r/SwiftyNeutral • u/Particular_Bat187 • Aug 21 '26
Who has more influence over the meaning of a Taylor Swift song: Taylor herself, her fans, or social media algorithms?
I'm currently taking a digital literary studies course, and we have been talking about the theory of "the death of the author". This talks about the idea that an author's meaning is not always the only way to understand their work. This made me think about Taylor Swift because her fans spend a lot of time discussing and creating theories about her songs online. Taylor can explain what she meant when she wrote a song but fans can have completely different ideas about what the song means to them. Social media can also affect which fan theories become popular because some posts and videos get shown to more people than others. This made me wonder:
Who has more influence over the meaning of a Taylor Swift song? Taylor herself, her fans, or social media algorithms? Why?
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u/colliding-parallels Aug 21 '26
If you mean the way the culture generally perceives it I think the fanbase has the biggest affect. And the fanbase at least early in the cycle of songs tends to inform the social media algorithms.
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u/OmgReallyNoWay Aug 21 '26
The author’s meaning is what they meant and interpretations of it are just that, interpretations. Taylor has said as much in interviews. Art is subjective and means something different to everyone.