The problem with this fandom is they want their fave to INSTANTLY be Taylor’s coequal (and even has delusions of surpassing Taylor).
To be the “most successful woman in the industry”, you need to be *the* most successful artist OVERALL on the planet. To be able to match (or even surpass) Taylor, you would have to surpass:
- Billie, Sab, and Ariana (ALL her *current* peers, not just one, and not just in a specific metric)
- Bruno, Beyoncé, *and* The Weeknd
- Morgan, Harry, *and* BTS (the 500K debut territory on Billboard 200)
- Drake *and* Bad Bunny
- Adele
- 800K debut territory
- 1M debut territory (which Taylor has *long* surpassed)
- 2M debut territory
- 3M debut territory
- 4M debut territory
You would have to be the singularity, *the* biggest star alive, the industry-shaping, era-defining, needle-moving figure that Taylor is, just to be able to match her. And you would have to OUTDO that if you ever wish to become “the most”.
Instead, this fandom wants a shortcut and couldn’t even be bothered to go through all these ladder steps they’ve yet to climb and instead secretly wish that Taylor would just pass her crown and willingly hand over the keys to the kingdom, to let their fave absorb the astronomical chunk of the pie that Taylor has cultivated throughout her career, as if it were an inheritance that they can demand for their fave anytime they want.
Know your place and put in the work, ffs. The music industry is not a charity.
Steven Spielberg praises Taylor Swift:
"Her place in our culture rivals that of the composers of the American Songbook, Lennon McCartney of the ’60s and the singer-songwriters of the 1970s like Carole King and Stevie ‘Let’s Go Knicks,’ and your namesake, James Taylor... Through her songs, she has taken billions of people by the hand and by the heart, and lights them with a message that is rooted in community and infused with hope and relatability. Through her songs, she makes us believe that we are in this together and together we can grow up, live, love, make mistakes, succeed, fail, and yet continue to believe in our own self-worth. Somehow, Taylor knows us all too well."
https://t.co/Sa2cSpKEow
Taylor Swift didn't just break records—she took ownership of them. The Forbes Iconoclast List member leveraged her star power to buy back her original masters for $360 million, doubling her net worth to $2 billion by March 2026. She is officially the richest female musician in history.
See how she and others made the #ForbesIconoclast50 list here: https://t.co/npegh7oECw Presented by Corient
Photo: Frazer Harrison via Getty Images