POLLY VERNON
COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR
IN ONE RECENT 24-HOUR period, Taylor Swift became the first artist in history to win four Best Album Grammys, single-handedly revived the concept of ‘wearing a watch’ with the watch choker she wore to the ceremony, and caused international grammatical ructions as everyone tried to work out how to apostrophise The Tortured Poets (Poet’s?
Poets’?) Department, title of her forthcoming record, the imminent droppage of which she announced on stage, and… Well. If it weren’t clear before that these are Taylor’s Days, the rest of us can only exist within them (waiting patiently on news of her new boyfriend, music, look, et cetera), it should be, by now.
Me? I’m happy to be Living In The Time Of Taylor. I’m a massive Swiftie: not one of those Taylor-Come-Latelies who only realised her genius with 2020’s Folklore, either, oh no! She had me at 2012’s Red. Twelve years on, there’s no greater cathartic cry than the cry I’ll have to a Taylor song. Nothing that gives me more hope for righteous vengeance than a Taylor lyric.
Shush now: I don’t care if you disagree. Loads of people – RL friends, Instagram randos responding to me responding to more Taylor news – have told me I’m mistaken in my devotional Swifting, but: guys? That’s not how loving someone works. You can sneer, tell me you Do Not Get Her, you’re still outraged about her being Time’s Person of 2023. You can say things like: ‘But she’s so basic’ (such a basic thing to say, BTW)… It won’t stop me sobbing over Exile or This Love or Pure.
I’ve noticed Taylor’s most virulent detractors are often women. While Rishi Sunak will neither confirm nor deny he’s One
