How to use tech like Taylor Swift
She knows them All Too Well
As far as I can see, there were a million Taylor Swifts.
One was the real deal, singing “The Man” because she said that’s what it feels like to be the first female artist to have sold out six shows in Singapore. The others were mirrors of her on phones capturing her every twirl. Occasionally, some of the phones would flip, and I’d see many of the fans pointing their cameras not at her but at… themselves?
TikTok is inaccessible in Hong Kong, so I’ve completely missed out on the subculture of these short clips. Before the concert, my friends primed me with the knowledge they gained exclusively from the platform: the fan chants, when’s the best time to go to the bathroom without missing any of her 45-song setlist, the “template” reels that everyone makes using lyrics from Fearless and Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.
So people were filming themselves singing along to Taylor’s songs. For… TikTok? For their live reactions? I’m not sure. Most fans in front of me had their phones up not just for their favorite songs, but for the whole three hours.
I get it though. When the concert countdown started or when she emerged in a lavender gown for Speak Now, my instinct was to pull out my phone to capture the moment. I wanted some photos and videos to remember the night. But I held off from filming the whole thing because the concert movie was scheduled to launch on Disney+ just a week later.
The Eras tour will be televised.
These days, I’ve grown to be more critical of my relationship with tech. It’s hard to pull away from the allures of the algorithm, so I’ve introduced some friction between me and tech. I leave my phone outside the bedroom for better sleep. My notifications are permanently off. I swapped out my digital camera for film.
But shortly before I started sulking at all the phones during the concert, I remembered that Taylor Swift herself is a huge techie. Not in the way where she does reviews on the latest gadgets, but that she knows how to use tech as a tool for her craft. She knows fans do choreography of her songs on TikTok so she incorporates them into the concert. Her concerts have LED wristbands that turn crowds into a video canvas. She even hacked the business side of tech, distributing her folklore album documentary directly on Disney+.
It could be easy for artists to ban phones from venues. Musicals and comedy shows prohibit people from using their phones. Even my friends ask guests to keep their phones tucked away during their weddings. But Taylor Swift? She leans into technology. She doesn’t get distracted or angered by them. She uses all the facets that work in her favor like a true Mastermind.
Taylor’s a creator instead of a consumer
Artists are creators by nature, so it is not too far of a stretch for Taylor Swift to create content around her music, concerts, and causes she cares about, like voting. Looking at social media as a means of creation is a mindset shift. We are no longer mindlessly scrolling at the content algorithms provide. We get to say what goes into that content feed too.
Taylor also uses her phone as part of her songwriting process, as shown in her documentary Miss Americana. Her Apple notes store homeless couplets, some of which will make it to her songs years later.
I learned a lot about social trends by scrolling Instagram, but I learned so much more when I started posting on YouTube. I learned how to plan content, batch-create, and cross-promote to other platforms.
Taylor is business savvy about tech
When streaming services first emerged, artists were paid really cheaply so that consumers could listen to their songs infinitely and legally for $9.99 a month. She has since convinced Spotify and Apple Music to pay artists better by pulling her music from the two platforms at different times. More recently, she urged for regulation around artificial intelligence after deepfakes of her emerged.
Though most of us don’t have that level of influence, this lens is still helpful, even on a personal capacity. A common viewpoint in tech that we need to understand: if a platform is not selling me a product, then I am a product. If Instagram is letting me use its app for free, they are selling my attention to advertisers. After being aware of this, I can try to cut down screen time, take steps to futureproof myself from automation (Kevin Roose has a great book on this), and stop using my phone whenever I’m around other people, like around kids. I also dabbled on the business side of tech and picked up how monetization, affiliate links, and subscriptions work.
Taylor embraces social media
Taylor Swift’s fans are absolutely crazy with fan theories and impeccable internet sleuthing. And she inextricably feeds into it.
She’s aware that her concert is fully streamable on TikTok/Instagram/YouTube, so she adds a surprise element to every single show. She does one surprise song on an acoustic guitar and another on the piano. These two tracks change every evening and do not repeat. (Though after performing 125 unique songs, she pressed the reset button and started introducing mashups).
But her history with social media traces way back. Before releasing her reputation album, she wiped her Instagram account clean, which is now one of the marketing strategies artists use when announcing a new project. She used to even lurk on tumblr. My personal favourite moment for no obvious reason whatsoever was when she wore a “no its becky” T-shirt in reference to a meme circulating around tumblr circa 2014.
Artists of Taylor Swift’s caliber have also been a lot more selective about what they post on social media. She’s quiet on social issues, only voicing out on issues that are less controversial. E.g. urging her followers to vote but not saying for whom. I see this as a way to be selective on where we lend our voices to, especially when we are not experts in a particular area.
Though I’d love to abolish social media from my life, it seems unrealistic (everyone is on social media) and might even be detrimental (by not participating in social media, I may fall behind on tech trends and thus be less primed for jobs that now all require some semblance of tech knowledge). I should just embrace social media instead, albeit mindfully. I’ve been more partial to slower sites, like Substack, where thoughts can marinate and ideas can converse with each other. And I’ll still scroll through Instagram. I’ve set up timers to quit the app automatically if I scroll for too long.
Back in the arena
My LED wristband pulsed slowly with warm red and yellow hues in alternate patterns with fellow concert-goers around me, and Taylor asked if we had ten minutes to spare for a certain song. The crowd screamed - me included - as we sang along to All Too Well. When she hit the high notes, the platform she was on rose up. The stage behind her that featured many decor and trickeries just seconds before faded to black, leaving just a girl, her guitar, and her 68,000 fans.
Taylor looked small from where I stand, but luckily there were discrete cameras that live streamed her to monitors around the stadium. I usually ignore these screens because live cameras notoriously have a half-second lag that ruins the song because the choreography isn’t in sync with the audio. But here, I saw all the Taylors move in complete sync.
Of course she figured out how to access cameras powerful enough to broadcast without a lag. She knows it All Too Well.
Thank you to friends who create on the internet with me: , , , , and .
Looking back: Women historically have played key roles in salons and movements and are just as likely to participate in group chats. Consider Gertrude Stein’s Paris Salon, Pamela Harriman’s hostessing, or Virginia Woolf’s role in the Bloomsbury Group. Source: ’s The revolution will be organized by group chat
Update log:
💃🏻 A related Taylor Swift article that I enjoyed via
: Make the high worth the pain.📖 Have been reading Babel (31% completed) while enjoying deep tissue massages in Bangkok. Wow this is truly the life.
✍️ Enrollment for Write of Passage (cohort 12) closes in 2 days. Join here.
🥔 My favorite quote from my partner Jin on spending a holiday to truly relax, something I’ve never done before: “Tater tots like you need to experience what life was before you became a tater tot, aka a potato. Go back to your roots”.
🫂 Tight hugs from friends you haven’t seen in 5+ years are so special.
🎨 I’m starting Plein Airpril, an outdoor painting challenge for April. I’ll be posting my paintings over on my art Instagram account.
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I still think "become a creator instead of a consumer" is such great advice. You learn way, way more stuff that way and you won't end up forgetting them after a week.
Also, that quote from your partner is so good!