I tend to have issues remembering things, but i remember that i once really wanted to watch the i knew you were trouble mv, but german youtube blocked it/it wasn't available in my country. I think I was always meant to be a swiftie but to little to understand how to do it lol

My journey of being a Swiftie

Everyone does kind of know since when they are fans of Taylor Swift. Since when they follow her journey in life and career. For me it’s a curve of ups and downs with only going up at the end. I am making this way too dramatic, but I have this feeling like I need to write this all down and make it public, like I need to justify my fangirling journey, so I can say “I have been a Taylor Swift fan since years”. This fandom is so massive. It is the biggest fandom I have ever been a part of (and that can be scary) and everyone became a fan in different parts of their own lives and in different parts of Taylor’s life. So here is my journey, no one asked for, but yet I still have the urge to put down. 

In 2012 I was first introduced to the name and music of Taylor Swift. I was about 11 at that time. Coming from Germany, not actively listening to music or caring about it at all at that age and just getting introduced to the world wide web, I was shown my probably very first YouTube video on a black iPad 3rd generation from my best friend. It was a video of Miss Taylor Swift, playing songs in a language I could not understand (with the exception of a few words) sitting with her guitar in front of a crowd which made themselves comfortable. It was the Red hangout and the performances of three songs of the album. I do not remember which ones I listened to, but I remember watching it and thinking Taylor was super cool! Then I sometimes heard songs of hers on the radio and really liked them, but I still had no clue about being a Swiftie.

In 2015 I went grocery shopping with my dad and they sold 1989 and I asked my dad if I could have the album. And he said YES. And I listened to that album so much! I really loved it!! And I still do. So much! I liked some edits of Taylor on WeHeartIt, the only social media I got back then. And I began watching her music videos on TV and became obsessed with the Blank Space music video and know that I tried uncountable times to recreate her eating the little candy heart as elegantly and smoothly as she did. I think I failed at that :D. As you do in middle school you also exchange your tastes in music and I started discovering my own taste, mixed with a bunch of influences of others. Spotify was the platform to be, but at that time Taylor Swift's catalog was fully taken off the side and I added only a blank space cover to my playlists. It never occurred to me to buy another album off of amazon or in a music store. What most of my friends back then listened to was trap or rap. I didn’t connect with that music and also did not really like it, but I listened to it in my free time, because I thought that was what I had to do, to fit in and to be cool enough. When I rediscovered 1989 in 2016 I told a friend of mine “I have a Taylor Swift CD I like to listen to right now” and she said “That really fits you, but it isn’t my kind of music.”. And somehow I took it up as something bad, that it would suit me, to listen to Taylor Swift, I felt like that meant “I don’t like her music and we cannot talk about that, you better listen to something else or we are not having a conversation about music anymore, because your taste is so completely different then mine.”, I know that is not what she meant. But I really felt the urge to accommodate my music taste to hers/theirs. 

I only listened to 1989 at home on CD and then got caught up in a spiral of watching TV Shows and was first introduced to fandoms. I became a fan of numeros shows and began being a fangirl, also on the internet. In middle school I had a friend I would watch a show with and fangirl over it, after a while people asked us if we could not talk about something else. So we just talked about it rarely.

I began video editing and posting it on the internet and really got sucked into Instagram. I also really enjoyed The Hunger Games - Series and know that I rewinded the credits a bunch of times, because I loved Safe & Sound some much. That song I actually found on Spotify and was able to play it there as well and I loved listening to it while reading. Why didn't I listen to Eyes Open? I honestly don’t know. Maybe I did not notice it was on the soundtrack. So there I was, being a fan of a bunch of TV-Shows, starting to improve my English and thinking of music artists just as people who made music and not really got more into it.

When the music video to Look What You Made Me Do came out it was recommended to me on YouTube and I watched, fascinated by the visuals and the money that must’ve been put into this (which was a lot as I now know). After that I went back to my fangirling on Instagram. 

Then I joined stan twitter and became a fan of more and more things. Went to high school. Not being close to anyone there and just knowing two people. I started building my own personality. I was more confident, because I really wanted to meet new people and not be totally by myself. I met amazing people. Who cared and still care about me and my opinions. Who never made me feel uncomfortable for being a fan of something and encouraged me to embrace it, even though they might have nothing to do with it. They didn’t make me feel embarrassed or uneasy about it. And I am beyond thankful for that. Thank you!<3

I also had conversations in high school with people about music. And one of my classmates liked Panic! At the Disco. I began listening to a bunch of their stuff after having a meme of This is gospel on my for you page and became a fan. This was at the end of 2018. For the first time in my life I entwined in a fandom which was related to music. Around half a year later Taylor Swift released the first single of her new album, which we would later find out would be named Lover. The single was called ME! and it was a collaboration with Panic! At the Disco’s Brendon Urie. After that single dropped and I re-watched the music video many many times and watched multiple videos on it and it’s easter eggs. Followed the first Swiftie - accounts on stan twitter and then finally the legend herself.

I’ve been wanting to write an essay about this for a while now. Without listening to her other albums before finishing it. Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now and Red are waiting for me. I’ve only listened to the ones which have music videos or which she covered on tour or some bits from edits I saw over the years (her songs make GREAT audios for couple video edits;)).

I am a proud Swiftie now and so proud of her! 

And yeah, I have some great albums to get to.