When it comes to the biggest name in pop music, it seems like her life is looking less like that of a showgirl and more like that of a successful businesswoman these days. Depending on who you ask, of course.
Taylor Swift is one of, if not the most, in-demand artists in the world — arguably of all time. Her recent 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” had the biggest album opening ever, according to Billboard. Her Eras Tour is the most profitable concert tour ever and the film about it shattered records, becoming the highest-grossing concert film ever.
And she’s not slowing down on content-making or record-breaking.
The pop sensation is bringing fans another concert film, “The Eras Tour: The Final Show,” that includes a set with her “Tortured Poets Department” songs, which she released while on tour. She’s also releasing a documentary series, titled “The End of an Era,” which promises a peek behind the curtain of the behemoth tour. The first two episodes of the docuseries and the concert film debuted on Disney+ on Friday.
While many fans are celebrating the new material, it comes after a heavy rain of criticism of her latest album and the promotion and rollout of the music. Some fans and critics of the singer are questioning whether Swift is overexposed or if her recent work is feeding a culture of consumerism.
But regardless of whether the discourse surrounding Swift is positive or negative, there’s no shortage of interest, and she’s matching that interest by ensuring there’s no shortage of content. In the docuseries’ trailer, Swift says she “wanted to overserve the fans.”
And Swifties, as the singer’s fans are known, just can’t get enough. They’ve dissected every shot of the trailer and teasers, they’ve planned viewing parties to watch both new releases — the question of overexposure is a nonstarter to them.
It’s also a question that’s been asked repeatedly. Swift’s self-titled debut album was released in 2006, when she was 16, and she has been a huge part of the cultural conversation ever since. Beyond her music, her relationships, her friendships, her feuds — and almost everything about her public life — have been intensely scrutinized for nearly two decades.
“I’ve never heard anyone say the Beatles were overexposed or Michael Jackson was doing too much during his time, so I think about that contrast a lot,” said Reagan Baylee, a 29-year-old content creator and longtime Swiftie.
People walk by a pop-up advertisement for Swift’s upcoming docuseries. Fans say the question of whether the pop star is overexposed is a nonstarter.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Baylee, who is based in Los Angeles and has amassed a large Swiftie following online, is not alone in pointing to male artists who have had comparable success or similar experiences as Swift, but who are often not criticized in the same way she is. Many fans and even Swift skeptics say misogyny is a strong factor when it comes to judgment and disparagement she receives.
Amanda Todhunter, a pop culture content creator who is neutral on Swift, said she believes fans and detractors alike should be allowed to analyze and evaluate her work and actions without the risk of being labeled misogynistic, especially when levying fair criticism. Todhunter and other pop culture observers, including those within the fandom, have recently questioned the number of album variants Swift has released. For “The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift put out about 15 different versions of the album with different edition titles, although each of them contained the same 12 songs. There were more than a dozen other variants, with different formats, colored vinyls, posters and other merchandise included with the purchase and different versions of the lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia.”
“It could be just a bad thing,” Todhunter said of the variants. “I think that merits criticism of her. I don’t think that’s necessarily a reflection of misogyny in that case, if we’re looking at something that potentially needs to be critiqued.”
Swift announced many of these variants and merchandise drops with countdown clocks on her website that sent the internet into a frenzy each time. Many on social media considered these countdowns underwhelming, both outside and within the fandom.
One Swiftie on Reddit posted a screenshot of a countdown revealing a limited CD release with acoustic bonus tracks, writing, “I’m done, Taylor. This is the worst.” Some felt frustrated by the exclusivity of tracks on select releases, especially after they had already purchased previously announced versions.
“Because she’s at the level that she is, it’s not really a financial thing. You can safely assume it definitely has to be something along the lines of marketing, or greed or to potentially manipulate the Billboard charts,” Todhunter said. “I’ve seen even her own fans point that out and be a little bit disappointed in that.”
“Taylor is a billion-dollar corporation, so she is thinking like a billion-dollar corporation,” said Tyler Conroy, a 33-year-old Swiftie.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
However, some Swifties are quick to dispel any whispers (or shouts) of greed, often pointing to her charity work, typically done quietly, and the generous bonuses she gives to those who work for her. They also point to other artists who have historically put out several variants and editions of their work, including predecessors like David Bowie and contemporaries like Travis Scott.
“Taylor is a billion-dollar corporation, so she is thinking like a billion-dollar corporation,” said Tyler Conroy, a 33-year-old Swiftie whose full-time job is content creation, much of it Swift-related. “If she was as greedy as everybody says she is, she would be doing so much more. She would have a jewelry line, she would have a fragrance line, she would have a clothing line, a skincare line, she would be capitalizing on everything her fans do and use.”
Baylee said she thinks the negative reaction to the countdowns and album rollout are “growing pains” from Swift’s career reaching the stratosphere with the Eras Tour.
“Her way of connecting with her fanbase isn’t necessarily connecting anymore,” she said. “I think that she kind of struggled to utilize social media in a creative way, but I also can resonate with the fact [that] it’s probably incredibly difficult to create something intimate when you are the most public person on the planet.”
These points of contention, coupled with the astronomical cost of tickets to the Eras Tour, point to an idea many Swifties agree is true: It’s expensive to be a fan. That’s part of the reason why Isabel Dieppa, a 42-year-old from Sacramento, said she no longer considers herself one.
Dieppa, like a lot of millennial women, grew up alongside Swift and said she was a fan of hers since the beginning, buying physical copies of her music and merchandise. But her skepticism about the artist grew when she was unable to afford tickets to the Eras Tour.
“Everything started to become way too expensive, and she became inaccessible, so the branding of her of being the ‘everywoman’ really started to slip away from her,” said Dieppa, a pop culture writer. “It’s kind of like losing a friend that you had for many years.”
While the price of a ticket for Swift’s tour was often in the triple and quadruple digits, to many fans, the cost was justified. Conroy, who was still working a corporate job at the time of the Eras Tour, went to four different shows and spent nearly $4,000 on tickets in total.
Kayla Wong, a 30-year-old Swiftie in Los Angeles, also went to four shows, including the opening night in Arizona and the closing night in Vancouver, which she joked required her to “sell my kidneys to get resale tickets.” She estimates she spent a few thousand dollars on the Vancouver tickets alone.
Both Conroy and Wong, who also runs a Swift-related social media account, admit that sounds like a lot for concert tickets, but they each drew the same analogy on separate calls — the Eras Tour was like watching their favorite team win the Super Bowl or the World Series.
1. Wong attended the sixth and final night of the Los Angeles leg of the tour in 2023. (Photo from Kayla Wong) 2. Conroy attended the final U.S. Eras Tour show in Indianapolis in November 2024. (Photo from Tyler Conroy)
“Taylor Swift is my favorite sport, so think about how much money people spend on sports tickets,” Conroy said. “You are going to see your favorite team at their peak, peak, peak level. And if you had the opportunity to see your team play the Super Bowl every single day, how many Super Bowls would you go to?”
That thrill of seeing their favorite artist performing songs that span her entire body of work, all with incomparable stamina and energy, is why many Swifties are not tired of the Eras Tour. They’re feverishly curious about what the planning, preparation and behind-the-scenes world looked like and they will gladly watch a second, complete concert film.
“If there’s anything I want to tune into right now, it’s less about the scariness of the world and more about bringing me back to the time where I was carefree and having the time of my life in a stadium of a bunch of strangers screaming my heart out,” Baylee said.
Regardless of whether anyone feels that there’s been too much Taylor lately, to her fans, there’s no such thing.
Wong said she’s even hoping Swift will begin touring again soon. “I mean, she’ll get married first, but then, hit the road, you know?”
