A few months ago, right around the middle of August, I posted a picture on my Instagram story with the caption: "Unpopular opinion: Taylor Swift isn't that good." In the next slide, I explained that while I admired Taylor as a person, I didn't worship her music like I had seen so many people do.
About a week later, Taylor released her newest album, "Lover," and my opinions (and my life) changed forever.
Here are the 13 steps I took on my journey to becoming a Taylor Swift stan:
1. Believing that her music was overrated
I always thought that Taylor Swift got way more hype than she deserved. Of course, I loved her classic bops like "Love Story" and "22" (I'm not an animal), but I never believed her songwriting talents and vocal ability were as amazing as her fans made them out to be.
2. Getting hooked on “1989” in eighth grade
For my 14th birthday, my parents got me Taylor's "1989" CD, and I blasted it from my boombox constantly. This was before I had an iPhone and way before I had Spotify, so anything I could play on my boombox was awesome. I learned all the songs pretty quickly and although I did like them, they weren't life-changing.
3. Thinking the “reputation” era was dope
Later on in high school, a few years after my "1989" days, Taylor released "Look What You Made Me Do," the first single off of her album "reputation." I distinctly remember hearing it play on the radio for the first time and thinking: "This is badass." However, I didn't listen to any other "reputation" songs besides the radio singles, and my opinions on Taylor remained unchanged.
4. Hearing Instagram buzz and getting excited for the “Lover” album
Flash forward to this past August, and I started seeing posts on my Instagram explore page from fan accounts buzzing about Taylor's upcoming album. While I was not at all a fan of "ME!," I loved "You Need to Calm Down" and was highkey obsessed with the just-released song "Lover." If the rest of the album was anything like its title track, I knew it had to be amazing. So, I began to get excited about the new album along with the rest of Taylor's Insta fans.
5. Listening to the “Lover” album on its release day and creating a playlist of songs I liked
On the day the album came out, I listened through the entire tracklist, and although it was a bit hit or miss for me, there were a handful of songs I really loved. I made a Spotify playlist called "Lover Songs I Like" with, well, all the "Lover" songs I liked, and listened to it almost every day.
6. Getting more invested in Taylor Tea on Instagram
Probably because my FBI agent saw me listening to songs from "Lover" every day, I started seeing more and more posts from Taylor's fan accounts on Instagram, until my entire explore page was covered with them. I wanted to be annoyed, but stories of how Taylor wrote her third album "Speak Now" by herself, explanations of her genius Easter Eggs, and rants of how men in the music industry don't give her the respect she deserves were so fascinating that I couldn't stop reading them.
7. Listening to the “Lover” album again and again until I liked all the songs
The more I saw posts from Insta fan accounts, the more discourse and rankings I read about the songs on "Lover," and the more interested in re-listening I became. I stopped listening to "Lover Songs I Like" and just started listening to "Lover." After several days in a row of listening to the album nonstop, I grew to love all of the songs, even the ones I hated my first time around. (I'm looking at you, "False God.")
8. Telling my friends about how good the songs on “Lover” are
My friends soon became the recipients of a constant barrage of praise for Taylor Swift. "'I Forgot That You Existed' is a bop and a half." "'Death by a Thousand Cuts' is a lyrical masterpiece." "The voice message at the end of 'Daylight' makes me want to cry every time."
9. Voting for Taylor Swift in the AMAs
I have never voted for an awards show in my life, but a few weeks ago I went to the American Music Awards website and voted for Taylor Swift in every category for which she was nominated.
10. Singing a song from “Lover” at a talent show
For my Arts Scholars' autumn talent show last week, I performed Taylor's song "Death by a Thousand Cuts" from "Lover." My second option was the song "False God," also from "Lover." My third option was "Lover"...from "Lover."
11. Starting to listen to “reputation”
Although for the last few months the only Taylor songs I'd listened to had been off of "Lover," last week I started to take a liking to songs from "reputation." I really only like a few choice songs, but seeing how my relationship with the "Lover" album developed, I would not be surprised if my relationship with "reputation" blossomed in the same way.
12. Becoming angry with the Scooter and Scott drama
I started to get emotionally invested with the drama involving record executive Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta, and how they had restricted Taylor from performing her old music in her AMAs performance and using it in her upcoming Netflix documentary. Up until this point, I had been passively reading the Taylor Tea on Instagram with moderate interest. But after I read Taylor's emotional Twitter post informing fans of the heartbreaking conflict going on with Scott and Scooter, I became as upset as, dare I say, a die-hard Swiftie.
13. Learning of Taylor’s Grammys snub and wanting to riot
Yesterday, the 2020 Grammy nominations were released, and "Lover" was not nominated for Album of the Year. I hollered. I texted my mom. And I decided to finally sit down and declare in writing my official status as a Taylor Swift stan.
