The Songwriter and the Franchise: Taylor Swift’s Duality Overpowers Social Media Algorithms

This semester, Sociology Professor Aarushi Bhandari is teaching SOC 113: “Taylor Swift and Society,” a seminar course that examines Taylor Swift’s fame and cultural dominance.

We are in the 15th year of the Swift epoch and it shows no signs of decline. Her Eras Tour – which is deep into its second year of performances – is still selling out shows around the world. She also continues to make waves outside of sold-out arenas: endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and swinging NFL ratings simply by showing up at Kansas City Chiefs games.

In addition to her skills as a singer/songwriter, Swift has proven remarkably adept at using technology to connect with her fans. These parasocial relationships have proved to be incredibly durable. But fandom in 2024 looks a whole lot different than it did when she started out. Her debut album dropped one year after the first iPhone – in the stone age of social media.

Bhandari studies the attention economy of social media and shared her insight below.

How has Taylor Swift’s use of social media/technology evolved?

She's been very savvy. She wants to speak directly to her fans and has invited them into her life. Their close relationship has heightened the very personal topics that she writes and sings about. She’s welcoming them into these very intimate spaces. 

She used to be very active on Tumblr. She used to post and respond and reach out directly to fans she really liked on there. Some of them would be invited to these secret sessions where Swift would unveil new albums to an intimate group. 

But social media changed when the platforms became driven by algorithms that rewarded engagement at all costs. It seems that they are capitalizing on negative reactions and so platforms like Reddit and X have promoted content that stokes negative material about Swift because it generates such a strong response. 

When she started, the internet allowed Swift and her fans to be intimate. Now there's this third entity of the algorithm that mediates these interactions and often demands a toxic form of engagement to drive clicks.

Scholars have found that outrage drives more engagement, so now you can't be a celebrity and have a relationship with your fans without also sort of completely surrendering agency and the agency of everyone connected to you.

So, has the internet just overheated the flames of fandom or has it just brought out the ugliest side of all of us?

It’s not that bad. Most people don't really actually engage online. We don’t know specifically, but I think there's enough research to say that approximately 90 percent of fans are not actually writing anything to anyone. They're just reviewing. They’re just observing, or “lurking” as it is called in social media spaces.

But the algorithm makes it feel like the whole world is mad about Taylor Swift’s relationship with Matty Healy, (the lead singer of The 1975 who Swift dated for about a month in 2023). Then Swift internalizes that feeling, and responds by making a whole angry album about it. 

The algorithms are particularly toxic and they really drive the collective anxiety and collective anger and rage. Everyone, including the majority of silent observers, feels the burdens of these emotions when they spend so much time scrolling on social media.

So why has Taylor Swift been able to endure all the rage and clickbait for so long?

First, she’s undeniably talented. And she has a mob of fans that will always buy whatever she puts out.

But my main thesis on Taylor Swift is that there's a duality to her. There's Taylor the artist and Taylor the billion-dollar empire. And I think Taylor the empire controls what she does.

Swift’s magic is that she rarely speaks about the difficulties of fame or her life directly. The only place she can say anything is her art. 

She goes on stage and turns those feelings into a commodity. Because that's what Taylor the empire demands. So there is the artist, who has feelings, but then she is embedded within this massive infrastructure of a money-making enterprise.