#TaylorSwift is one of the most famous stars in the world today. She has been around since the mid2000s when she was still a teenager. But in the past few years, her fame and success seem to have skyrocketed to an unimaginable height. I’ve never heard before of an artist taking all ten spots on #Billboard. That is success on a whole new level. Does she deserve it? In a word, yes. However, I’m going to use a lot more words to say exactly why or offer a few reasons why, in my opinion. Taylor is someone whom parents might see as a great role model for their teenage daughters. This is not to say that Taylor’s fan base is comprised of only teen girls. Far from it. People who appeal to only one demographic, no matter how many individuals are included in that demographic, fall short of occupying all ten top slots on Billboard. Taylor must appeal to fans across the lifespan. I’m 56 and I hugely enjoy her. But the people who deal with role models for the most part are developing young people or at least that seems to be the general idea. Why is Taylor such a good role model? It’s because she is a strong, assertive (without being overly aggressive) woman. She stands up for ourselves but she does it in a polite way which does not undermine the dignity of those with whom she interacts. Speaking of lifespan, one wish I have is that Taylor will not making her current style of music just because she might get too ‘old’ to write songs about her love interests. If she does get married someday, I’d absolutely love to see her write songs about what it’s like to be a newlywed, etc. Her fans can grow up with her in a sense. Something similar to this happened with the character of Laura on General Hospital. Have you ever heard of #LukeandLaura, daytime’s most famous supercouple? One of the reasons for their success, it’s been posited, is that #GenieFrancis, the actress who played Laura, was the same age that Laura was supposed to be. I remember reading somewhere that a lot of actors playing teens on soaps, especially at that time, were older playing younger. But Genie was the real thing, a teen going through her first love, marriage, attraction to another man, resolving her difficult at times relationship with her mother, and so on. Her character therefore became very identifiable. Taylor is admittedly not a teen now, writing about teen angst. However, because she’s a genius, especially in terms of her songwriting, she is able to recapture the feelings when she herself was a part of that age group. She writes compellingly in a way that her teen followers realize her relatability. They know what she means, and even more importantly, she knows that she’s aware of what they mean on these subjects. I hope no one thinks that I’m jumping on the Swift bandwagon and that because she’s so popular, I’m riding on her coattails for the sake of views and clicks. I think if people read this entire article, it will become clear that my admiration of Taylor Swift is sincere. And remember, early on in her career, she was a country artist before she came ‘pop’ (following in the steps of the late, great #OliviaNewton-John) who wrote a song about #TimMcGraw, someone she manifestly admired. Surely no one would suggest that the only reason she did this was to curry favour with McGraw so that her career would benefit. Such is a very cynical point of view. She admired a fellow artist, and because she is an artist herself, had the creative means at her disposal to celebrate him in song. And we are too used to negativity in this world. We need a #GreatReset of human behaviour, swapping negativity for positivity. If a person has a cynical reaction to reading a positive article about Swift or anyone else, it’s fine. I’m cynical myself. But I realize it’s not emotionally healthy, and I try to teach through #amphiism that we need to say nicer things about more people in this world. I note that I’m already over 700 words and I try to keep these articles around 500 so I’ll continue with this article tomorrow with Part 2. Be sure to look out for it!
