Taylor Swift tops Time’s (and seemingly everyone else’s) person of the year list

No single person this year has captivated public conversation quite like Taylor Swift — so much so that Time magazine has named her its 2023 Person of the Year.

“This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” she told the publication. “Ultimately, we can convolute it all we want, or try to overcomplicate it, but there’s only one question: Are you not entertained?”

Swift beat a wide-ranging pool of finalists, including Barbie, former President Donald Trump’s prosecutors and Britain’s recently coronated King Charles III.

Swift earned similar accolades from People, which named her the 2023 Most Intriguing Person of the Year, and Forbes, which named her No. 1 on its list of the world’s most powerful women in media and entertainment.

At 33, Swift, a 12-time Grammy Award winner, is arguably at the peak of her career. She became Spotify’s most-streamed artist globally this year, taking over after Bad Bunny held the title for three years in a row. Her songs accrued more than 26.1 billion streams since the start of the year, according to Spotify Wrapped.

Swift dominated headlines this year with her record-breaking Eras Tour, which hit 24 cities. It was credited with helping revitalize local business and tourism after the economic and social devastation wrought by a global pandemic.

Her re-release this year of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” and “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” brought forth 11 new vault tracks, or previously unreleased songs from the original albums, many of which went on to inspire viral trends online.

In November, she broke Grammy records with her song “Anti-Hero” by becoming the first artist to earn seven total nominations for song of the year. She also won the best music video Grammy this year for “All Too Well: The Short Film.” Swift also swept the MTV Video Music Awards, racking up nine wins and ultimately tying for most VMAs ever collected in one night. 

Her songwriting prowess and business acumen have even spawned the launch of college courses about her, including at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University.

This was also the year Swift’s net worth reportedly surpassed $1 billion. 

On top of the earnings from her tour and re-recordings, Swift’s Eras Tour concert film also became the highest-grossing concert film of all time in the U.S. and Canada within days of its premiere in theaters. Now, eight weeks into its 13-week run, it has grossed nearly $250 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

Her budding fairy-tale romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has turned legions of Swifties into football fans while inspiring observers to raise their own dating standards. Her fame and influence are so ubiquitous that fans enraged football bros everywhere by joking that her attention alone put Kelce, one of the most famous tight ends in the NFL, on the map.

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And throughout a summer of girlhood defined by the Greta Gerwig-directed “Barbie” movie and women-dominated music charts, bonding over Swift — whether by streaming her music or attending her concerts — has given women around the globe safe spaces to celebrate their femininity without shame.