The fandom and community of Swiftogedden

Summary: <p><strong>The Fandom of Taylor Swift is something that I find so fascinating, particularly the massive surge in popularity in the last 3 or 4 years.</strong></p><br><p>Where Taylor couldn’t sell out Croke Park in 2018 on her <em>Reputations</em> tour, her current <em>Eras</em> tour<a href="https://nialler9.com/nialler9-podcast-kendrick-pavement-gigs-secondary-ticketing-the-grammys/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong> as we’ve discussed before on the podcast</strong></a>, crashed Ticketmaster and has seen such a huge unprecedented demand that that’s worth exploring <em>why? </em></p><br><p>With the <a href="https://nialler9.com/taylor-swift-for-two-dublin-aviva-gigs/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>three Dublin gigs at the Aviva next summer</strong></a> and the Taylor Swift Eras Tour film doing big numbers at the box office, it felt like the right time to dip in.</p><br><p>With Andrea’s absence this week, I thought I’d delve into the lore and fandom of the Swifties through the lens of a community which gather around Taylor once a month.</p><br><p><a href="https://www.swiftogeddon.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Swiftogedden</strong></a> is a club night that plays only Taylor songs all night, and was started by Dave Fawbert, a DJ and former journalist who put on his first Swiftogedden in London in 2019, and since then it has grown to a national UK and in the last two years an nationwide Irish event too. </p><br><p><a href="http://app.later.com/5QM9W/linkinbio/nialler9/?tab=blocks" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Anna Jacob</strong></a> is a resident DJ at the Irish Swiftogedden club nights, and a pal of mine, and I’ve been fascinated with the success of the single artist only night – as Swifties gather en masse to sold out venues in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Galway and Limerick along with a rake of UK cities to sing their hearts out to Swift classics, new songs, new versions and deep cuts.</p><br><p>Our chat covers fandom becoming a religious like community of like-minded people, why Taylor Swift is the new Mozart, a celebration of the “eras” of girlhood and womanhood, what happens at Swiftogedden nights and why does it work so well and we also read out some passages from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/magazine/taylor-swift-eras-tour.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>this wonderful Taffy Brodesser-Akner New York Times piece on Swiftiedom</strong></a>.</p><br><p>* <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Nialler9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Support Nialler9 on Patreon</strong></a>, where we share Anna’s Swiftie Skeptics playlist.</p><p><br></p><h3><strong>Show notes</strong></h3><ul> <li> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/magazine/taylor-swift-eras-tour.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Taffy Brodesser-Akner piece on Swiftiedom</strong></a> [<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/magazine/taylor-swift-eras-tour.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>New York Times</strong></a>]</li> <li><a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2023/08/14/inside-dublins-swiftogeddon-club-night-people-go-to-mass-and-quote-the-bible-we-quote-taylor-swift/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Inside Dublin’s Swiftogeddon club night [Irish Times]</strong></a></li> <li><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01BYWpca42gRDQfJXwvilh?si=3db6d2fc2373427c" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist</strong></a></li> <li><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/taylor-swift-songs-ranked-rob-sheffield-201800/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>All 237 of Taylor Swift’s Songs, Ranked [Rolling Stone]</strong></a></li> </ul><br><hr><p style="color:grey;font-size:0.75em;"> Hosted on Acast. See <a style="color:grey;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://acast.com/privacy">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>