The messianic appeal of Taylor Swift

Walking though the centre of Dublin last Friday, fans of Taylor Swift were much in evidence hours before the first of her three concerts in the Aviva stadium even started. They were mostly teenage girls, sometimes with their mothers along for the experience. A lot of the fans (both the teenagers and their mothers) were dressed up like they were going to last year’s smash hit movie, Barbie. Pink was the predominant colour.

Fans of the American pop star are known as ‘Swifties’, and there are so many of them that she is now a billionairess. They buy her records (or rather listen to them on streaming services like Spotify) in enormous numbers, and her current concert tour seems to be the most successful by any singer ever. She causes a huge emotional reaction in her fans, the way the Beatles used to, or Elvis Presley. It’s not simply that she is gigantically popular, she inspires devotion and awe.

Appeal

A big part of her appeal is obviously that her songs are extremely catchy. Another is that she is a great entertainer. A third one, which explains why both she and the Barbie movie have so many fans among teenage girls, is that she seems to represent a version of femininity which resonates hugely with them.

A fourth is that many of her songs are about failed relationships (she has had quite a few) and seemingly she writes about these failed relationships in a way that particularly connects with her teenage fan base.

The fandom that follows the icon [note the word] has been jokingly called a cult or a religion but I’m not kidding when I say the whole thing felt like a religious experience”

She is clearly tapping into deep parts of human nature and doing so extremely well. The awe and devotion she inspires is almost religious in nature. No, wait, it is actually religious in nature.

One Irish fan who travelled over to Scotland for one of her concerts in early June wrote afterwards: “The fandom that follows the icon [note the word] has been jokingly called a cult or a religion, but I’m not kidding when I say the whole thing felt like a religious experience.”

She added: “I’ve always loved Taylor for her ability to articulate in song what I’m feeling at various points in my life, so hearing it all live was overwhelming. I’m not ashamed to say I cried multiple times.”

Ethos

She mentions the friendship bracelets everyone was wearing and how these “embody the larger ethos of the show. This is not a concert for a casual fan; it’s an outpouring of love from Taylor to Swifties.”

What is the religion of Swift herself? She says she is a Christian and there are Christian references in some of her songs, but like an awful lot of her fans she seems content to draw on whatever version of religion or spirituality works for her, including the New Age and even the occult. (She no doubt knows all about the popularity of phenomena like #Witchtok on the social media platform TikTok where there are literally millions of videos, viewed billions of times, of young people, usually teenagers, casting ‘spells’).

Organised religion as such hardly gets a look-in. It wouldn’t even occur to the vast majority of her young fans to look in that direction”

In one of Swift’s songs, ‘The Prophecy’, she sings about the numerous paths she has taken to break out of her cycle of doomed relationships, including being “Gathered with a coven ‘round a sorceress’ table”.

I suppose we are not meant to take this kind of thing too seriously, but it does show the extremely eclectic approach people have towards religion and spirituality today. Organised religion as such hardly gets a look-in. It wouldn’t even occur to the vast majority of her young fans to look in that direction.

Natures

But on the other hand, the evident sense of awe they feel in her presence does point towards religion and how deeply embedded a religious sense is in our natures. A Taylor Swift concert induces a sort of religious ecstasy in many of those who attend them. They lose themselves in a sort of collective consciousness where all boundaries dissolve in the presence of something that approaches transcendence for them. It becomes a sort of heavenly experience. What is this if not a form of religion?

Taylor Swift, for lots of her fans, seems to be a sort of messianic figure offering them salvation from the normal woes of life. The only thing is, I’m not sure what that salvation ultimately looks like for her. Is Swift, who is now 34, ultimately going to marry, or will she instead remain single and go from one relationship to another, indicating to her fans that this is the way to go? If she does marry, will it be long-lasting? What is she really telling them is the meaning of life? Maybe she needs to do an interview with Jordan Peterson.

And I’m not sure what she is telling her fans about men. Is she telling them that men are essentially ‘toxic’ (as she does in one of her songs) or essentially good? I’m not sure. I wonder if she does, or if fans really know either? The messaging seems mixed.

No one can live in a state of ecstasy their whole lives and if you go chasing it, you are probably going to be very disappointed in the end”

What is ‘organised religion’ supposed to make of this? Can it compete on the level of emotion? Pentecostalism tries to do this, often very successfully, and so does the Charismatic movement to a certain extent. But Catholicism has traditionally been a bit suspicious of religious emotionalism because it thinks it can be too fleeting and superficial (like romantic love if it doesn’t go any deeper). No one can live in a state of ecstasy their whole lives and if you go chasing it, you are probably going to be very disappointed in the end. Even the mystics only experience religious ecstasy briefly. Heaven ultimately has to wait for Heaven.

What the Church can do its best to offer through its liturgies is beauty. Christianity has inspired some of the best art and music ever created, so it has a very rich tradition to draw on.

What it also offers is a sure path to salvation in Jesus Christ and nothing on offer anywhere exceeds his teachings as a guide to how to live. Not even the songs of Taylor Swift.