I’m pursuing further studies this year! Here’s the essay that landed me a spot in the master's program I applied for (partially edited for brevity).
*****
During the COVID pandemic lockdowns, I penned an essay to apologize to Taylor Swift.
The essay recounted my journey as a former “Swiftie.” In high school, I sang “Fifteen” to console my best friend after a breakup. I would lose myself in Taylor Swift’s songs on my MP3 player, whether in the car or while washing dishes. However, upon entering college, I began to view my love for her music as juvenile. I openly criticized her songs, claiming they perpetuated traditional beliefs about heterosexual relationships and power dynamics. My critiques mirrored the sentiments of those who derided anything popular among young teenage girls—an ironic stance that ignored how I was then still in my teenage years.
What I couldn’t ignore was despite my conscious decision to stop listening to her music, I couldn’t stop talking about her because even if I did, the world didn't. I couldn’t escape her pervasive presence. Taylor Swift remained a fixture in both traditional and social media, with news outlets covering her every move. Lifestyle journalists dissected her fashion choices, pop culture analysts parsed her lyrics, and even sports reporters noted her appearances at the Super Bowl, cheering on her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, as his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, clinched the championship.
The fact that I wrote an essay about the “world’s biggest pop star” unprompted by any work or academic requirement was a revelation. It underscored my fascination with Taylor Swift’s cultural impact, despite knowing she would never read my words. This reflection became a lens through which I examined my own interests in communication, media influence, and sociology. Taylor Swift's role in endorsing societal norms and conversations provided a unique perspective on the intersection of celebrity culture and social behavior.
As a development and advocacy communications specialist, my clients often seek "viral" hooks to capture public attention, and I find inspiration in Taylor Swift’s enduring appeal to create communication strategies that are not just clever, but profoundly effective.
Taylor Swift’s ability to maintain relevance and captivate audiences worldwide offers invaluable insights for my professional pursuits. Her impact on global conversations reminds me of the power of compelling storytelling and strategic communication—skills I aspire to master and leverage in my future academic and professional endeavors. Exploring these themes further in a graduate program will allow me to deepen my understanding of the sociological aspects of media influence and communication, preparing me to make meaningful contributions in the field.
While her songs may invite literary and linguistic critique, there are also many lessons to be drawn from examining Taylor Swift as a public figure. Swift’s persona is depicted as both an adorkable, nerdy, girl next door type, who has a prolific career based on the songs she wrote about her life as a white, middle-class woman and also as a careful and calculating CEO of her billion-dollar business around her very own public image.
She markets her relatability and talent to capture universal feelings about love, life, and longing in her songs and also talks about how she is very much involved in the decisions surrounding every product she releases. Amongst her fans, she is known for being the “queen of easter eggs” demonstrating how she is in control of every detail of her life and public image.
This meticulous control over her image and the narratives around her work makes Taylor Swift a fascinating subject for analysis through the lens of Stuart Hall's Cultural Studies. Such an exploration could delve into how fans perceive and interpret media portrayals of her, considering her proactive stance on how she is represented. I have often wondered how Swift has called out media narratives against her as being double standard and misogynistic but the media has also celebrated her as a prolific and enigmatic singer-songwriter
From a media and cultural studies perspective, her persona gives us an insight into how one can manage perceptions and media portrayals toward a narrative that suits her and her business. Swift has called out what she deems as a double standard associated with female celebrities, saying that, unlike famous men, female celebrities are extremely scrutinized. In an interview, she said, “There’s a different vocabulary for men and women in the music industry.” She gave an example of how “when a man does something, it’s strategic. A woman does the same thing, it’s calculated.”
Most of the criticism hurled at Swift was about her personal life and the number of men she has been rumored or confirmed to have been in a relationship with. As a result, Swift has faced more scrutiny as whenever she uses her life experiences and places them into a song, critics claim she can only write about one thing and is limited to exploiting her past relationships to build a career. While Swift and her fans blame the media for this unfair portrayal of her, she has also used her popularity or notoriety to bring attention to herself and the image that she wants to present.
The media is a platform that probes and promotes her.
Since the release of her album “Folklore” in 2020 during which much of the world was in lockdown, these media portrayals have since changed. She has gone on to release two new albums and the rerecording of three of her past ones. She has also earned $1.04 billion for her Eras Concert Tour. Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the United States, announced that they created a post dedicated to reporting about Taylor Swift. Their Taylor Swift reporter will cover all things related to the international pop sensation for USA Today and Gannett’s network of more than 200 other papers across the country.
Throughout all this, her fans have remained steady by her side to defend her and her choices. Even at the height of the public conflict between her, Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian. This calls to mind the concept of parasocial relationships originating from Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl’s 1956 article “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction” wherein they talked about the illusion of having a close personal relationship with celebrities. Swift has been credited for being a genius in cultivating this with her fans. This can be taken one step further when fans begin to call out or defend Taylor for her personal decisions. This has also been made easier through social media where performers have a direct platform to connect with their fans and vice versa.
I am not alone in thinking that Taylor Swift is a fascinating sociological case study, particularly in understanding media influence, gender dynamics, and the cultivation of public personas. Even this very University is offering the course Celebrity Studies: Taylor Swift in Focus at the College of Mass Communication.
Through the Masters in Sociology program, I hope to explore how sociological theories and methodologies can enhance our understanding of communication mediums and their impact on society. The rise of online platforms and the transformation of traditional media provide a fertile ground for examining how marginalized voices can be amplified and how collective behavioral patterns are formed and sustained. Social media has allowed fans to connect with their idols directly, albeit filtered by their idol’s social media, public relations, and management team or drowned in the sea of many other fan messages. I want to look at how Taylor Swift’s brand has expanded through strategic publicity and fan engagement, reflecting broader sociological trends.
I am eager to investigate whether there are other, perhaps more suitable, theories to apply to this study, particularly those that intersect with development and advocacy communications. The Sociology program at the College of Social Science and Philosophy is particularly well-suited to my academic plans because of its interdisciplinary approach. There are courses offered under the program namely: Popular Culture, Society and Language, and Sociology of Gender, that are of particular interest to me and my intended topic of study. The courses under the program can provide me with the necessary tools and knowledge to conduct meaningful research. By engaging with these academic opportunities, I aim to contribute to the field of sociology and advance our understanding of media influence and public personas and how these compel or repel people’s acceptance of certain messages.
Comments