Taylor Swift was a cult figure in pop culture. She became a hero as a result of the outbreak.

Taylor Swift turned 22 in November, one month before her 32nd birthday and just seven months after she turned 19.

Obviously, not at all. Swift converted what may have appeared to be a cash grab by a legacy act into something far more potent: an opportunity to experience and rectify the inflection moments of her life, as she hopscotched through her career by releasing re-recordings of her albums Fearless and Red throughout 2021.

Taylor Swift is well aware that she is a little too old to be this successful.

Swift was certain, back when we were all much younger, that she was nearing the apex of her fame in 2019. In the documentary Miss Americana, she commented, “We do dwell in this world where women in entertainment are abandoned in an elephant graveyard by the time they’re 35.” “As I approach 30, I’m thinking about how I want to work extremely hard while society still accepts my accomplishments.”

Society’s tolerance for Swift had already begun to run thin by the time she made that declaration. To paraphrase a Taylor song title and condense a long story: Kanye West, Swift’s archrival, rapped in 2016, “I feel like me and Taylor might still having sex.” Why? “I made that knucklehead famous.” Swift maintained she didn’t authorize the latter verse and that, while on the phone with West, she had warned him about releasing a song with such a “strong sexist message.”

Swift plummeted to earth after nearly two years as pop music’s most illustrious luminary, courtesy of her world-conquering album 1989. Hard. “When Did You First Realize Taylor Swift Was Lying to You?” inquired The Ringer. “When Did the Media Turn Against Taylor Swift?” asked New York magazine. Buzzfeed recounted “How Taylor Swift Played The Victim For A Decade And Made Her Entire Career” in one sour post. Jude Doyle, a notable Swift skeptic, presented “The Depressingly Predictable Downfall Of Taylor Swift” in Elle magazine as proof that no woman can ever be America’s sweetheart.

K., 34, didn’t have many feelings for Swift before the outbreak. (K. requested only to be recognized by her first name.) “However, when Folklore came out, I wanted to learn about this enormous fad, so I just listened to it in the background while I worked,” she explained. “It became a soundtrack of 2020 for me since it came into my life during this wild time in our country’s history and during history.”