Examining Blank Spaces and the Taylor Swift Phenomenon

Blank Space: Taylor Swift and Contingent Identities examines Taylor Swift’s art, her public image, and Swiftie fan communities. It features discussions of several Swift songs, with attention to the poetic effects created by their lyrics. The author argues that these songs offer a consistent focus, throughout Swift’s career to date, on personal identities that evolve through relationships with particular other people. He shows how in Swift’s songs, narrators reflect on how their identities change over time—even in some cases, over the course of the song. The book builds on this discussion of Swift’s art to consider the artist’s image, exploring how multiple forces interact to shape this image and give it meaning—forces including the artist’s management team as well as critics and fans. According to the author, the distinctive characteristics of Swft’s art and Swift’s public image help to create the unique Swiftie fan communities that have emerged and flourished. The book includes two different studies of Swifties’ communication practices, one centering online interactions and the second in-depth interviews with Swifties. It concludes with attention to the implications of Swift’s selection as Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year.