Taylor Swift: Influencing her Audience
Influencers today do not have a clue about what they convey to their audience, some do not realize that their immature messages can then affect adolescent teens. Taylor Swift is best known for her successful journey as a country/pop singer. Her powerful lyrics, messages, and overall attitude of her songs hit close to home to her audience that carries a reputation that influences her listeners all around the world, “As a successful female artist… Swift is framed as a model for female empowerment… she can be viewed as an artist who asserts a level of agency in an industry dominated by nontraditional female artists”. Swift has influenced the world by her moving lyrics and her role model position for teens and even adults.
In a competitive pop industry, Taylor Swift has always managed to stay on top and deliver top quality music, different than other musicians, every time she comes out with new work, but “Swift stands for something completely different…”. She uses her songs to let her listeners know that it is okay to not be popular or be the high school cheerleader captain, Swift pushes the idea that there is more to life than social norms. Swift mainly is known for writing songs about her breakups, love, and life lessons that she learned from past relationships. She produces them to help and address situations to her audience about how to prevent something that she has been through. Taylor Swift is giving emotional support in a way through her relatable lyrics. She wants to hinder choices that could possibly make a relationship take a turn for the worse. Through her gifted talent of songwriting, Swift “writes, at her finest, with a poet's delicate touch”.
Taylor Swift always performs not just for herself, but for her followers, because she wants to leave personal imprints on her listeners and give them self-confidence that sometimes a fan may need. Her purpose for touring and performing is to show “…that it’s okay to be confused, but it’s important through times of confusion and pain, to remain true to one’s self”. Swift knows how the youth and adults can be poorly influenced nowadays in society. For her fans, she wants to be a role model for them to send the right messages about life and certain situations, “Swift may actually be pulling a sneak attack by acting as a positive role model that teens will hopefully mimic as opposed other celebrities who send messages of the complete opposite nature” .
Celebrities are not perfect, most make mistakes, but Taylor Swift does everything she can to be a positive influence today. She spreads positivity in the public eye by being a good example for others and her powerful lyrics. Some influencers today can convey misleading messages to young teens and lead them into the wrong path, but Swift steers away from negative messages and instead turns her attention to conveying the right moral messages. Taylor Swift started off writing poetic love songs and now she is known for her fiery, but clever pop style, but every step she made was a step towards being one of the best-known pop influencers.
Works Cited
- Dickey, Jack. “Cover: The Power of Taylor Swift.” Time, Time, 13 Nov. 2014, time.com/3583129/power-of-taylor-swift-cover/.
- DiFonzo, Alison. “Taylor Swift: An Influential Celebrity - the Good Kind.” Mineral Museum, 20 Nov. 2013, sites.jmu.edu/ghiaciucfall13/taylor-swift-an-influential-celebrity-the-good-kind/.
- Pollock, Valerie. “Forever Adolescence: Taylor Swift Eroticized Innocence, and Performing Normativity.” Georgia State University, 12 Aug. 2014.
