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Maybe it was unfathomable to movie distributors that anyone other than a “bona fide Swiftie” would bother showing up to the Eras Tour film. After all, is there really any such thing as a “casual” Taylor Swift listener at this point? For the entire “purpose” of Swift’s music has become a matter of pride in proving that one has followed it from the start, tracked all the “Easter eggs,” read between all the lines about who each song is alluding to. This is, in part, what differentiates the “real” Swifties from the faux and fairweather ones.
And yet, whether one wants to be or not, the Eras Tour has rendered everybody a Swiftie. What with the nonstop coverage of it that began from the moment tickets went on sale, setting off a larger conversation about Ticketmaster’s monopoly over the ticket sales industry. The issue no one wanted to acknowledge at all, of course, is that the notion of presales altogether promotes a grotesque form of elitism when it comes to fandom, and spotlights how class infects every facet of culture. In other words, there is no “egalitarian experience,” not even when it comes to enjoying music. But no, that’s not what upset Swifties and status symbol flexers (e.g., billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg who showed up to the Santa Clara date) alike in this scenario. Rather, it was the idea that even concert-going had become a competitive sport in the era of devout fandom. Sure, Swift’s stadium tours, including the Red Tour and the 1989 Tour, never had any difficulty selling out before, but this was something entirely different. This was the greatest reflection yet that Swift had officially become: The Biggest Thing on the Planet! And also, per “the economists,” a reaction to the demand shock that was fueled by a public still thirsting to forget 2020-2021 ever happened by getting out and enjoying the things that were stripped away from them previously—like Taylor Swift concerts. In fact, 2020 was to be the year Swift embarked on a tour in support of Lover, conceptualized around the festival motif. Thus, she called it Lover Fest. Later deemed one of the biggest concert “what ifs” that became just another casualty of COVID-19.
Swift’s determination to make up for lost time has manifested in the far more juggernaut-y approach of the Eras Tour. A colossus many times larger than the scale of what she had planned for Lover Fest. And with Swift back out on the road after releasing five albums since her last tour (three of them new, two of them re-recorded), there was no one (save for those with more pressing survival issues at hand) that could pretend they weren’t interested in or curious about the Eras Tour and what it might contain. And unlike, say, Madonna’s Sex book in 1992, which experienced a similar media furor, no one was “turning their nose up at it while still being interested in it” (to paraphrase Madonna on the reaction to her tawdry tome). Quite the contrary, everyone is happy to admit their joyful, enthusiastic interest. What’s more, Swift’s entire career has been built on the kind of wholesomeness that has allowed her to transform into the first case of monoculture since Friends. Unless one counts the Barbie frenzy that also happened to take place over the same summer as the Eras Tour. Either way, it’s clear that blonde white girls are a perennial commodity.
That said, of course even “middle of the road” fans would want to check out the Eras Tour in theaters. Because to not experience the tour in this way, at the very least, would be to miss out on something that “literally” everyone else is talking about. In point of fact, that seems like the real reason (apart from raking in many more millions) that Swift chose to release the tour in theaters while it’s still making its journey around the world in real life: to offer a chance for everyone to feel connected through monoculture. Because, even for as apolitical as she is, it’s apparent that the world—and the “United” States in particular—could use some sense of unity to grasp at. Even if it’s through something as “frivolous” as pop culture.
Unfortunately, what proves to cause disunity in all this is the fact that there are two kinds of Eras Tour moviegoers: those who just want to sit and watch the concert in silence as they would at a “regular” movie and those who want to treat the viewing like an actual concert. Meaning it’s “okay” to sing along loudly, get up out of your seat and generally cause a commotion. Even if there are schools of thought on concert-going that also negate the idea that this is how it should be when people see a live show. For instance, even Swift acolyte/friend Lorde famously got irritated by the crowd singing along during a vulnerable a capella version of “Writer in the Dark” in 2017 that surfaced as a viral compilation video in 2022. Although some might have hoped Lorde was a one-woman advocate for “civilized behavior” at concerts, she was quick to respond to the sudden virality of the video by assuring, “The internet has decided that this was very bad and very rude. I think they haven’t come to one of these shows because, you know, it’s such a communal vibe. We’re all singing and screaming all the time. But I think occasionally there are moments for silence, and there are moments for sound.”
Those in the theater audience of the Eras Tour would beg to differ, instead exhibiting the idea that, when it comes to Swift, the moments are always for sound, i.e. the raucous parroting of lyrics. Yet to the sect of moviegoers (and they are out there) who want to watch it “Daria-style”—a.k.a. just sitting there with a blank expression—the theaters of the world would do well to carve out a separate auditorium for the “quiet camp” of Eras Tour viewers. But, as usual, the Swifties win, with “theaters… relax[ing] their rules around talking, standing and phone use for the Eras Tour.” And even the Swifties themselves would assume that only die-hards might show up, with one fan remarking, “I’m so happy that she did that. I feel like I didn’t miss out that much. I feel like I got to experience it, at least with like-minded people.” “Like-minded” usually being a term for political affiliations rather than fandoms. But then, Taylor Swift is her own political and economic ideology. Even when it comes to the movies.
Thus, tragically, as in all things, the shy, introverted set is constantly forced to endure the barbaric customs of the extroverts. Or, in this more specific instance, the Swifties compelled by the power of Taylor.
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Genna Rivieccio
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