1. She is such a nice person- Seriously, celebrity or not, Taylor is just so incomprehensibly nice. To list just a few ways she shows this: she visits children and fans in hospital to bring them gifts and sing with them, she comments on people's Instagram's to tell them "they are adorable" or "you look fantastic" and gives solid life advice on bullies and breakups (Image 1), she gave a random girl $90 so she could go somewhere nice on her 17th birthday, she gave a fan $1000 to help pay for college tuition, she flew to Ohio to attend a fans bridal shower (Image 2), and she sent 33 fans gifts and large packages of christmas presents just because she could.
(1)
(2)
2. The '1989' Secret Sessions- Before the release of her latest album '1989' she decided to invite fans to her many houses to listen to the album prior to its general release. she called these the 'Secret Sessions' and gathered fans from across the world on social media sites, such as Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram. The fans would arrive at the house to be greeted by Taylor, who baked cookies for everyone, and then have a dance party to the album. This wasn't just for a few fans either, she held 5 Secret Sessions in each of her homes in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, Rhode Island and London and invited 89 fans for each. Meaning 445 fans in total.
3. 'Taylurking'- A special term used by T-Swift herself to describe the way she stalks her fans online. In her spare time, Taylor creeps on social media to see what her fans are up to, this may seem strange to a Swift fandom outsider, but to Swifties, it is an incredible life-affirmining moment. I feel Urban Dictionary captured the meaning best:
4. Her Besties in the Business- Swift and her girl gang are an inspiration to all. She has the greatest circle of friends that she has lunch, bakes cookies, goes hiking, goes shopping, attends award shows and concerts, has parties, and goes on holiday with. Of course the phenomenal 'Bad Blood' music video showed off some of her best buddies: Karlie Kloss, Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne, Lena Dunham, Hayley Williams, Lily Aldridge, Ellie Goulding, Gigi Hadid, Zendaya, Martha Hunt, Hailee Steinfield, Serayah, Cindy Crawford, Ellen Pompeo and Mariska Hargitay. But some other of her best friends include: Lorde, Sarah Hyland, Jaime King, Jennifer Lawrence, Ingrid Michaelson, the Haim sisters (Este, Danielle and Alana), Emma Stone, Gracie Gold, Tavi Gevinson, and of course Ed Sheeran (Although he isn't a girl, he is an honorary member of the girl gang because he's an original bestie). Everyone should aspire to her level of #SquadGoals.
- Taylor is the youngest songwriter to be hired by Sony/ATV Music publishing house.
- Her lead single "Love Story" released in 2008 became the 2nd best selling country artist of all time.
- Taylor became the youngest sole writer and singer of a no.1 country song through her single "Our Song".
- Her album "Fearless" is the most awarded album in the history of country music. The album is certified six times platinum.
- She is the first country singer to win an MTV Video Music Award, in 2009.
- Taylor is the youngest artist in history to win a Grammy Award for Album of the year in 2010, when she was 20 years old.
- In 2012 she achieved the most simultaneous U.S. Hot 100 Hits by a Female Artist.
- In 2013, Swift was honoured with the CMA Pinnacle Award for her achievements as a country music performer and for her "positive impact" on country music.
- She has written/co-written every song from each one of her albums.
- Taylor is the top selling digital artist in history.
- "Bad Blood" is her fourth Hot 100 No.1, following "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (three weeks at No.1 in 2012), "Shake It Off" (four, 2014) and "Blank Space" (seven, 2014-15).
- As "Bad Blood" follows "Shake it Off" and "Blank Space" as the third No.1 from Swift's blockbuster album 1989, the set is the first to have three Hot 100 toppers since Adele's 21 in 2011-12: "Rolling in the Deep," "Someone Like You" and "Set Fire to the Rain."
- Swift not only tallies her fourth Hot 100 No.1, but also her 18th top 10. "Bad Blood" is her fourth from 1989.
- The 53-1 jump for "Bad Blood" on the Hot 100 is the greatest to the top since Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" hurtled 72-1 in 2012, following its first week of sales.
- "Bad Blood" broke Vevo's 24-hour worldwide viewing record, with 20.1 million global views in its first day of release.
- In 2015, Taylor became the first female solo artist to have three albums sell one million copies in the first week (The previous holder of this achievement was herself with two albums selling over one million copies in the first week - ‘Speak Now’ and ‘Red’).
- She is the first artist since the Beatles to spend six or more weeks at number one in the US with three consecutive albums.
I kinda made a table just showing some of the awards she has won.
Award
|
Wins
|
Nominations
|
American Music Awards
|
16
|
18
|
Grammy Awards
|
7
|
22
|
People’s Choice Awards
|
8
|
17
|
Billboard Music Awards
|
25
|
53
|
Teen Choice Awards
|
21
|
37
|
Brit Awards
|
1
|
3
|
6. How she deals with the media- Since her massive hit 'Blank Space', which poked fun at how she is portrayed in the press, Taylor has started just straight up mocking the intrusive nature of the media. Her friendships with other stars get constantly questioned, and as well as dating rumours circulating with every guy she hangs out with, the media try to turn her female friends against her. However Swift was having none of this and recently took a stand against claims that her and Australian singer Lorde were fighting: “Media, when you say ‘Lorde & Taylor are fighting’-by fighting do you mean ‘FaceTiming constantly from US to NZ and LOLing at you’? Thnx bye.” Lorde echoed Taylor, retweeting her message, and writing, “sisters are doin’ it for themselves @taylorswift13.”
Taylor also got caught up in a hacking scandal on Twitter where some of her private messages were leaked as well as the threat of her 'Nudes.' But as always Swift kept up appearances and simply dealt with the situation when she issued a badass reply to the claims on Twitter:
7. She is a Feminist- Taylor's 'Bad Blood' music video is evidence enough that she is a feminist due to the fact she has cast more females in one music video than some film directors have cast in their whole career. But in her own words, she said “As a teenager, I didn’t understand that saying you’re a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities. What it seemed to me, the way it was phrased in culture, society, was that you hate men. And now, I think a lot of girls have had a feminist awakening because they understand what the word means. For so long it’s been made to seem like something where you’d picket against the opposite sex, whereas it’s not about that at all. Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realise that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so.”
And of course the famous moment at the 2015 Grammy Awards when Entertainment Tonight host Nancy O'Dell commented that Taylor was "going to walk away with more than a trophy tonight, I think, lots of men," For a moment there was only an awkward silence from Taylor, who simply glared at her interviewer, for her extremely judgemental sexist comment.
Until she completely shut down the reporter and coldly replied “I not going to walk home with any men tonight” she then continued on to say, “I’m going to hang out with my friends, and then go home to the cats.” BOOM.
8. Her dance moves- Well, for starters, HAVE YOU SEEN SHAKE IT OFF??? The entire video perfectly displays her dancing in all of its beautiful awkward glory.
It has become common-place now to see Taylor dance awkwardly at every available opportunity, principally at award shows. If anything, it is expected of her, and those seated around her. But I don't think anyone is complaining, especially not Taylor. She even said herself, during an appearance on NBC's Late Night Thursday, how she "used to get really nervous at awards shows because, seemingly, they're a huge pressure cooker. And everybody seems to be sitting there trying to look more unaffected by being at this awards show than the next person next to them." Swift went on to say, "that can have an affect on you, and so you're in the front row and you're sitting there like, 'Maybe I should sit here like this.' A couple years ago I just decided, 'No. This is the coolest concert you could ever go to. This is like all these incredible acts playing their biggest songs and I get to be front row and I'm going to dance during this because I feel like it—and not because it looks cool, because it doesn't." Either way, I think its great.
9. She is actually hilarious- Despite being so self-deprecating, Taylor is often very intentionally funny. One example is that time she wore a "No its becky" t-shirt. A Tumblr user created a hilarious meme about a girl named Becky who allegedly died after a party because she "snorted marijuana one night." It was clear the user was joking but the picture was not of "Becky" but of a young Taylor Swift. When another Tumblr user commented, "Pretty sure that's Taylor Swift," the original poster replied, "No its becky." In reply, Swift herself made and wore a "No its becky" shirt in public soon after. Excellent move and a wonderful tribute to dead Becky.
And of course Taylor's consistently funny Twitter feed.
Even her pal Ed Sheeran thinks she is funny, stating once in an interview that "she's got the most English sense of humor out of any American I've ever met... She's just dry, she has a very dry sense of humour and Americans are usually quite kind of like slapstick comedy, that's like the big thing but she's very English." Well, if Ed can't convince you she's funny, i don't know what will?
10. She does what she wants- last but not least, you should love Taylor Swift because on every step to her incredible level of success, she has done exactly what she wanted. She has never let others do things for her and every decision made in her career and her life is her own, and I think that is truly inspirational to everyone everywhere. 'Time' magazine even spoke of "The Power of Taylor Swift" and how her rise to significance was all her own work. She is the living embodiment of the saying "be so good that can't ignore you." Even Steven Tyler of Aerosmith commented on Taylor, saying: "she's just so good she can do whatever she wants." Taylor never doubted her newest album, '1989's' success, she explains: "With 1989, I was really putting my neck on the line, because I was the one saying I need to change directions musically. And my label and management were the ones saying “Are you sure, are you positive? This is risky.” And I was the one who had to come back every time and say, “No, this is what we’re doing.” When I put forth an album cover that didn’t have half my face on it, and tried to convince my label that this was the best way to sell an album, you know, I got some kind of interesting side-glance looks. But I knew that this was the best cover to represent this record, because I wanted there to be an air of mystery. When I wanted to call the album 1989, people on the team questioned that. Every single element of this album has been called into question, and I’ve had to say “No, this is how we’re doing it.” And the fact that we came out and did the kind of numbers we did in the first week—you have no idea how relieved I was, because it was all on me if this didn’t work." Now, ever since she proved everyone wrong, her transformation from country to pop has been the best decision SHE has ever made and it just proves that as Queen of everything Taylor Swift can do what she wants.
