Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter who holds more than 600 awards including 14 Grammys and 40 American Music Awards. Swift currently has over 91 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has an estimated net worth of 1.3 billion dollars. Through the years of her ongoing career, she has experienced various kinds of controversy about her career and actions.
“I don’t really like Taylor Swift because her music doesn’t appeal to or resonate with me and she seems extremely overrated especially by the media,” said sophomore Himanshu Ghimire. ”I do think her gender has something to do with her controversies as I don’t think she would have received as much support from women if she was a man, as men tend to not have anything similar to the idea of being a girls’ girl that women do.”
The Eras Tour is Swift’s ongoing world tour that goes across five continents with an estimated number of 4.35 million tickets sold. With world tours comes travel, and for Swift that means using a private jet. Private jets contribute to carbon emissions 14 times more per person than a commercial flight. Aviation, however, is only responsible for 2.5% of all carbon emissions. Carbon emission leads to global warming which damages the environment and causes more sickness and poverty. In 2022, Swift had an estimated 1,800 times the average person’s carbon footprint.
“So many other celebrities are doing the same, or worse, and they don’t get any backlash for it,” said sophomore Anika Dutt. “People don’t like to credit women with their own success and don’t like to take them seriously, so they hate Taylor Swift. Male artists, particularly with relationships, are always making terrible decisions like cheating and dating inappropriately and they don’t receive half of the hate that Taylor gets.”
One specific occasion of this is when Swift was accused of blocking a female artist, Charli XCX, on the UK charts. Swift’s most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, was released on April 19, 2024 while Charli XCX’s album, Brat, was released on June 7, 2024. Brat debuted on the UK charts at number two and in the week following its release, was predicted to reach number one by The Guardian. During this, Swift released three new versions of her latest album exclusive to the UK for a limited time only.
“Stop hating [Taylor Swift] because she’s famous,” Dutt said. “Most people only hate her because they think it’s different or cool to hate on her, but it’s not. She’s worked so hard to get where she is and she deserves every ounce of fame she has received. Stop trying to undermine hard working women and let her be happy.”
The 2024 MTV Video Music Awards occurred on Sept. 11, 2024. There were 25 awards given that night, seven of which were awarded to Swift. Some of these awards included Artist of the Year, Best Pop and Song of the Summer. From the 25 awards, 20 of them were given to female artists or groups, including two songs featuring male artists. Additionally, all six artists nominated for the Best Pop Award were women which highlights the growth of female artists in the music industry.
