I wanted to write about the Taylor Swift Panic. First of all, when am I going to find a plausible excuse to write about a pop star and football player again? Not exactly my “beat.” Second, as Nick Catoggio—who already dove in—hinted, it might annoy Steve Hayes. But the “story” has already advanced so far, pretty much everything that can be said about the basic, baseline idiocy of it all has already been said. 

But just to set the stage, let’s recap. Taylor Swift, if you haven’t heard, is very successful. It’s very weird to have to tell this to people, because this is known by even people like me who would be hard-pressed to name more than a handful of her songs. This is from Wikipedia:

A highly successful artist on multiple Billboard charts, Swift has been credited with pushing the boundaries of commercial success.^[125][151] She ranks eighth on Greatest of All Time Artists—a Billboard list ranking music acts based on chart success—as the only 21st-century act in the top 15.^[152] She is the longest-reigning act of the Billboard Artist 100 (90 weeks);^[153] the soloist with the most cumulative weeks atop the Billboard 200 (68);^[154] the woman with the most Billboard 200 number-ones (12),^[155] Hot 100 entries (212),^[156] Hot 100 top-10 entries (42),^[157] and weeks atop the Top Country Albums chart (99);^[158] and the act with the most Digital Songs number-ones (26),^[159] the most number-one Pop Airplay songs (12),^[160] and the longest song to top the Hot 100 (“All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”).^[161] Swift is the first and only act to monopolize the Hot 100’s top 10 and place as the Billboard Year-End number-one artist in three different decades (2009, 2015 and 2023).^[162][163]

Critics describe Swift’s commercial power as unrivaled, as her success is evenly distributed across streaming, pure album sales, and track sales.^[2]

If you don’t believe Wikipedia, click on the footnotes for sources. If you don’t believe the sources, you, too, are qualified to host a right-wing “influencer” channel on YouTube or Rumble. But I’m getting ahead of myself.