I don’t get it. Her music is sometimes catchy but otherwise unremarkable, from the songs I’ve heard. How does she break all these records and accumulate so much fame and wealth?

She’s pretty, but a lot of singer songwriters are, especially those with makeup and costume people, a support staff.

Is there something else to her that people like?

I’m confused about what makes her so apparently unique or phenomenal.

Update: there are so many things that make swift unique or phenomenal.

I’ve received tons of great answers from people that have helped me understand, like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, many factors that makes swift different and consequently more successful than her peers.

Clever lyrics, top-tier production, sharing autobiographical and emotional points in her life very directly, apparent honesty with few or no public blemishes, creating a community of fans through Easter eggs and house parties and unconventional, but always personal methods, an early start supported by wealthy parents, she keeps winning against abusers, and her music itself is popular and fun.

Those are just a few of the puzzle pieces contributed here, and a dive into this post is a pretty good explanation of many of the factors that must be contributing to her phenomenal success and recognition, that set her apart from other pop stars, even pop stars who were phenoms in their own right.

This is a very educational post, thank you to everyone who has contributed.

  • @[email protected]OP
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    10 months ago

    Sorry, someone’s got to take the bullet I guess. I upvoted you, although I think you might be interested in a lot of these answers that each explain a small part of why she’s so successful.

    They’re really interesting taken as a whole.

    Fan easter eggs in her social media, bleeding autobiographical lyrics, clever wordplay, painstaking production, rich parents, hyper emotionality, various genres, honest presented personality, there are a lot of reasons that illuminate my understanding of her as a phenomena

    • ???
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      110 months ago

      I’m glad you asked the question… I’ve been complaining to my friends on a weekly basis about Taylor Swift showing up on The Guardian, on the BBC, on the first page of the CNN under “Word News” (not even entertainment anymore!) and it angers me that anything she does is news. She has some beans and farts? NEWS. She goes to literally any place in existsnece: TOP NEWS!

      Maybe it’s got something to do with online news papers losing money, so they want any click-bait any sucker with some “Swiftie” news or the other… Maybe she pushes herself into these articles… Maybe both. Either way, her jet-trips are a waste of carbon emissions, like any rich person… and we will eat her first before we eat the rest of the rich (clearly the last bit is a joke).

      I’m a person with no social media to not have to subscribe to celebs on those sites, yet this woman seems to follow me everywhere I go, when I’m just trying to read about my own people being genocided or about the war on Ukraine… I don’t think she has any impressive musical talent (go ahead, downvote me), but she sure is talented at business and outreach.

      Do I value that skill? No. Do I respect it? To an extent.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        210 months ago

        You should check out some of these threads around us, enough of them make sense to build up a pretty solid reasoning for her popularity, at least to my understanding.

        And you’re right, her outreach settled our a key component, although I keep hearing about her business acumen but haven’t got any concrete examples yet