Taylor Swift at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards. Courtesy iHeartRadioCA.
She is, according to Forbes and Bloomberg News, worth $1.1 billion, making her the first musician to become a billionaire based solely on her songs and performances. The publication rights for her first six albums, which she is remaking, were valued at $200 million, while her real estate portfolio – including homes in New York City, Rhode Island (High Watch), Nashville and Los Angeles (the Samuel Goldwyn estate) – is worth an estimated $150 million. Her “Eras Tour” film is the highest-grossing domestic and global concert film to date, with $150 million in domestic ticket sales and more than $200 million globally.
A study by Authority Hacker found her to be the most influential celebrity in the United States as well, with more than 4.5 million dedicated Google searches each month. Authority Hacker estimated she could earn up to $625,700 for a single sponsored post if monetized to her audience of more than 274 million followers on Instagram.
Indeed, such is her influence that Gannett Co. Inc. – the largest newspaper group in the United States, with almost 400 daily and weekly publications – has hired multiplatform journalist Bryan West as its first Taylor Swift reporter. He’ll be reporting to USA Today and The Tennessean, two of Gannett’s outlets. (No word yet on the Beyoncé reporter, another Gannett posting.)
In an age when the print news market is shrinking – Gannett alone has reduced its holdings by 171 publications and has laid off hundreds of employees in this century, including this writer – the company is seeking to report, and capitalize, on Swift’s expanding universe and, according to The New York Times, neither journalism experts nor Swift fans, known as “Swifties,” are happy about it. Journalism ethicists are worried about hiring an avowed fan for the beat, even though, as others have noted, sports journalists – arts writers, too – are often fans of those they cover, even if, as some of them have noted, rule number one of sports journalism is “no cheering from the press box.” (West quickly ticked off four Swift songs he does not like to exemplify his objectivity.) Meanwhile, in our post-#MeToo era of cultural appropriation controversies and cancellation, Swifties are concerned a man can’t and won’t do their goddess justice.
The big takeaway here, as if you didn’t know it: The digital age has so completely remade the publishing world that unless you have the screen eyeballs, you are out and whoever has them is in. Even The Times, no doubt happy to tweak Gannett, has covered Swift and particularly her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce with the same breathlessness it has reserved for supernovas like Roger Federer.
And speaking of Kelce, fashion experts at BoohooMan have anointed him a style icon.Searches for “Travis Kelce pregame outfit” increased 90% in three months. Washed-out denim is the most popular menswear trend of the season, surging 133% in searches after Kelce was spotted in a double denim ensemble. Denim jackets are the second most popular menswear items for fall, with a 70% increase in Pinterest searches this past month.
So, why does Swift’s influence “only expand,” in the words of the Gannett job posting?
One answer is that in a divided world, Swift is a bridge. Born and raised in Pennsylvania – the daughter of a Merrill Lynch broker and a mutual fund marketing executive and the granddaughter of coloratura soprano Marjorie Finlay, Swift began her career as a teenage country singer who went on to embrace pop and rock. Her ability to blend various musical styles is a metaphor for her persona and appeal. She speaks to the coasts and the heartland – advocating for civil and women’s rights, supporting charities throughout the country. (Swift has said she wants to be on “the right side of history.”)
But she also blends the vulnerability and yearning for empowerment that is part of virtually every woman’s story and that goes to the heart of her predominantly yet not exclusively female fandom. In videos like “Delicate,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Slut!” and “You Belong to Me,” she can play the mean girl and the good one who rises to the challenge. In the horror-flick-inspired “Look,” she has more personalities than “Sybil,” all of them poking fun at her superstardom.
This goofiness enhances her likeability and approachability, often key factors in mega-stardom. But Swift is no pushover. She is rerecording her first six albums so she can own her music. (The first six albums belonged to a record label, typical for the industry, that in turn sold them to a private equity firm, a move she publicly opposed.)
We all watched Swift exhibit grace under pressure during Kanye-gate, when West stormed the stage of the 2009 MTV Awards to say Beyoncé, with whom Swift has a supportive relationship, should’ve won the Best Female Video Award instead. Swift also stood her ground when a DJ sued her for defamation after she accused him of groping her. She countersued for battery and sexual assault, asking the court for a symbolic $1, which a jury awarded her in 2017.
Her combination of accessibility and strength has led some to label Swift a love ’em and leave ’em gal, particularly after high-profile romances have found their way into her songs. (Hey, as writer-director Nora Ephron’s mother observed, “Everything is copy.”)
But is Swift calculating or just an independent woman? The music industry is known for chewing up and spitting out musicians, particularly female ones. Swift’s phenomenal success insulates her – to an extent. Yet Britney Spears is rich and successful, too. In her new memoir, “The Woman in Me,” Spears recounts a heartbreaking life that saw her spiral into madness and struggle for autonomy.
Swift reminds us that for women in particular, financial independence must be accompanied by an independence of heart, mind and body as well.
