‘Bringing light to the world’: Taylor Swift named Time magazine’s person of the year

Time magazine has named Taylor Swift its person of the year, capping a remarkable 2023 that saw the singer-songwriter dominate popular culture.

“While her popularity has grown across the decades, this was the year that Swift, 33, achieved a kind of nuclear fusion: shooting art and commerce together to release an energy of historic force,” Time wrote.

Time’s person of the year, Taylor Swift.Credit: Getty Images

“Swift’s accomplishments as an artist – culturally, critically, and commercially – are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point.

“As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell.

“As a businesswoman, she has built an empire worth, by some estimates, over $1 billion. And as a celebrity – who by dint of being a woman is scrutinised for everything from whom she dates to what she wears – she has long commanded constant attention and knows how to use it.”

It’s the second time Swift has made Time’s person of the year cover, but the first time she has been honoured on her own for her music and her broader cultural impact.

The singer was included in a group of women named as “Silence breakers” in 2017 – at the height of the #MeToo movement – for speaking out against sexual misconduct. Swift famously counter-sued a DJ who assaulted her during a photo call.

The singer told Time she felt as if 2023 had been a defining year for her. “It feels like the breakthrough moment of my career, happening at 33,” she said. “And for the first time in my life, I was mentally tough enough to take what comes with that.”

Swift’s year included the start of her wildly popular Eras Tour and concert movie, the release of her rerecorded Speak Now and 1989 albums, and her closely watched relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. She was the highest-selling artist on Spotify and became the subject of university courses and research.

She was picked from a group of nine finalists – the other nominees were Chinese President Xi Jinping, Barbie, King Charles III, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, prosecutors working on Donald Trump cases, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, and striking Hollywood screenwriters and actors.

Sam Jacobs, Time’s editor-in-chief, told NBC’s Today program on Wednesday (US time) that Swift was “bringing light to the world”.

“Picking one person who represents the 8 billion people on the planet is no easy task,” he said. “We picked a choice that represents joy. She was like weather – she was everywhere.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was Time’s 2022 person of the year. Elon Musk won the accolade in 2021.

The person of the year is awarded to “the individual, group, or concept that has had the most influence on the world throughout the previous 12 months.”

It started as a marketing campaign for the magazine in the 1920s and won traction over the subsequent years for its often bold and controversial selections.

Adolf Hitler, former Soviet leader Josef Stalin, former US president Richard Nixon and former American diplomat Henry Kissinger, who died on November 29, have all featured on the cover of the magazine as the most influential person of the year.

with AP

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