Taylor Swift is making history once again. On December 6th, Time announced that the singer would be named “Person of the Year” in 2023. The 33-year-old joins a ranks of people, both good and bad, who have influenced society over the years and decades.
Along with the announcement of the new “title holder” was an additional Interview with the artist publishedthat takes a closer look at her works and her life as a whole.
Mandela, Bono – and now Taylor Swift
Since 1927, the US magazine “Time” has chosen the “Person of the Year” every year – a personality who has had a decisive influence on the past twelve months, in a positive or negative way. Past title holders range from Charles Lindbergh to Gandhi and Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela. Various US presidents, popes, dictators (such as Adolf Hitler and Stalin) and “American women” have also received the title. In the past, pop stars were rarely given this honor. An exception was Bono from U2, who won the title in 2005. This year, Taylor Swift joins the ranks.
In connection with the honor, the “Time” editorial team emphasizes that Swift has little in common with the previously chosen people of the year – but with her unique influence she has shaped 2023 so much that the title simply had to be given to her. In a torn world in which many institutions are failing, Swift managed to overcome boundaries and act as a “source of light”. “No one in the world can move so many people as well as she can,” continues Time. She is a person who is “both the author and the heroine of her own story.”
Another highlight
In 2023, Taylor Swift had had a far-reaching influence on various factors in the world. A concert by the “Karma” singer even triggered a small earthquake and became the subject of academic research. At the same time, she broke records with her newly recorded, older albums (which also meant she got her rights back): The streaming service Spotify recently announced that the musician would officially be the most streamed artist of 2023.
On the Time magazine Instagram account It also celebrates the kind of enthusiasm the singer would create through her works: “The world watched, realized, cried, danced, sang along, fainted, made pilgrimages to the stadiums and cinemas and was captivated by her work pull.”
Swift also achieved extraordinary success with her current “The Eras” tour, where she performed approximately 12,048,751 Euro should earn. Her feature film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” was also made from the concert recordings at the Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles. After just a few days, it grossed almost 120.5 million euros worldwide.
“She was like the weather”
The decision to select Taylor Swift as Person of the Year was made by editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs in the NBC show “Today” announced. The preselection included personalities such as Chinese President Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, the prosecutors in the cases against Donald Trump, Barbie and Charles III. “Selecting a person who represents eight billion people on the planet is not easy task,” said editor-in-chief Jacobs. With Taylor Swift they made a choice that represents joy. “She was like the weather,” said the editor-in-chief: “She was everywhere.”