Heather Roy says that when she and her 12-year-old daughter Harper attend Taylor Swift’s second show in Vancouver on Saturday, someone else will be with them — Harper’s big sister Evelyn, who died of cancer in 2020 at age 11.
“For us, it just feels like so much more than a concert,” Roy said.
Swift’s music provided comfort to Evelyn during treatment for neuroblastoma. She’d play Swift’s upbeat 2012 hit “22” to get her through the uncomfortable task of changing the dressing on her main intravenous line.
Now, Swift is a connection to Evelyn for her mother and sister, who won their tickets in a giveaway and will be travelling to the show from Calgary.
“When you don’t get any more memories, to have something and somebody that makes you feel like you get something new from a person that’s no longer here is very profound,” Heather Roy said through tears.
The Roys’ experience is singular but the intensity of the connection fans feel to Swift and her music is the driving force behind the immense success of the Eras Tour, which ends its 149-show run around the world in Vancouver on Sunday night.
Experts in the phenomenon, including Brock University cultural history professor Elizabeth Vlossak, say the level of superfandom is near unique, fuelled and defined by relationships with fellow devotees as well as the one-sided “parasocial” relationship with Swift herself.
Some Swifties have been getting permanent commemorative tattoos. Others have been quitting their jobs to follow the tour across multiple cities and countries. And host cities have thrown themselves into the moment.
“The cities become completely devoted to Taylor Swift being there,” said Vlossak. “The only thing that I think has really ever come close to that is Beatlemania in the ’60s.”
Vancouver is no exception. Light installations around the city pay homage to the singer-songwriter, and businesses ranging from tattoo parlours to gyms to fashion retailers are hosting various Swift-themed events.
Tourism organization Destination Vancouver has said Swift will bring an estimated $157 million to the city this weekend, including $97 million in direct spending on things including accommodation, food and transport.
An estimated 160,000 ticket holders will watch the sold-out Vancouver shows, ending a tour that became the first to take in more than $1 billion in revenue, according to music trade publication Pollstar.
“There really is no comparison (among previous events),” said Vlossak, “because just the sheer scale of this tour and the numbers of people coming to them is nothing like what we even saw in the height of Beatlemania in ‘64 to ‘65,” she said.
Harvard University English Prof. Stephanie Burt, who has taught a literary course on Swift, agreed. She said the Beatles had not expected Beatlemania, and did not have the desire or technology to perform in such loud stadiums, “so they stopped touring.”
Swift, on the other hand “knew and wanted to be famous in this way,” said Burt.
What separates Swift from other incredibly famous solo artists, she said, is her songwriting.
“Underneath all of this success is her at a guitar or at a piano, with or without a collaborator, writing a song.”
WHAT MAKES A SWIFTIE?
Marissa Regole, a longtime Swiftie from Arizona, has already been to 10 Eras Tour shows and is capping that with the final night of the tour in Vancouver on Sunday.
She credits Swift for connecting her with like-minded fans from across the United States who have since become her best friends, meeting up for concerts and listening parties.
“I didn’t even know any of these girls before the Eras Tour started, but now we talk every day,” she said in an interview.
University of Kansas sociology professor Brian Donovan, a self-described “Swiftologist,” said that’s the main marker for how Swift’s superfans separate themselves from the casual fan — their relationships.
Donovan said membership can be most easily observed in how the fans speak to one another, something sociologists have coined a “fanilect.”
“When Swifties are talking with one another, they have this ability to kind of lace in these Swiftie references that bond the fandom together — you feel connected through that shared language,” Donovan said.
He also highlighted the phenomenon of fan-led projects, such as the trading of friendship bracelets or organizing chants during specific songs during shows.
“There are these very unique fan practices that are organic to the fandom,” he said. “It’s not directed by Taylor herself. It’s not directed by powerful people on social media. They have kind of grown organically.”
In Vancouver, for instance, fan forums are filled with plans to surprise Swift including by singing Happy Birthday on the final night of the tour. Swift turns 35 on Dec. 13.
Twelve-year-old Elly Serrano, from Seattle, Wash., has her own project in mind.
She and her mother Elisha Serrano have a goal of collecting friendship bracelets from all 149 Eras Tour shows. They are heading to Vancouver this weekend as they close in on their goal.
They came up with the idea this summer, after a Swift concert included the surprise song “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” which references making friendship bracelets and launched the phenomenon of fans making and trading the jewelry.
The mother-daughter duo have amassed more than 46,000 followers on the TikTok account where they document their quest.
“We just never lost the Swiftie spirit here at our house,” said Elisha Serrano, a fan since Swift debuted in 2006 and who has imparted Swiftie culture to her daughter.
Swift has been re-recording her first six albums because of a dispute over master recordings with her former label. Elisha Serrano said the re-recordings have allowed her to bond with her daughter in a way that she hadn’t dreamt possible.
“I’m Taylor’s age and her life kind of matched up with my life,” she said.
“I don’t think Taylor truly understands how incredible it is for us parents to go through re-releasing her music again. Reliving that again and getting to do that again with my kids is incredible,” she said, tearing up.
Donovan said that this kind of multi-generational appeal is another aspect to Swift’s starpower.
“It’s mainly women and it’s a cross-generational experience where mothers … are bringing their daughters into the fold and taking them to the shows,” he said. “And because it is such a woman-dominated space, it feels safe.”
Sometimes the fandom transfers the other way.
B.C. fan Becky Mercereau said she was converted by her 14-year-old daughter. They are attending Saturday’s show together.
“You can play one second of the start of the song, and she knows it. She is bonkers,” Mercereau said of her daughter.
They take part in monthly Taylor Swift themed events with other fans in their B.C. Interior community of Hudson’s Hope, population 841. Members range in age from seven to over 50.
Donovan said part of the cross-generational appeal is that Swift’s image, unlike that of other pop stars like Britney Spears or Madonna, does not cater to the male gaze.
Burt, the Harvard professor, agreed that Swift’s public image sets her apart among most other fan-celebrity relationships.
“She is the biggest English-speaking artist with a fan army and her fan army differs from the kind of fan armies, or really intense groups around other pop stars, in that we’re not trying to sleep with her,” Burt said.
“We see ourselves in her, and we look up to her, and we see her as simultaneously as an imaginary friend and as a kind of emotional authority, a trustworthy (authority).”
THE COST OF SUPERFANDOM
Superfandom doesn’t always come without sacrifice.
Mara Mozie, from New London, New Hampshire, has a ticket for Friday’s show in Vancouver.
But her employer denied her time off to attend. So, she quit.
“You do what you’ve got to do. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Mozie. She’ll be attending with a friend who secured the tickets.
Donovan said the high cost of some aspects of superfandom has fuelled conversations around consumerism as well as class.
“There is a kind of status or cultural capital that comes with having seen Taylor live multiple times,” he said. “There’s also a status that comes with specific pieces of merch.”
Tickets can cost thousands of dollars, hotel and short-term rental prices have soared in Vancouver, and the megastar’s merchandise costs up to $115 for a sweater, and $30 for tote bags and other accessories. Resale prices can be much higher.
But Swift “didn’t invent capitalism,” Donovan said, she just found ways to harness it.
“She’s just maximizing a situation that has existed before her and will exist after her,” he said.
Burt, who went to the show in Edinburgh, agreed.
“If you think it adds nothing of value and shouldn’t exist, think about how many other capital-intensive performing arts events you are also condemning,” she said of the concert.
In any case, such considerations matter little to the true superfan — the experience of a Swift show is priceless to devotees like the Roys of Calgary.
Heather Roy said she and her daughter Harper have already planned their outfits for Saturday’s show.
Harper will be wearing an outfit inspired by Swift’s sparkly “Lover” era, and her 2019 album of the same name, while Heather’s will reference the song “22” that her late daughter Evelyn loved so much.
Around her neck, Harper will wear a necklace with a picture of Evelyn.
And Heather Roy will be wearing a ring containing Evelyn’s ashes.
