an examination of music or poetry, many disciplines are cuing into this icon, connecting her to their intricate academic fields. In psychology, I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the positive influence youth ascribe to their fandom.

In a preliminary study examining adolescents and positive role models, it was found that celebrities ranging from musicians to YouTubers were seen as sources of prosocial behavior. Adolescents saw these individuals as examples of good behavior and possessing positive character traits. In the case of Taylor, she is well known for advocating for herself through her music. When she was wronged, betrayed, and heartbroken, audiences felt they were reading her personal diary through her lyrics, deeply resonating with her sentiments.

Recently, a study on body image, disordered eating, and diet culture analyzed Taylor Swift fan content, revealing that many found the musician to be an inspiration. In her documentary Miss Americana, Swift spoke about her own struggles with diet culture, her striving to be thin, and the burdens she faced within the industry. Fans celebrated her rejection of this culture and her fight to find love and appreciation for her body. Research also indicates the strong influence celebrities can have in positively impacting health-related behaviors.

While I imagine another study is forthcoming on the Eras tour itself, what I found most captivating about her performance was simply how Swift commanded the stage. She had a confidence and self-assuredness that was my hope for all of the teens and tweens who surrounded me near the stage. It was in many ways a reminder of the confidence in myself that was lost as I navigated early motherhood in a pandemic world. It is the very definition of feminism that is so often lost in our cultural wars. As we traded bracelets and one fan even offered me free floor seats to the show the following night (thank you again, kind strangers from Maryland!), I realized the power of celebrity to bring out our best selves—kind and compassionate, the type that never go out of style.