Big bang theory’s Taylor-made as all pulled into a Swiftosphere expanding for evermore
It’s clear there is not a corner of the planet that Taylor Swift hasn’t permeated with her infectious joy, catchy tunes, relatable lyrics and strong streak of authenticity.
We awake here, each day, in this quiet corner of the NSW far north coast to the bawling of cows and the cry of a rooster with such a haywire internal clock that he screams out that it’s dawn on the hour through until the evening.
Up this way, when the wind is blowing too strong from the south – poof – we lose our internet connection, gone like dandelion spores.
Even lightning on the horizon can sometimes blow the fuse box.
Not quite Green Acres, but you get the drift.
It’s solitary. Largely untroubled by the world.
The annual woodpile burning in the back paddock or sighting of an eastern brown snake is major news here.
Yet nothing has been quite as shocking as learning this week that for some time I have been living with diehard, dyed-in-the-wool Swifties.
I thought a Swiftie was slang for an act of deception, a con job, or a brand of shifting spanner. Who knew it was a battalion of loving, caring, bracelet-wearing devotees of Taylor Alison Swift, 34, a musician out of West Reading, Pennsylvania, USA, population 4553.
How had I unknowingly co-habited with actual Swifties, dined with them, held endless discussions with these people, my own wife and beloved children, patched their wounds, shared their joys, consoled them in their sorrows, for so long, without a clue?
Yet here they were, their Swiftian selves as hidden as weevils or timber borers, yet members of a worldwide movement that, if it so wished, could summon armies, take down nations, influence global events.
Swift’s impending Australian concerts had flushed them out.
I interrogated my 10-year-old ragamuffin son. Are you a Swiftie, yes or no? If so, how long have you been a Swiftie?
“About three months,” he said.
Do you have Swiftie friends?
“Every single one of my friends in grade 5 is a Swiftie.”
I pressed my teenage daughter, a closet Swiftie no more. She said she had been a devout Swiftie for “ages and ages and ages”. I asked if she was a garden-variety Swiftie or a serious Swiftie. “As serious as it gets,” she declared.
Finally, my wife, who confessed, in hushed tones and with head slightly bowed, that “I do like a bit of Swift …”
The rusty, corrugated iron sheet of their double-dealing was only lifted this week – courtesy of Tay-Tay’s arrival in Australia for the latest leg of her monstrously successful Eras Tour. Swift will play three nights in Melbourne – beginning on Friday at the MCG – and then four gigs at Sydney’s Accor Stadium late next week.
These shocking personal revelations, in turn, opened my eyes to the Swift cultural phenomenon. As Swift herself once said: “Just because there’s a hurricane going on around you doesn’t mean you have to open the window and look at it.”
Well, the windows of Australia have been blown open by Swiftmania, and the view is sheer madness.
Just this week, in the hallowed halls of the University of Melbourne, academics were discussing the psychological damage inflicted on young people who missed out on a ticket to Tay-Tay’s Australian concerts.
Recently in Brisbane, Anthony Albanese revealed during a radio interview that he was a confirmed Swiftie and would be attending one of her Sydney concerts.
The Prime Minister revealed he was very partial to the albums Folklore and Evermore and he seemed highly cognisant of the mechanics of the Swiftosphere.
I could understand his attachment to the song Evermore. It sounded reminiscent of a parliamentary session in Canberra: “I had a feeling so peculiar / this pain wouldn’t be for / evermore.”
This week, the Reserve Bank of Australia was asked whether the pop icon’s Eras Tour – the most successful in the history of world music – would be so financially momentous (such is the power of Swiftonomics) as to impact the nation’s inflation rate.
KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne said it was possible that Swift’s seven Australian concerts – or 570,000 tickets sold – might inject around $140m into the national economy, factoring in international concertgoers and the “setting up, running and dismantling” of the concert set and associated infrastructure.
He estimated Swift would profit to the tune of $110m from her trip down under.
Back in the US, Republicans fearing Swift’s power and influence were spouting conspiracies that her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs footballer and winner this week of a Super Bowl title Travis Kelce was a Democratic plot to derail the prospects of their presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump.
Swift, meanwhile, arrived here in the very early hours of Thursday. Thousands of Swifties had tracked her luxury Bombardier Global 6000 private jet all the way from Honolulu to Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport. (My children pondered whether feathery jet streams they noticed in the sky as they waited for the school bus might have been excreted by Tay-Tay’s plane earlier that day.)
So she is here now after such a long and anticipated wait, breathing our air (yes, there are actually bags of air allegedly captured at some of Swift’s overseas Eras concerts for sale on Ebay for $US100), and the nation has gone bonkers.
Supplies of craft beads across Australia have been virtually non-existent for months thanks to Swifties having cornered the market for their ritual hand-made friendship bracelets. A cafe in inner-western Sydney has for the past month turned itself into a Taylor Swift shrine where Swifties can come and indulge in their idol.
Swift-themed parties have been held for months across the country’s capital cities in anticipation of her arrival – calling all Swifties, we’re ready to paint, sip & sing the night away!
And scammers – reverting to the original definition of a good old-fashioned swifty – have allegedly been hacking fans’ Ticketek accounts and on-selling their concert tickets.
To try to comprehend this national virus, I spoke to Jennifer Beckett, who was part of the Swiftposium – an academic conference dedicated to all things Tay-Tay – held at the University of Melbourne this week.
“So we kicked off the symposium (last week) with our fan event … Taylor Swift fans were able to go with their mates … and sign up to make friendship bracelets,” Dr Beckett said.
“They heard from some academics and some fellow Swifties who’ve done some research into Taylor Swift, how she has impacted on them.
“And then we had a panel at Federation Square … looking at Taylor Swift, feminism and the music industry, which was absolutely fantastic.”
The conference also examined Swift and her social influence, her impact on the global music industry, the power of Swifties, her place in global literature (elevated alongside poets like Sylvia Plath), cyber scams attached to the Swift economic powerhouse, and how Swift’s pop songs could be used to train young people in how to perform CPR in emergencies.
It’s impossible to avoid the implication here. Swift’s songs just might save a broken heart. So why is she so popular right now?
“Her lyrics and the way that she talks to fans through her social media posts have always given fans an opportunity to connect to her and to see Taylor Swift’s life in their life,” Beckett said.
“I mean, who hasn’t broken up with somebody? Who hasn’t felt sad? Who didn’t feel alone and concerned during the pandemic?
“It’s all of those things that she’s just so good at telling stories about that provide people an opportunity to see themselves as her … she’s incredibly relatable, and she’s worked very hard to maintain that veneer of relatability.”
Since their self-outing, my family Swifties have thrown aside any inhibitions. As they sang along with Tay-Tay on the stereo, I retreated to the front steps to try to digest this new universe.
The neighbour’s crazy rooster was heralding the dawn at 6.15pm. And when I thought about it, nothing made sense anymore, nothing was clear and true, except perhaps in the Swiftosphere that my family had so eagerly embraced and which, to my novice eye, suddenly appeared to be a much kinder, more sympathetic and likeable place.
My ignorance removed, it also seemed like a lot of fun.
Russia and Ukraine are still at war. The Middle East remains a tragedy. The cost of living is a slate-grey cloud permanently hanging over the nation.
Then there’s Swift.
We may be far from the madding crowd here in the hills but clearly there is not a corner of the planet that Swift hasn’t permeated with her infectious joy, catchy tunes, relatable lyrics and strong streak of authenticity.
It’s this, her authenticity, that may be filling an insatiable global vacuum and has made her the most famous person in the world.
Inside the house, I can hear my wife and daughter happily singing along with Tay-Tay.
I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror / It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-herooooo.
Stickman ‘Snowy’ key to Easybeats’ historic success
The Easybeats’ sound came together quickly and their electrifying string of hits from 1965 established them as our top rock act.
Chameleonic Mallrat levels up on secret-filled second album
On the surface, the Brisbane-raised pop artist born Grace Shaw has issued a fairly light and easy listen, yet there are labyrinthine layers to discover for the more curious among us.