Taylor Swift

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Name: Taylor Alison Swift
Also Known As: Nils Sjöberg
Occupation: Musician
Medium: Music
Works: Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, reputation, Lover, folklore, evermore, Fearless (Taylor's Version), Red (Taylor's Version), Midnights
Official Website(s): @taylorswift13 on Twitter; taylorswift on Tumblr
Fan Website(s): The Swift Society; Taylor Nation
Taylor Swift by Crusnik-O2 (2012)
On Fanlore: Related pages

Taylor Swift (born December 13, 1989) is a bestselling American singer-songwriter. Taylor Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee from Reading, Pennsylvania when she was thirteen to pursue a music career. As of 2020, Swift is the only female artist to win album of the year at the Grammys three times, tying herself with a few other male artists. Swift won her first AOTY for Fearless, a country album, her second for 1989, a pop album, and her third for folklore, an alternative album.

In 2019, Taylor Swift started a petition for the Equality Act which aims to ensure that the rights of those in the LGBTQ+ community are respected in every aspect of their life.

Due to countless issues surrounding the ownership of her masters, Swift has decided to re-record her first 6 albums to have full control over her work. As of 2022, Swift is able to re-record all her first 6 albums. Two have been released: Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version). Through 2023 to 2024, Taylor Swift has been on her Eras Tour.

Easter Eggs

Taylor Swift has a long history of leaving clues for her fans, which are known as Swifties, to find. Most recently in the post announcing Fearless (Taylor's Version) she capitalized a few letters throughout a few paragraphs. Swift's fans were quick to deduce that it was the release date, April 9th. On April 2nd, Swift dropped a 30 second video that contained the names of the Vault Songs that would be featured on her version of fearless. Posting on all of her social media accounts Swift posted:

The vault door is about to be as unhinged as you’ll think I am after you watch this video.

Level: Expert

Happy decoding!

Taylor Swift.

Within an hour Swifties around the world had deciphered the code and “unlocked” the names and the featured artists on the vault songs.

On April 29th, 2019 Swift released a music video for the first single for her upcoming album and with the music video for Me! there were massive amounts of easter eggs and clues referencing unreleased music. This was challenging for her fans to figure out as they only had the one single and music video to figure out. However, while it was challenging some Swifties were correctly able to guess the title of the album and made assumptions about what the potential symbolism in the video meant. During an appearance on the Graham Norton Show Swift said,

Graham Norton: Some fans figured out what the album's called.

Taylor Swift': Oh definitely definitely and that's because when I was making the first music video, I was just like putting all kinds of references to unreleased music in the music video, so I'm sort of, it's definitely my fault that there are a lot of theories about it because I put a lot of clues in the video and so some fans have definitely guessed it because they're very smart.

Interactions with Fans

Taylor Swift has always been very engaged with her fans but when her first pop album, 1989, was released she started the Secret Sessions. The Secret Sessions are where she chooses a hand full of fans and invited them over to her house to hang out and listen to the upcoming album ahead of its release.

Due to Swift having multiple homes she has held secret sessions in Rhode Island, Nashville, London, as well as a few other places.

Those who go to the Secret Sessions understandably aren’t allowed to provide detailed information about the upcoming album that they just heard. Most commonly you’ll hear comments vaguely discussing what they think the song could be or casually commenting about the sound of the song. Which was especially true for her album Reputation as fans were unsure as to what the overall sound of the album was going to be.

A major way Swift connects with her fans is through Tumblr. When Swift starts reblogging, liking, and commenting the phrase “taylurking” starts to trend on the site as the fans are not only excited to potentially interact with the star but to let other Swifties know that she’s active on Tumblr. However, it seems as though since 2020 Swift has since switched to interacting more with her fans on Twitter in a similar manner than with her fans on Tumblr.

RPF Ships

Taylor Swift appears in many RPF works as both a supporting and main character. In real life, she has associated with many people who have their own significant RPF fandoms, such as Harry Styles, Tom Hiddleston, etc.

Despite having broken up years ago, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift’s relationship is still very much alive in a subsection of the community. The majority of the fans who still ship Harry and Taylor go by Haylors. While the majority still ship them romantically, many have changed gears and are starting to ship them platonically, with many just wanted them to collaborate on a project together.

Gaylor Theory

Among Taylor Swift fans, there is a notable sub-fandom of people who believe Taylor is bisexual or lesbian, known as "Gaylors." This theory has grown increasingly popular over time, especially in the mid to late 2010s. These fans generally believe that Taylor dated Karlie Kloss, who she was publicly close friends with - a pairing known as Kaylor. These fans also generally believe that Taylor previously dated Dianna Agron, who played Quinn Fabray on Glee. There is tension between gaylors and "hetlors" who believe Taylor is straight.[1] Taylor has identified herself as an ally of the LGBTQ community.[2] Fans who subscribe to the "gaylor" theory believe that she has chosen to "glass closet" herself for a variety of reasons.

TS Inspired

A popular theme within fanfiction is work inspired by a particular song (Songfic, List of Taylor Swift Song inspired fanworks). While this is an extremely popular theme, especially with Taylor Swift's songs and sometimes multi-chapter fics inspired by an entire album, however a new theme is emerging in TS!Reader stories which are starting to pop up more and more.

In TS!Reader fics, the reader “is” Taylor Swift. Many of the TS!Reader stories feature the theme of an album drop, the process of writing a song about the person they’re shipping the TS!Reader with, as well as dealing with fame while in a relationship.

LegitTayUpdates

A Taylor Swift updates parody account (LegitTayUpdates) went offline for 2 months after the owner went to prison in Israel for refusing to join the IDF. Their tweet informing folks of this went viral. On the podcast Henry Kissinger is Pokemon Going to Die, she stated that someone had allegedly snuck Larry fanfic into the prison.[3]

Argylle Theory

Another instance of Swifties theorising on something, this time fully confirmed to be false, was the theory that Swift had written the tie-in book Argylle under the pseudonym 'Elly Conway' for the marketing of the film of the same name. Some folks have mentioned that the marketing for the film even seems to have intentionally played into this theorising.[4][5][6]

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Fanart

Graphics and Gifsets

Meta

Gallery

Links & Resources

References

  1. ^ Cruz, Caitlin (March 25, 2022). "The Enduring Fervor of Gaylor Fan Theory". Jezebel. Retrieved November 24, 2022.
  2. ^ Taylor Swift on Sexism, Scrutiny, and Standing Up for Herself by Abby Aguirre at Vogue, 08 August 2019. Taylor Swift is quoted regarding her support for LGBTQ rights: "I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of."
  3. ^ The Taylor Swift Stan that went to Prison (November 2019)
  4. ^ Argylle: Why Fans Are Convinced That Taylor Swift Is Behind Matthew Vaughn's New Spy Movie (Oct 2023)
  5. ^ Taylor Swift Did Not Write the Argylle Book, So Why Do Swifties Think She Did?
  6. ^ People think Taylor Swift wrote a movie. It's SO BAD. (Feb 2024) by D'Angelo Wallace
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