WEBVTT - Harvard’s Taylor Swift Course -What You’re Really Learning! 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:04.760 Now really. 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:11.319 Really now really hello, and welcome to really know really 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.880 with Jason, Alexander and Peters Hilden, who ask you to 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.840 please subscribe as swiftly as possible. And swift really is 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.600 the word of the day, because on this episode we'll 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:22.439 be talking about Taylor Swift. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.080 Within hours of its release. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.680 Taylor Swift's new album just broke multiple streaming records, her 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.919 era's tour has earned over one billion dollars, and Harvard 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.919 University is teaching a course on Taylor Swift. Yes, Harvard, 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.440 that bastion of higher education, has a new course about 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.520 the art and craft of tea swizzle really no really. 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:50.040 In this episode, Jason and Peter engage with Professor Stephanie Burt, 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.800 who teaches the Swift course at Harvard, to discuss her 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.480 class and to help take a closer look at the woman, 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.080 her music, the music industry she has upended, and her 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.360 rabbit fan the Swifties. Plus you'll hear how your hosts 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.320 were a tiny little part of the meteoric. 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.399 Rise of Taylor Swift and as a result, how she 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:13.480 owes it all to them. Here's season and Peter, now. 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.920 Are you ready to all right? The really you know really. 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.919 The topic today started that Harvard is teaching a course 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.480 on Taylor Swift. Really it is. 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.080 It's called Taylor Swift and Her World. Now at first 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.039 and find out why we that course? And at first 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:38.520 you go, really, I think it's I think? Second, we 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.520 went really and I'll tell you why? Yeah? 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:43.759 How much am I paying Belly for your courses? 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:47.840 Thank you? How much is Harvard this year? It's sixty eight? 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.080 And what's on your curriculum this year? The Taylor Swift course? 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.200 Yeah? Right? And what are you gonna up in a 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.919 little Taylor Swift shop of pooh pooh? 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:58.880 You sit there and you go, what could this be? 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.120 But that's why we want to walk class. This is 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.920 an easy a listen to this description. This is not 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.799 an easya. This is the course description. The first song 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.560 on Taylor Swift's first record, released when she was sixteen, 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:16.080 pay homage by name to a more established country artist. Today, 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.320 she's the most recognizable country or formerly country or pop 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.320 artist in North America, if not the world. Her songwriting 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.919 takes in a half a dozen genres, and her economic 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:32.000 impact changes cities. We will move through Swift's own catalog, 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.680 including hits, deep cuts, outtakes, re recordings, considering songwriting as 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.160 its own art, distinct from poems recited or silently read. 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.639 We will learn how to study fan culture, celebrity culture, adolescence, 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:49.480 adulthood and appropriation. How to think about white text Southern texts, 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:52.399 Transatlantic texts, and queer subtexts. 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:53.480 We will learn. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.000 I'm not done, und We're gonna have to teach you on. 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.440 But I mean, this is, this is, this is. 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.240 I couldn't pass this course. 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:04.760 You know what I'm doing. I couldn't pass this cool 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.640 I'm doing. I'm transferring to the minute work course across 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:08.959 the whole. 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.160 Let me tell you something. I took a course when 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.360 I was in college because I was I was a 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.920 theater major, so I was studying walking and talking and 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.400 I know, I know my course. He's ridiculous Boston University, Yes, 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.480 But I decided in my junior year, I'm going to 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.320 take one course where I can take a course. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.000 You know where I'm gonna learn. 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.360 But I also wanted it to be something that I 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.680 knew was gonna be sewing my wheelhouse and I was 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.720 gonna nail this thing. So I took a course called 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:43.000 Arthurian Myth and Legend, never seeing it was a graduate 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.360 level course. Didn't note that, and I thought, I've seen Camelot. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:49.480 This is gonna be. 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:50.640 Cake probably cool life. 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:55.480 Ever day one he hands us the Morte de Arthur 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.520 in Middle English. That's the first book we're going to read. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.680 There were five papers and three books, none of them 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:06.080 in standard English. And the man gave me a D 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.080 for the course. And he said, because he just showed 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.840 up and I didn't think you would, He said, I 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:13.680 should give you a knaugh. 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:15.119 Wow. 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.679 He said, you have not had not one original thought. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:20.000 You have actually now, I. 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.360 Said, Jason Nina, by the way, let me let me 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.320 give for people who don't understand Taylor Swift, whether you 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.640 like her or not or even know much about her, 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.080 has had such impact on our culture. 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:32.080 She's won. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.679 And what's weird is I had a really hard time 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.719 finding stats because it's like when you're looking at McDonald's, 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:39.560 it keeps. 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:40.800 Changing, the worrying. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.200 So I think with an asterisk, I think these are 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.200 the latest, right, Yeah. Fourteen Grammy Awards, including four per 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:48.960 Album of the Year, the most one buy an artist, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.400 the most one by an artists, Emmy Award, forty American 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.880 Music Awards, the most one buy an Artist, thirty nine 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.240 Billboard Music Awards, one hundred and eighteen Guinness World Records, 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.120 three MTV Music Awards, twelve Country Music Awards, and then 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.400 Rolling Stones one hundred Great Songwriters, fifty million album sales, 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.239 one hundred and fifty million single sales as of twenty nineteen, 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.719 one hundred and fourteen million million units globally, including six 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.320 seventy eight billion streams as of twenty twenty one, highest 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:23.400 grossing female touring act ever with cumulative ticket sale. 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.000 Of one point nine six billion dollars. 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.000 And I just saw and that's none of this is 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.720 even the most important thing about her, which is the 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.159 only person to come out of the motion the motion 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.480 picture Cats unscathed. 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.200 Unscathed, unscathed. That was story. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.719 We were a little bit because we not having a 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:43.160 country act. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.240 I met her, you know, fortuntiously when when she was 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:50.760 quite starting out, but you actually have sat you did. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.240 Country radio a lot of from the starting every year. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.200 She came in a lot when we were starting out, 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:57.560 and then she went on Brad Paisley's door tour when 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.760 I got you into direct and that kind of stuff. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.840 So she got into a bit of a pickle in Singapore, 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.880 because she went to Singapore and performed. The other Asian 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.360 countries were pissed off because Singapore paid her to come, 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.320 and there's a radius clause, you know, where you can't 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:13.520 appear other places you're. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:13.800 Going to play. 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.520 So they were so pissed because what she did for 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.640 the economy there, they say she probably took it up 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:27.120 by percentage points. The entire economy in Singapore gross domestic 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.960 product will probably expand two point nine percent in the 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:36.479 three months ending March thirty first, And economists here use 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.880 her when they make an economic forecast if she's touring, 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.560 if she's touring, because she's that impactful and employs that 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.440 many people when she shares the time. 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.520 I mean I haven't tucked to her obviously in many, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.280 many years, but anecdotally lovely only men. 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.680 It seems to be really lovely. No one could have 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:57.599 predicted that she would be what she is. 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.360 Well, I no one could have predicted. I gotta tell you, well, 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:02.919 you and I had the same experience of her. So 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.440 when we were at when we were shooting Brad's video 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.600 that she made an appearance in, we sat and watched 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.320 the concert that night, and she was the opening act 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.080 and she comes out to a crowd that wasn't there 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.480 for her necessarily. She's seventeen. I think at the time 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.200 she's out there with a guitar. I think she had 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.600 a couple of band members. She's got the bracelets on 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.680 the Friendship bracelet. It was like she was performing in 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.680 her living room. She was so comfortable that people that 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.040 really were you know, sometimes with an opening act, they 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:34.880 don't even stop. If you're in the audience, they don't 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.320 even stop talking. You just deal with what you're with. 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.280 Within a song or two, the whole audience is looking 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.200 at her, and by the end of this thing, they're like, no, 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.080 do another number doing But. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.960 That said, but to transcend to become one of the 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:49.920 biggest starts, if not the biggest star in country music, 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.520 and then go, you know what, I'm going to transcend that. Yeah, 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.680 go and not alienate that on his keep them. 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.800 And then somebody said, not like put a tone into 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:01.239 epping out on your next album. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:02.600 Just the thing done. 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.480 My next album is pop, all of it pop. 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.240 And managed not to only neate the country on it, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.280 which is very special. So it's going to be fascinating 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.000 for profess. Here's what we know before we even go in. 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:18.280 She's smarter than us. Oh that was she was smarter 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.600 than us at fourteen or sixteen or seventeen. 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.440 So so let's say hello, this remarkable professor. 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:25.040 Good to have you. 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:27.240 Thank you so much, Thank you so much for coming on. 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.520 I really are already doing the name of our show. 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:34.360 This is a professor remote, a professor Stephanie Birt from Harvard. 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:36.920 Have a pleasure to have you on. Nice to see you. 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:38.600 I'm not happy to be here. 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.880 So the Taylor Swift course, how how did that happen? 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:45.319 And if Jason jameson, how. 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:47.920 Did I would love because you know, Peter and I 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.600 have to pitch projects for a living. I would love 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.000 to understand the pitch meeting. If there was such a 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.440 thing where you went to the administration and went I 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.440 got one. How about a course Taylor Swift? How did 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.319 you sell that to the powers that be? 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:04.400 So I didn't really have to This is just an 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:09.079 English course. Oh and if you are an English professor 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:10.760 and you just want to teach an English course, or 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.760 a music professor's meaching a music course, I suppose a 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.359 bio professor and you just want to teach an evolutionary 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.920 biology course. You just go to your department chair and 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.240 say can I teach this? And if your chair says yeah, sure, 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.880 that sounds good, then you can list it and see 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:26.560 who shows up. 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:27.360 Wow. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.760 Wow, that amount of trust in us, which I hope 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:33.679 I haven't betrayed you. 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:35.880 On the showing up was not an issue once you 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.080 posted this topic, I would have meagined. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.000 I did not expect this level of showing up. I've 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.720 been wanting, you know, songwriting is a literary art form, 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:46.760 and it's when I think about a lot, and I've 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.240 been wanting to teach a course organized around a songwriter 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.840 for quite some time, But until recently, the songwriters I 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.360 thought about were people like Scott Miller from Game Theory, 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.760 whose work I love, but who you're not going to 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:04.240 fill room yet with the point is that with Taylor, 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.400 you've got a great songwriter. You've got a songwriter of 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.760 genius who I feel like I understand what she's doing 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.600 well enough to teach it, partly just because I'm so 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.640 deeply engaged with the words in the melody, and partly 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.120 because the stuff that I'm not common to teach, which 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:24.360 is complicated like jazz harmony, changes. She doesn't do right 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.600 right like I would need a lot of help teaching 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.800 a Joni Mitchell course because those courts are weird. Taylor's 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.800 melodies and textures and words are amazing, and the chords 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.960 are just they get the job done. They're great, but 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.439 they're not complex. Someone like me understands them. 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:39.680 Yep. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.560 And so here's this songwriter who I love where maybe 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.080 some people would show up, and I did not expect 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.960 this many people. I talked to my students about it 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:53.440 last fall and said, hey, would your friends take a 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:57.480 Taylor Swift course? They said, yeah, yeah, our friends would. 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.400 But I really thought it was going to have like 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.640 a twenty person who are a thirty person seminar until 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:03.960 the media started showing up? 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:05.920 And how many do you have? How many students are 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:06.400 in the course. 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:08.160 We've got two hundred. 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:08.760 Yeah. 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.000 What's interesting to me about your course because I mean, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.000 I knew Tailor a bit because they did country radio 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.120 in La So I got the hanger at the beginning, 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.240 at the beginning of her career, which is pretty fascinating. 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:18.920 We've talked about that. 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:20.920 But I got to tell you, I was a little 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.160 daunted doing this because I'm out of the demo and 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.200 I didn't think her songwriting was that superior because I 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.400 don't know. I didn't dive into a songwriting. So I 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.280 enlisted my son, who writes and does records and stuff, 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:36.000 who's in his twenty. 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:36.760 I love that. 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:38.800 And I asked him a couple of questions before this, 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:40.920 and I said to him, first of all, I said, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.200 so explain to me. It seems to me like every 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.360 time she breaks up with a guy, she writes about it, 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.600 and she's a victim. And my son looks at me 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.680 and goes, she is. But here's the deal. Victimhood is 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.520 not buying her. And what she does with the victimhood 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.360 is she turns it into a win. So she's also 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.640 like a Marvel superhero. And I looked up this term 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.920 and if you used or not, and I'm probably mispronouncing 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.200 it hermaneutic friend or hermanetic. 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:08.320 Friend, hermitic friendship. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.600 Yeah, yeah, hermany which means she understands what you're going 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.880 through and she's going to help you get through it. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.880 So my son said, you don't understand there's a power 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:20.440 to overcoming stuff. 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:22.440 That's right, So can. 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.199 You talk to that a little bit about because I 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.080 would have just said it seems like victim and he 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.119 looked at me like, no, don't be that simplistic. 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.240 That so well, first, your son is right, Hello, you're 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:37.120 sign the second yeah. Hermitic friendship is a term coined 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.440 by the poet and critic and thinker Alan Grossman, who 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.160 we lost not that long ago, and his idea was 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.800 that when you read a poem that really speaks to you, 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.800 it's not exactly like you're making friends with the person 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:52.960 in real life. If you can't, you know, go out 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.120 for coffee with them, they don't, you can't interact with 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.679 them in real time. But you have a work literature 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:02.800 that speaks to you, that knows what you're going through, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.160 that sees you or hears you in some deep way. 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:12.360 Hermonuic just means having to do with interpretation. So this 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.520 is a friend you can interpret, who can interpret you, 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.720 who's there for you as a work of art. And 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.200 a lot of Taylor's songs do that. She does write 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.120 breakup songs. She does write hey, this relationship ended and 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.280 it ended, perhaps on bad terms, songs about many of 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.720 her romances. She's also got a couple of songs about 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.559 relationships that ended on good terms. Taylor Lautner, who's one 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.760 of her first serious relationships. She writes back to December 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.600 about what a good boyfriend he was, and she kind 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.040 of wishes the things it ended differently, and he's great, 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:46.559 So it's not like she's always going after her exes. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.560 She's also got a ton of songs, some of my 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:54.679 favorite songs which are not about dating or erotic relationships 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.560 at all. One of her great early triumphs is a 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.640 song called the Best Day, which is mostly about how 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.960 good a mom her mom is My favorite from the 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.240 vault tracks on Red is a song called Nothing New, 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.319 which she it's a duet with Phoebe Bridges, and it's 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:14.920 about her fear of losing her relevance, of ceasing to 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:19.280 be interesting to the public once she's no longer the 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.200 next big young thing. Everybody loves an agen, she says 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.840 in that song. So she has a considerably wider range 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.040 of topics than just break up her romance and one 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.560 of the messages that a lot of her songs are sending. 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.440 Not every great work of art has a message, but 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.080 she often does. One of her repeated messages is give 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.240 your heart to a guy. If you want ball for 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.760 a guy, if you want smooch a guy, if you 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.160 want sleep with the guy if you want, and you 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:46.200 could stay with him or you could not stay with him. 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.520 But do not make what he thinks of you the 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:54.920 measure of your worth. Know that you can survive and 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:59.280 you can thrive, and you can be yourself without depending 0:14:59.320 --> 0:14:59.880 on those men. 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.360 So I also saw that a thing that she uses 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.320 lex with, I wasn't ware of l a cts, which 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.640 which is like families have lex And I said to Jason, 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:10.760 we've been thirty years, we known each other, so we 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.240 have shorthand and words that we use that only we know, 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:15.880 and that if you come into the family, then you 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.560 pick them up. And she uses those selectively in her songs, 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.080 which helps build community. Is that is that do other 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.840 artists not do? That? Is that unique to her? So 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.960 so I also saw that a thing that she uses 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.960 lex with, I wasn't where of l a cts. Is 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:45.120 that unique to her? 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:50.360 So l E I know what an l e K is. 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:52.960 It is a term from animal behavior in anthropology, and 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.960 I know what l e X is. At the dating site, 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:04.800 strangely they over she just lesbian animal behavior. 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.480 But I use the term of family act like families 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.520 have a different dialect. 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.760 Okay, so using the suffets as if it were word, 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:19.840 which it is now it is now we're at descriptive 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.520 linguists here L E c t s is now officially 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:28.320 a word. So she has I don't know that she 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:34.400 has words that only appear in Taylor songs. She does 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:39.760 have a series of references and words and images that 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:46.520 have meanings that develop over the course of her career 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.200 and over the course of an album the way and 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.360 or even over the course of an individual song, just 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.400 the way that words and images do in novels and 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.160 page based poems and movies and so on. You know, 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.240 an obvious one would be that scarf that is that, 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.760 you know, the scarf that I left at your sister's 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.520 house in the song All too Well, where you can 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.639 kind of track that scarf. And she has what fans 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.159 call easter eggs, which is to say, both within the 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:17.520 songs and in the other things that she does social 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:23.240 media posts and interviews and even outfits, where she is 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.760 is giving hints that fans can interpret about what a 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:30.640 song is about, or what's coming next, or what's what's happening. 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:33.800 On the one hand, of course, it's a good commercial strategy. 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.840 It keeps people paying attention in between albums, and why 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:38.440 would you not do that if you want to sell 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:40.960 albums and you want to keep people going to your concerts. 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:46.000 But it's beyond that. It is about giving people a 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.080 sense of community and a sense that she cares what 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.320 we think, and a way to meet one another. There are, 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.840 you know, many many lifelong friendships and probably some romances 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.880 that form with Swifty communities. The more so because it's 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:07.040 such a large fandom and she's also and this is 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.439 something that she writes songs about. It's something that the 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.000 great podcaster is Danny and Olivia from the Tay Learning podcast, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.119 which I love. It's my favorite Swifty podcast of several. 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.800 It's something that Danny and Olivia noticed a couple of 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.520 weeks ago on their show. It's not just that fans 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.639 have a parasocial relationship with Taylor. We sort of feel 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.600 like we know her even though we don't. It's that 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:35.560 she seems sometimes to have a parasocial relationship with us. 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.480 She cares what we think. She feels as if she 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.680 could get to know us, she is reaching out to us, 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.840 and she has a record of really saying that she 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.760 cares about how her fans see her, not her peers, 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.760 not the media, not the celebrity industry, but her fans. 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.560 And she writes songs about that caring. And you can't 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.080 prove it sincere You can't prove anything since here unless 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.520 you're a telepath. But it is an aspect of her 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.960 as an artist that she cares what we think, and 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.080 a lot of those Easter eggs and those kind of pieces. 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.080 Of fans as. 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:12.520 Part of that shown that she. 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.879 Yeah, I mean, this relationship extends to the point where 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:22.080 she has invited hundreds of fans to it said, her home, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.880 it might have been somewhere else to do listening parties 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.640 for music that she's thinking of releasing or working on, 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:33.399 and that she really does hold the It seems like, 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.159 and I mean this in a complimentary way, that she 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:38.639 has an understanding that part of her life is the 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.800 music business, but part of her life is just public 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:46.320 relations and engagement, and that she is equally good at 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.360 that part as she is at the music industry, which 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:51.000 is a formidable thing to say. 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.880 Well, that's right, there's a couple of things going on here. 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.320 She has said that if for some reason she were 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.919 denied a music business career, she would probably be in 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.959 public relations, in marketing, something that allowed her to extrovert 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.399 and to use her talent for words, But it also 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.719 says something that shows up in the actual songs that 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:17.840 she writes. She cares how people see her. She cares 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.400 how strangers see her. She cares how twelve year olds 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.520 see her, she cares how grown adults see her. She 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:29.680 cares how she is perceived in a way that is 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.840 not necessarily healthy. And if you see if you watch 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:35.760 the movie Miss Americana, which of course she had a 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.119 lot of control over, but one of the things that 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.320 really comes across on that movie in other interviews is 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:47.120 how vulnerable she is to how people see her. That 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:52.320 she's sort of one one flop away or one failure 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.680 to connect away from going back to being the unpopular 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.320 kid who just needed a lot of parental support when 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:05.960 she was thirteen. But Taylor really does seem to need 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:10.000 us in order to think well of herself and to 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:15.119 have taken what could have been a very dangerous character flaw, 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.000