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Can we always be this close? What the hunger for intimacy with Taylor Swift says about fandom and girlhood
Swift’s fame has put her at a physical remove from fans, but – as Swifties climb hills to glimpse her or dig up soil she’s walked on – their desire for closeness is undimmed and revealing
And pop stars have always commanded communal fervour and a collector’s mentality: my teenage bedroom was a cesspit of dirty towels, broken drumsticks and setlists swiped off stages, and for a spell, I confess, a half-drunk bottle of Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell’s water; even at the ripe age of 35, I kept a few bits of Eras tour confetti for my shoebox of memory tat. It’s a concept drawn from Catholicism but equally applies to the highest echelons of pop stardom: a star such as Swift is both relatably human and divine, with followers desperate to be close to her physical form while also seeing her as having a transcendent, all-encompassing aura. The Munich pictures also reminded me of images of Woodstock, and Joni Mitchell’s lyric of beautifully naive optimism on the cusp of a dark new era: “We are stardust / We are golden / And we’ve got to get ourselves / Back to the garden.” A fake hill, a spoonful of soil, a moss-festooned piano: it’s all enough.
Or read this on The Guardian
